Norwegian road signs, group by group

The nine sign groups

Norwegian signs are split into nine groups by number series: warning signs (100 series), priority signs (200), prohibitory signs (300), mandatory signs (400), information signs (500), service signs (600), direction signs (700), supplementary plates (800) and road markings (900). The number is not decoration: it tells you what kind of sign you are looking at, and therefore what obligation it puts on you.

The catalogue is reconciled against the current sign regulations (FOR-2005-10-07-1219) on Lovdata. Signs whose numbers were retired before 2005 have been removed — they still appear in older textbooks, and they are a classic trap.

Signs that look alike

Most mistakes on the test are not about signs you have never seen, but about pairs that resemble each other: “road narrows from the left” versus “from both sides”, priority road versus priority crossroads, mandatory direction versus recommended. The sign drill here deliberately offers options close to the right one, so you have to see the difference rather than recognise a shape.

25 signs carry a variant qualifier alongside their name, because several signs share a name while showing a different situation. Mirror-image pairs whose meaning is identical carry no qualifier — there is no difference to learn there.

How to learn them without blind memorisation

Learn the group first, then the individual sign. Once you know that a red-bordered triangle warns and a red-bordered circle prohibits, you already have half the answer for a sign you have never seen. After that, it is the variants inside each group that have to stick.

The catalogue is open to everyone, no account needed – every sign has its own page with its meaning, its § and what the test tends to ask. The sign drill, which shows one sign at a time and remembers the ones you miss, is part of full access: 149 kr for a week or 299 kr for a month.

For students it is 119 kr for the week and 239 kr for the month, confirmed with a school email address.