Norwegian Krone (NOK)

About the Norwegian Krone

Issued by Norges Bank, the Norwegian central bank established in 1816, the Norwegian Krone (NOK) is the official currency of Norway and, under ISO 4217, of the territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen and Bouvet Island. Its symbol is kr, shared with the other Scandinavian crown currencies, and one krone is divided into 100 øre. Cash circulates as five banknote denominations from 50 to 1,000 kroner alongside coins of 1 to 20 kroner.

The krone is a free-floating currency. Norway abandoned its last fixed exchange rate on 12 December 1992, when the link between the krone and the European Currency Unit was severed and the krone floated. A formal inflation target followed in March 2001, and under the monetary policy regulation in force since 2018 Norges Bank sets its policy rate to keep annual consumer price inflation close to 2 per cent over time, while the exchange rate is left to the market.

The krone dates from the Money Act that became law on 4 June 1873, effective 1 January 1874, which put Norway on the gold standard and introduced the krone of 100 øre alongside the speciedaler at a fixed rate of four kroner per speciedaler. The Money Act of 17 April 1875 then discontinued the daler and skilling terminology and made the krone Norway's sole monetary unit, preparing the country's entry, on 16 October 1875, into the Scandinavian Mint Union, a gold-standard currency union with Denmark and Sweden. The union ceased to function in 1914, but the three countries kept the krone and krona names for their separate currencies.

The krone is the second most traded of the Scandinavian currencies, after the Swedish krona, and the 16th most traded currency in the world overall, per the Bank for International Settlements' 2025 Triennial Central Bank Survey. That survey recorded average daily krone turnover of USD 125 billion in April 2025, placing it between the New Zealand dollar in 15th place and the New Taiwan dollar in 17th.

Norges Bank's series VIII banknotes entered circulation between 2017 and 2019 in denominations of 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1,000 kroner. The series takes the sea as its theme: motifs include the Utvær Lighthouse, the Gokstad Viking ship, a cod, the rescue vessel RS 14 Stavanger and a wave in the open sea. Coins circulate in values of 1, 5, 10 and 20 kroner; øre coins have been withdrawn, the 50-øre piece losing legal-tender status on 1 May 2012.