The Oslo budget: Cuts property tax “modestly” – sharply increases municipal taxes

– For the city council, it is important to keep the overall tax and levy pressure as low as possible, and not push the costs onto the residents, said finance councilor Hallstein Bjercke (V) when he presented the Oslo budget for 2025 on Wednesday.

In doing so, he repeated Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg’s election campaign promise from last year that the overall level of taxes and fees should be kept down in Conservative Party-run municipalities.

But most homeowners in Oslo will have to deal with much higher taxes in the future.

The bourgeois city council warns that both water, sewage and waste disposal fees will be increased sharply in the coming years:

* As early as next year, the water and drainage fee will increase from NOK 6,133 to NOK 7,222 for a home of 87 square metres.

* In the next three years, it increases even more, to NOK 10,030. Altogether, this amounts to an increase of 63 per cent.

* The renovation fees increase by 4 per cent in 2025 and must then be price adjusted until 2028.

Property tax

At the same time, the city council is proposing a “modest” cut in property tax of 10.7 per cent next year. Then they will freeze it at the current level. The tax rate is proposed to be reduced from 2.8 per thousand in 2024 to 2.5 per thousand in 2025.

– We are reducing the property tax by DKK 80 million now – a fairly modest cut, Bjercke adds Aftenposten.

It is mainly only people who own homes worth more than NOK 6.85 million who have to pay property tax.

The tax is calculated on the basis of 70 per cent of the value of the home, minus a basic deduction of NOK 4.7 million.

This means that if you own a home worth NOK 9 million, the property tax is cut by NOK 480 – from NOK 4,480 to NOK 4,000.

Finance Councilor Bjercke made no secret of the fact that times will be tighter in the future when he presented the budget.

– This is a restructuring budget. We are now preparing the municipality for tighter times ahead and we are announcing demands for efficiency in the coming years.

Cuts and appropriations

In the budget, the city council sets out several priorities:

* The current scheme with subsidized dental care for 21-24-year-olds will be discontinued (savings NOK 37 million)

* NOK 40 million is cut from the budget for Oslo Nye Teater

* 53 million is allocated for cheaper public transport tickets, but the target of a monthly pass for NOK 499 will not be reached.

* 198 million is allocated for various measures in schools

Shared reactions

The Labor Party believes that the Oslo budget sets up cuts for the weakest “across the board”.

– Their promise to the voters was that they could cut the city’s income from the property tax without affecting services to people. Now we see that it was a hoax. They fail to cut red tape. Instead, they send the bill for the tax cuts to the districts and schools, which means big welfare cuts, says Marthe Scharning Lund, leader of the Labor Party’s city council group in Oslo.

SV is also critical of what they call antisocial cuts in property tax.

– The city council cares more for house owners in Vestre Aker than social assistance recipients in Stovner. Now the property tax cuts are up to half a billion. If they had dropped this, they would not have had to cut schools, kindergartens, welfare, culture and sports, says SV’s group leader in Oslo, Sunniva Holmås Eidsvoll.

For its part, the FRP is disappointed that the property tax is not cut more.

– The city council disappoints. The cut in property tax is far too small. There are still far too many people who pay property tax in Oslo. The property tax also affects tenants who get the bill forwarded by landlords, says Magnus Birkelund, group leader for Oslo Frp’s city council group.