Oslo, Norway

What Oslo is made of: the communities whose institutions are here, the sectors its 15,656 businesses sit in, the franchises already on the ground, and the services a newcomer could start.

15,656 businesses on file · 49 trades · 77 sectors · registry population 724,290 · built from geonet.norway on 2026-10-27

Businesses15,656
98% carry coordinates
Specialised in5
trades above the national pattern
Places of worship2
Franchise brands31
already operating here

Visiting rather than moving? The free guidebook for Oslo → — the free guidebook for this region: why go, what to see, what is open when it rains.

1

The local economy

What the business base is made of, what it is specialised in against the national pattern, and what that mix implies. This is the part a development office would read first.

Composition, not health. geonet records what trades exist and where; it does not record formation, closure, employment or revenue, so none of those appear here. What makes this economics rather than a directory is the NAICS coding: it lets the local mix be read against the BLS survival curves and against the 323 industry groups this research has screened.

The two biggest markets here

Every industry group on this page links through to its NAICS page, and to the screened market report where this research has one — that is what the trait-to-NAICS coding buys.

Business density21.6
businesses per 1,000 residents, against the registry population of 724,290
Breadth of the base2861
narrow — 39 industry groups, top three 69.2%
Survival the mix implies57.7%
at five years, against 51.4% for all private establishments
Coded to NAICS5.8%
of which 89.8% unambiguous

What this city is specialised in

Location quotient is this city's share of a trade divided by the same share across 26 metro tables worldwide. Above 1.25 is the conventional threshold for a local specialisation.

The base against the entry screen

Businesses by the entry signal of the industry group they sit in, from the /markets screen. A large "structure decides" share means most local trades are ones where being better than the incumbent does not by itself win. A trade is matched to the screened record at whatever level the research wrote it — the same code, a broader one, or a narrower one. Where a group holds several screened sub-markets the count is shown, because no single one of them speaks for the whole group.

Enter
7.1%
65 businesses
Caution
27.1%
247 businesses
Structure decides
65.8%
600 businesses
Not screened
0%
0 businesses

How to read the survival figure

Each sector's five-year establishment survival rate, weighted by how many of this city's businesses sit in that sector. It is a property of the MIX, not of these businesses — it says what survival this composition would imply at US private-sector rates, because no Canadian equivalent series exists.

Weighted over 100% of the coded base — public administration carries no curve. Source: Business Employment Dynamics — Table 7, Survival of private sector establishments by opening year, US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And what it does not measure

A "mixed" trait is one that genuinely spans codes — "computers" covers systems design, repair and supply. The clear share is how much of this reading rests on unambiguous coding. Business density also reflects how completely the directory covers a place, not only how many businesses are in it — so it compares poorly between a city the register knows well and one it does not.

2

Who lives here, and who the city is for

The census: the only figures on this page that count people rather than businesses, and the three cohort readings they make possible.

No census subdivision is mapped for no-oslo in local/census-map.json, so this page carries no census figures. The mapping is kept explicit because Canada has several places called London, Toronto and Kelowna, and attaching the wrong one would put another city's demographics on this page.

3

The communities the register shows

A community appears in the business register before it appears in prose — a national church, a society, a credit union, a newspaper. Those are counted as institutions, and they are what suggests residents. A restaurant serving a cuisine is counted separately as trade, because every city has those and they say nothing about who lives nearby. The ranking is by institutions.

CommunityInstitutions WorshipTrade Where it shows
Italian — — 10
trade on Kirkev. 43 (2)
Norwegian — — 9
Thai — — 5
Chinese — — 3
Korean — — 3
South Asian — — 3
Spanish-speaking — — 2
Czech — — 2
Dutch — — 2
Indigenous — — 2
Indonesian — — 1
Brazilian — — 1
Hungarian — — 1
Slovak — — 1
German — — 1
Swiss — — 1
French — — 1
Persian — — 1
Jewish — — 1
Scottish — — 1
5

What the city is made of

Every business on file, grouped by the sector it trades in. This is the economic-development view: where the 15,656 businesses actually are, and the specific trades inside each sector.

SectorBusinesses ShareWhat is in it
sports 621 4%
Dining 470 3% restaurant (404) · pizza (55) · pubs (7) · steakhouse (4)
consulting 470 3%
legal 437 2.8%
dentists 405 2.6%
construction 357 2.3%
beautysalons 334 2.1%
accounting 330 2.1%
arenas 292 1.9%
computers 273 1.7% fruit (1)
schools 217 1.4%
doctors 209 1.3%
weddings 206 1.3%
cleaners 185 1.2%
Travel 180 1.1% hotel (117) · travel agent (49) · airline (10) · bnb (2) · motel (1) · insurance (1)
realestate 169 1.1%
electric 155 1%
travelagents 141 0.9%
apartments 126 0.8%
museums 101 0.6%
6

The franchises already here

Brands from a register of 2,024 franchise systems, matched into this city by name. A high count is a signal in both directions: the territory works, and it may be taken.

25 of these brands are a single common word — Metro, Avenue, Budget — so their counts include businesses that merely share the word. They are marked rather than dropped.

BrandCategory HereWorldwide
Best Western businesshotel 3 4,200
Great Plains retail 1 6
Harley Davidson locations motorcycle 1 —
Laura Ashley retail 1 —
Pizza Hut pizza 1 10,000
Toys "R" Us retail 1 1,400
Intersport name only retail 8 60
Jacob name only retail 6 200
Centra name only convenience 3 350
Limited name only retail 3 —
Clarion name only businesshotel 2 —
Coach name only luggage 2 —
HESS name only fuel 2 1,250
Papyrus name only retail 2 170
Radisson name only upscalehotel 2 —
Beltone name only specialty 1 1,500
Blackwell name only book 1 6
Honda name only car 1 —
Lacoste name only — 1 —
MANGO name only retail 1 850
Midas name only auto 1 1,800
Mitsubishi name only auto 1 —
Netto name only supermarket 1 371
Nissan name only auto 1 —
Renaissance name only upscalehotel 1 —
Roots name only retail 1 145
Roxy name only retail 1 —
Soriana name only retail 1 144
Tiffany name only retail 1 150
Toyota name only car 1 —
Volkswagen name only — 1 —
7

Real estate as a local trade

Four unrelated jobs share the name: selling existing homes, owning and letting them, managing them for someone else, and building new ones. For anyone weighing a move or a licence these are the counts — and the ownership question goes to /property, which answers it building by building.

Real estate is a local job market in its own right, and four unrelated trades get the same name. Counts are businesses filed under each trade in the register, which lists a brokerage once however many agents work there — so this measures firms, not licensees.

Selling homes

5312
1 firms · LQ 0.02

Offices of agents and brokers — the resale market, and the biggest single trade in most Canadian cities.

Named in the register
  • Svensk Fastighetsförmedling Sweden Real Estate — Storg. 39

Building new homes

2361
1 firms · LQ 0.04

Residential builders and the general contractors who work for them.

Named in the register
  • Global Log Homes — Skovv. 3

Who actually owns it

The full property record →

From the /property research for this city, which asks a different question: not who trades in property here, but who owns it. An owner is named there only where a document says so. Owner public; view needs Norwegian ID login; NOK 260 certified extract.

Landowners

  • City of Oslo — Eiendoms- og byfornyelsesetaten (Agency for Real Estate and Urban Renewal) — 5,624 properties; c. 186.3 km2 calculated parcel area in Oslo (Oct 2026)
  • City of Oslo — Oslobygg KF — 795 properties; c. 5.1 km2 parcel area; about 1,800 buildings
  • City of Oslo — Boligbygg Oslo KF — Nearly 12,000 homes; one million m2 of housing
  • City of Oslo — Oslo Havn KF (Port of Oslo) — 79 properties; c. 0.93 km2 parcel area
  • Bane NOR Eiendom AS — 828,000 m2 gross managed area in 912 buildings (national); estimated market value NOK 31.5 billion (end-2025)
  • Storting (Stortinget) — 64,106 m2 owned building stock, plus 143 commuter flats (2017)

Homebuilders

  • OBOS BBL — 2,602 homes sold in 2025 (group, national)
  • Boligbygg Oslo KF (landlord, not a builder) — Nearly 12,000 rental homes; one million m2
  • Oslo S Utvikling AS
  • Thon Gruppen AS (Thon Bolig) — Homes worth NOK 262 million handed over, H1 2026 (group)
  • Bane NOR Eiendom AS — 44 homes completed in 2025 (407 in 2024), national

Commercial landlords

  • Entra ASA — Oslo: 45 properties, 746,872 m2, market value NOK 41,983 million (30 Sep 2026)
  • Thon Gruppen AS — Property portfolio NOK 128.7 billion; 70 shopping centres; 95 hotels (30 Jun 2026, group)
  • KLP Eiendom AS — Over 2.7 million m2, property value NOK 111.4 billion (group, Nordic)
  • Bane NOR Eiendom AS — 828,000 m2 managed, 912 buildings; NOK 31.5 billion (national, end-2025)

10 marquee buildings examined, 9 with an owner established.

On "how many doors"

How many doors a landlord holds is not in any of this. The register files an apartment building under the building, not its owner, and carries no unit count; there is no open dataset of Canadian landlords by portfolio. Where this research has established ownership it is in the Oslo property record for the city, building by building, which is a different and much slower exercise.

8

Work on the go, mobile services

The Ultimate 411 half of local: everything where the customer does not have to come to you. Each service opens a page on Ultimate 411 to request a quote or book a time.

A shop needs the customer to walk in. These 186 services do the opposite — the mobile mechanic, the mobile groomer, the bookkeeper, the junk haul — and they are the ones a person can start without a lease. 0 of them already match a trait filed in this city's register.

The 186 Service=1 rows in search.local: work on the go, mobile services, where the provider travels to the customer. "present" counts businesses already filed under that exact trait name; a blank is a coverage gap, not proof of absence, because the two vocabularies were built separately.

9

Schools and colleges

wander.schools is a post-secondary table — universities and colleges. K-12 public and private schools are not in it, and only 7 of its 1,686 rows carry coordinates, so these are listed and not mapped.

InstitutionTypeStudentsFounded
Oslo University — —
UIO University — —

In the business register

Where schooling shows up as a business rather than an institution — which is where K-12, tutoring and childcare appear.

school 5
10

Health and care

What a person moving a parent here would ask first. The register files clinics and pharmacies; it has no category for a hospital at all, so hospitals are matched by name and the limit is stated rather than hidden.

Medical clinics0
Pharmacies0
Dental practices0

Matched on the name "hospital"

  • Oslo Hospital — Ekebergv. 1

geonet carries no 'hospital' trait, so these are matched on the business name. A distance-to-hospital figure needs a source that states hospital locations.

13

Funded & hiring here

Companies in this city that have raised money, and the careers pages of employers here, from the /employers research and the company database. For someone looking for work here, this is the shortlist.

Funded here — 1 company has raised money

A fresh round usually means hiring. Largest raise first; the amount links to its source where one is on file, and the currency is as the source wrote it.

CompanyRaisedStaff hereJobs
TIDALMedia streaming distribution services and other media networks and content providers$200M——

Careers pages — 12 more employers here

Each link goes to the company's own careers page or official job board, not a third-party listing site. Largest local staff first.

14

What this record cannot tell you

Named in full, because the gaps are the part most likely to be misread as an answer.

  • No census figures on this page: this region is not mapped to a census subdivision in local/census-map.json, so the community counts here are business-register institutions, which is a different measurement and cannot substitute for a population.
  • wander.schools is now readable, but it holds universities and colleges only and 1,679 of its 1,686 rows have no coordinates. K-12 public and private schools need a separate source — in Ontario the Ministry of Education school finder, in British Columbia the provincial school list. wander.citytowns, hotels and territories remain denied to the ru user.
  • No 'hospital' trait exists in geonet; distance to a hospital needs an external source such as StatCan's Open Database of Healthcare Facilities.
  • 2.0% of businesses here carry no coordinates, so a map or address lookup would miss them. Postal codes reach 100%.

Built from

  • geonet.norway — the local business register
  • wander.regions — city name, population, metro
  • search.local — trait vocabulary and the come-to-you services
  • search.cozfranchises — 2,024 franchise brands