How to Find Business Opportunities in Scandinavia

Three markets, three sets of registers

Norway, Sweden and Denmark are often grouped together, but for anyone looking for customers or partners they are three separate markets with their own company registers, identifiers, industry code systems and tender channels. Norway is in the EEA but not the EU; Sweden and Denmark are EU members. In practice that matters less for prospecting than you might think, because EU procurement rules also apply in Norway through the EEA Agreement, and larger tenders from all three countries appear on the same EU portal.

The sensible approach is the same everywhere: identify the official source for each question (who exists, who is active, who buys what), work from that, and treat third-party data as a convenience layer on top.

Norway: Brønnøysundregistrene and Enhetsregisteret

Every Norwegian legal entity is registered in Enhetsregisteret (the Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities), run by Brønnøysundregistrene. Each entity has a unique nine-digit organisation number, and the last digit is a check digit. The register is published as open data with a public API, so you can look up any entity, or filter on industry code, municipality, legal form and number of employees.

Alongside it, Brønnøysundregistrene runs the Register of Company Accounts (Regnskapsregisteret), where limited companies and other entities with a reporting obligation file their annual accounts. The deadline for complete annual accounts is 31 July. Sole proprietorships only have to file if they pass size limits, so for most small sole proprietorships you will find register data but no accounts.

Three practical points for foreign companies:

• Industry codes changed in 2025. Norway moved from SN2007 to the new standard SN2025 in Enhetsregisteret from 1 September 2025. Both are based on the EU's NACE classification, but some groups were split or moved, so check which version a list or statistic uses before you compare.
• Status flags matter. The open data has separate fields for bankruptcy, winding-up and compulsory dissolution, and for registration in the VAT register. Filter out entities with those flags before you spend time on them.
• Sole proprietorships are people. A Norwegian sole proprietorship (ENK) is often named after its owner, and its contact details are personal data under GDPR.

For a deeper walkthrough of these sources, see our guide to Norwegian company data, and for building target lists by industry code, how to find Norwegian companies by industry.

Sweden: Bolagsverket, Skatteverket and SNI codes

In Sweden, Bolagsverket (the Swedish Companies Registration Office) registers limited companies, partnerships and other company forms. Since 3 February 2025, a set of basic company information has been free under the EU rules on high-value datasets. Bolagsverket offers it through an API and as downloadable files. Given an organisation number, the API returns among other things the company name, business description, SNI industry codes and digitally filed annual reports. Commercial use is allowed, as long as it respects the rules on personal data and confidentiality. More detailed data is still sold through Bolagsverket's paid services.

One difference from Norway catches many people out: a Swedish sole trader (enskild näringsidkare) must register with Skatteverket, the Swedish Tax Agency, but registering with Bolagsverket is normally voluntary. A Bolagsverket extract is therefore not a complete list of active Swedish businesses, particularly among very small firms.

Sweden's industry classification is SNI, which is also based on NACE. If you are matching Norwegian and Swedish target groups, the shared NACE structure helps, but do not assume codes map one to one at the most detailed level.

For more on the Swedish market and why Propler does not cover it yet, see our Sweden market page.

Denmark: CVR

Denmark's register is CVR (Det Centrale Virksomhedsregister), run by Erhvervsstyrelsen, the Danish Business Authority. CVR data is public and covers registered businesses in Denmark and Greenland, including addresses, industry codes and participants. You can search it for free through the web interface at datacvr.virk.dk, and Erhvervsstyrelsen offers free system-to-system access for bulk use.

Note that bulk access requires you to accept the terms on advertising protection: in CVR, businesses can register that they do not want unsolicited marketing, and you are expected to respect that marker. If you build a Danish prospect list, check it before you contact anyone.

Public tenders: where Scandinavian buyers announce contracts

Public procurement is one of the most transparent sources of opportunities in the region. Each country has its own system for national notices, and above the EU/EEA thresholds notices are also published on TED (Tenders Electronic Daily), the EU's procurement portal. TED is free to search and covers the EU, the EEA (including Norway) and beyond. You can filter by country, sector and buyer, and registered users can save searches and set up e-mail alerts.

Norway: Doffin

Doffin is Norway's national database for public procurement notices, operated by DFØ (the Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management) on behalf of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries. Procurements above the national threshold value must be announced in Doffin; procurements above the EEA threshold are also forwarded to TED. Below the national threshold, publishing on Doffin is voluntary, so many small contracts never appear there. Thresholds are revised from time to time, so check the current values at anskaffelser.no rather than relying on figures quoted elsewhere.

Sweden: registered advertising databases

Sweden has no single national tender database. Instead, contracting authorities must advertise in a *registered advertising database* (registrerad annonsdatabas). The Swedish Competition Authority, Konkurrensverket, keeps the official register of approved databases on its website. Under the Swedish rules on registered advertising databases (SFS 2020:332), the databases must let anyone search published notices free of charge. The Swedish National Agency for Public Procurement (Upphandlingsmyndigheten) advises suppliers to follow several databases, because a given authority may use any of them. Above the EU thresholds, notices also appear on TED.

Denmark: udbud.dk

udbud.dk is the Danish national portal for public procurement, with the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority (Konkurrence- og Forbrugerstyrelsen) as the responsible authority. It shows national tenders, EU tenders and authorities' procurement plans. The portal was relaunched in a new version in November 2024.

Reading tenders as opportunities

A tender is useful even if you do not bid on it:

• It names a buyer with a budget and a need. The contract notice tells you who buys what, roughly when, and under which conditions.
• It reveals who wins. Contract award notices, mandatory above the EEA thresholds, tell you which suppliers are active in a segment. Those winners can be partners or subcontracting customers.
• It shows timing. Framework agreements expire. A notice from a few years ago can tell you when the next competition is likely.

Trade and investment promotion bodies

Each country has a state-backed body that helps foreign companies. They do not hand out customer lists, but they offer market information, introductions and practical guidance.

• Norway: Innovation Norway and Invest in Norway. Innovation Norway is a special-law company owned 51% by the state, through the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, and 49% by the county authorities. Its Invest in Norway function is the country's official investment promotion agency and helps foreign companies set up and expand in Norway free of charge.
• Sweden: Business Sweden. Business Sweden is jointly owned by the Swedish state and the business sector. Its mandate covers both helping Swedish companies grow internationally and attracting foreign investment to Sweden, and it offers free support to international companies considering an establishment.
• Denmark: The Trade Council and Invest in Denmark. The Trade Council is the export and investment promotion organisation under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Invest in Denmark sits within it and offers foreign companies free, confidential help with setting up or expanding in Denmark.

Practical considerations when approaching Scandinavian buyers

There is a lot of folklore about "Nordic business culture". Most of it is generalisation. The points below are practical rather than cultural, and they hold up regardless of who you talk to:

• Expect to be looked up. Buyers in all three countries can check your registration, status and filed accounts in minutes using the sources above. Have your own organisation number and company details ready, and make sure they are consistent.
• Use the local language where it matters. Register entries, public tenders and much of the documentation are in Norwegian, Swedish or Danish. Above-threshold notices on TED help, but tender documents themselves are often in the local language.
• Know your tender channel. Missing the right Swedish advertising database or relying only on TED means missing every contract below the EU thresholds.
• Respect marketing rules. In Norway, the Marketing Control Act (markedsføringsloven) § 15 requires prior consent before sending marketing by e-mail or SMS to natural persons. Generic company addresses such as post@company.no are outside that rule, but an address that belongs to a person, including the owner of a sole proprietorship, is not. Sweden and Denmark have their own rules, and Denmark's CVR advertising protection marker comes on top. Check the rules in each country before a campaign.

What Propler covers today

Propler is built on Norwegian public data, and that is the honest boundary:

• Norway: available. Our copy of Enhetsregisteret holds about 1.18 million registered entities, refreshed nightly from Brønnøysundregistrene's open data. The free company search lets you filter by industry group, county, municipality, legal form, status, number of employees and registration date. You can also tick boxes for companies with open job ads or recent public tenders.
• Public tenders: partial. We read EU tenders from TED where the buyer is Norwegian. A Doffin integration has been built but is not live yet.
• Sweden and Denmark: not available. Propler does not search Swedish or Danish companies, and there is no pan-European company search. For those countries, use Bolagsverket, CVR and the tender portals described above directly.

If your Scandinavian expansion starts with Norway, our guide on how to find B2B leads in Norway shows a step-by-step workflow, and you can try the free company search to test how large your Norwegian target group is before committing time to it.