The Norway trust survey published this week by the Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (DFØ – Direktoratet for forvaltning og økonomistyring) shows that interpersonal trust has weakened since 2021, even as confidence in Norway’s political leadership has recovered. The findings come from Innbyggerundersøkelsen 2026, based on responses from about 16,000 residents collected in September–October 2025.
What the Norway trust survey reveals about social trust
According to DFØ, 72% of respondents in 2025 said that “most people can be trusted”, down from 78% in 2021 and around 75% in 2023. DFØ says the decline appears across demographic groups, including age, gender, education, income and place of residence.
The agency also stresses that Norway’s social trust remains high in an international comparison, a point often linked to the Nordic welfare model’s reliance on cooperation and broad compliance with rules and institutions.
Institutional trust is mixed: Storting up, public administration down
The survey draws a more uneven picture of institutional trust.
DFØ reports that trust in the government (Regjeringen) rose to 57% in 2025, while trust in the Storting (Stortinget) reached 58%, after a clear dip in 2023. At the same time, trust in the public administration fell to 51%, a decline of 11 percentage points compared with 2021.
Trust levels also vary widely across institutions. DFØ reports the highest trust in the electoral system (81%), followed by the police and the armed forces (78%) and the courts (76%). The lowest trust is reported for political parties (38%). On a related question about whether politicians work for residents’ best interests, DFØ reports that 52% believe members of parliament do so, while 48% say the same about local politicians.
Worries about war and security are rising
The same survey suggests a sharper public focus on security. When asked about concerns for the coming years, respondents most often mentioned inflation and living costs (42%), followed by the state of the health system, crime and war.
DFØ says the share of people reporting that they are worried about war has almost doubled between 2023 and 2025, which the agency links to wider geopolitical turbulence in Europe. In DFØ’s assessment, the security situation became even more prominent in the news cycle after the survey period ended.
The survey’s prioritisation questions point in the same direction: respondents most often want the public sector to prioritise health and care, but defence and preparedness also feature among the top areas.
Public services still score high, but value-for-money is debated
Despite weaker trust indicators, overall satisfaction with services remains relatively stable. DFØ reports that 75% of respondents are satisfied with state services, while 68% are satisfied with municipal services. A large majority — 92% — say they are satisfied with living in Norway.
However, the survey suggests that satisfaction drops when residents weigh services against what they pay in taxes and user fees. DFØ reports that 54% say the quality of services is good given what they pay, while 30% consider the quality poor.
Why the trend matters for a high-trust Nordic society
Norway is often cited as a high-trust society, and DFØ itself frames both social and institutional trust as central indicators of democratic health. A sustained decline in interpersonal trust — alongside lower confidence in the public administration — could have practical implications for how effectively authorities implement reforms, communicate decisions, and maintain legitimacy in areas where the state’s role is expanding.
At the same time, the survey’s combination of high overall satisfaction with living conditions and mixed trust trends suggests that the change is not a simple story of broad dissatisfaction. DFØ’s director Nina Kulås described the fall in trust in both the public administration and in each other as the most worrying development in this edition of the survey.
Whether the downward trend in social trust continues will likely depend on how Norway navigates ongoing security concerns, cost-of-living pressures and long-term challenges such as digitalisation, public sector capacity and political polarisation — issues that are increasingly shared across the Nordic region and Europe.
