Granted entry and a temporary residence permit through Medevac Gaza

Since you have an entry and temporary residence permit through Medevac Gaza, UDI will organise your travel to Norway.

When you arrive in Norway, you must attend two meetings: one with UDI and one with the police. These meetings are to confirm your identity and assess your need for protection. After the meetings, most refugees receive a residence permit for five years.

After five years, you can apply for a permanent residence permit, and after seven years you can apply for citizenship. Your application will only be approved if you meet all the requirements.

On arrival and during treatment

When you first arrive in Norway, you will stay at a transit centre while waiting to be transferred to an ordinary reception centre. You will then be moved to a reception centre near a hospital, where you will receive treatment. If you need to be hospitalised, you will also be allocated a place in the reception centre. Your accompanying person will stay at the reception centre.

If the reception centre closest to the hospital is full, you will be transferred to a different reception centre. UDI and the reception centre will organise this. You will also receive financial support and clothing if needed.

After treatment

When your treatment is finished, you will be transferred to a reception centre that meets your needs. In most cases, the reception centre will be in a different municipality, so you will have to move after your treatment. You will stay at this reception centre until the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi) finds a municipality where you can live.

When you receive your residence permit, you can stay and work in Norway. If you have children, they have both the right and duty to attend school. You also have the right to healthcare.

When you are settled in a municipality by IMDi, you must participate in an introduction programme (external website). The introduction programme is for refugees age 18 to 55, and prepares you for life in Norway, including employment and education. This also includes a Norwegian language course.

The introduction programme is full-time (30-40 hours per week) through the year, and you will receive financial support from the municipality. If you have children, they will attend school or preschool while you take part in the programme.

In some cases, you may lose your residence permit.

Losing a permit means that UDI has decided to revoke your residence permit, making it invalid. If your permit is revoked, you will either no longer be allowed to live in Norway or you will be granted a new residence permit and your residence period in Norway will restart.

A residence permit can be revoked for a variety of reasons, for example: 

• providing incorrect or incomplete information 
• staying too long outside Norway
• receiving a different type of residence permit 

Here you will find more information about revoking a residence permit with refugee status (protection). 

There are no changes in which family members can obtain a family immigration permit from countries in the Middle East. 

Those who usually apply for family immigration are spouses or children of a person who already lives in Norway. Other examples are parents who have minor children in Norway or minor full siblings of persons residing in Norway.

Adult siblings, aunts/uncles, grandparents, nephews/nieces, cousins, or other distant relatives cannot get family immigration to Norway.

There are neither no changes in the requirements to obtain a family immigration permit. For information regarding the requirements for your case type, please follow this link and answer the questions to find the relevant information. 

We have now created a new guideline that changes the application process for family immigration for Palestinians who are staying in Gaza.

Due to the current security situation in Gaza and the fact that it is now difficult to travel out of Gaza, it will temporarily be possible for a family member in Norway (the reference person) to submit an application for family immigration on behalf of a family member staying in Gaza. The scheme will apply until it is again possible for Palestinians in Gaza to submit an application for family immigration in the ordinary way through personal attendance.

You can read about how to apply for family immigration here.

The new guideline applies to how an application for family immigration must be submitted, and not how an application will be processed.

We emphasise that the new guideline does not involve any changes in which family members can obtain a family immigration permit or which exceptions can be made from the ordinary rules. The humanitarian and security situation in Gaza does not provide grounds for exceptions to the ordinary rules for family immigration.

We also emphasise that persons who are granted a residence permit after submitting an application for family immigration under this temporary scheme cannot expect to receive assistance from the Norwegian authorities for assisted departure from Gaza.

If a permit for family immigration is granted, the applicant must visit one of the visa centres representing the Norwegian Embassy in Amman (located in Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Tel Aviv or Algiers) in person to collect the visa.

It is a requirement that the person in Norway has been granted a residence permit in Norway. There are also income requirements in family immigration cases. There are exemptions to this income requirement if the reference person has recently received protection (asylum) and the application has been registered within 6 months after the date stated in the first decision letter the reference person received.

Several requirements apply to obtain family immigration. Amongst other things, the marriage must be valid and entered into voluntarily. You will find an overview of additional requirements by answering our web page's questions, «Want to apply for family immigration».

Due to the current situation in Gaza, UDI cannot provide financial support for refugees returning home to Gaza.