In Norway, anyone can look up a colleague's or neighbor's annual income, tax paid and net wealth. Finland publishes the income of every taxpayer each November — a day so established it is called "National Jealousy Day." In Sweden, a single phone call to the tax agency gets you another person's tax records. But none of this is unconditional. When Norway introduced a system in 2014 under which the person you search is notified of who searched them, searches fell by about 92%. Why do the Nordic countries publish tax data, what happens when they do — and why did Japan's own version, the "rich list" that existed until 2005, disappear? We sort it out with primary sources and economic research.
How it works: what "public" means in each of the three countries
Nordic tax transparency is designed differently in each country. First, the overall picture.
| Norway | Sweden | Finland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is visible | Name, birth year, municipality, net income, net wealth, tax paid | Final tax assessment (income and tax) | Name, birth year, region, earned income, capital income, tax, plus back tax or refund |
| How to view it | Search on the tax administration's website (login required) | Request by phone or in person at the tax agency | Tax office terminals or phone only (no online publication) |
| Who can view it | Domestic users aged 16 or older (electronic ID required) | Anyone (in principle, no one asks your name or purpose) | Anyone |
| Is the person notified? | Yes (the person sees who searched them; media are exempt) | No | No |
| Limits | Up to 500 views per month | Limits on bulk requests | Published each November, previous year only |
- Norway: After each autumn's tax assessment is finalized, the "tax lists" are published; type a name into the tax administration's site and you get that person's net income (income after deductions), net wealth and tax paid. Since 2014, however, the name, birth year and postal code of the person searching are shown to the person being searched. Anonymous snooping is not possible
- Sweden: A country built on the principle of public access to official documents, dating back to the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 — a finalized tax assessment is a public document. Call the tax agency and it will tell you a specific person's income and tax, and officials in principle ask neither your name nor your purpose. Since 1905, a privately published "taxation calendar" compiling the incomes of high earners has also existed
- Finland: Each November, the previous year's income and taxes are published all at once (data for 2024 on November 12, 2025). Media outlets receive data on high earners for journalistic purposes and publish "rich lists" simultaneously, which is why publication day is known as "National Jealousy Day." There is no general online publication, however — you can only look people up via tax office terminals or by phone
Why it exists: high taxes only work together with transparency
Publishing taxpayer registers is a Nordic tradition dating from the 19th century; in Norway, paper registers were available for inspection locally. In 2001 this moved to internet search, making the data viewable "by anyone, from anywhere, instantly." Three main reasons are given for keeping the system.
- Deterring tax evasion — income is exposed to the "third-party eyes" of neighbors and business partners. A lavish lifestyle that does not match the declared amount is something the local community notices
- Acceptance of a heavy burden — what sustains one of the world's highest tax burdens is trust that "everyone is paying honestly." Showing who bears how much is treated as the guarantee of that trust
- Making wages and inequality visible — because you can see what colleagues and peers earn, wage levels are widely shared, helping people spot gender gaps and inequality and giving them material for pay negotiations
"Money you have no reason to keep secret, you do not hide" — the underlying idea is that paying tax is a contribution to society, not something to conceal. Conversely, some point out that the system cannot simply be copied in a society where trust in tax authorities and government is low.
The result: tax evasion fell — but the happiness gap widened
Norway's 2001 move to online publication has been studied worldwide as a "natural experiment" in economics. The results show both light and shadow.
- Light: declared income rose. A study by Bo, Slemrod and Thoresen (2015, in an American Economic Association journal) compared municipalities that had only paper registers before and after online publication, and estimated that the declared business income of the self-employed rose by about 3%. Being "watched" curbed underreporting
- Shadow: the happiness gap widened. Perez-Truglia's study (2020, American Economic Review) estimated that after online publication, the happiness gap between high and low earners widened by 29% and the life-satisfaction gap by 21%. Once anyone could compare incomes precisely, more people rated themselves lower by comparison
- The operational fix: searches down 92%. In the early years, using the lists as "entertainment" — snooping on celebrities and acquaintances — became a problem. Norway made login mandatory for searches in 2011 and in 2014 introduced the system that notifies people of who viewed them. Searches fell from about 16.5 million in 2012 to about 1.3 million in 2022 — a drop of roughly 92%. Much of the remaining use is said to be people checking "who looked at me"
Finland's decision to keep the deliberate friction of "tax office terminals or phone only," with no online publication, is likewise a design that balances the benefits of openness against the harms of snooping. Without abandoning transparency itself, all three countries keep adjusting in the direction of "making viewers, too, bear cost and responsibility."
Comparison with Japan: the "rich list" disappeared 20 years ago
Japan, in fact, had a very similar system for more than half a century: the public notice of high-value taxpayers — popularly known as the choja banzuke, or "rich list." Under Article 233 of the Income Tax Act, the name, address and tax amount of anyone whose income tax exceeded 10 million yen were posted at tax offices each May, and newspapers and magazines reported national and regional rankings. The aim was the same as the first Nordic rationale: deterring evasion through third-party checks.
In the 2000s, however, the system's harms became conspicuous.
- The published lists became a de facto "directory of the wealthy," used as target information for robbery and kidnapping and as mailing lists for donation appeals and direct mail
- To avoid being listed, people underreported until the end of March — the cutoff for publication — and filed amended returns later. This "publication dodging" became widespread, hollowing out the deterrent effect
- In April 2005 the Personal Information Protection Act took full effect, calling into question a system in which the state exposed individuals' incomes
As a result, the system was abolished in the 2006 tax reform; the spring 2005 notice was the last. The final national number one was Tatsuro Kiyohara, a fund manager at an investment firm (tax paid: about 3.7 billion yen), still remembered as "the last man atop the rich list." Today's Japan has swung to strict confidentiality: tax officials are bound by secrecy obligations, and even the income data collected via My Number is restricted by law to defined uses — none of them publication. About the only exception where individual pay is disclosed is the itemized disclosure of executive compensation of 100 million yen or more at listed companies (mandatory in securities reports since 2010).
If the Nordic design is "protect fairness and trust through transparency," today's Japan is designed to "protect safety and private life through secrecy." Neither is simply correct. It is a social choice about where to place the weight — on the benefits of publication (deterring evasion, buy-in) or its costs (snooping, crime risk, effects on happiness) — and the Nordic countries themselves keep adjusting the scope of publication through notification systems and counter-only access.
What this means for you: live there, and you are published too
- If you move to or are posted in a Nordic country, you become subject to publication. Become a taxpayer in Norway and you appear on the tax lists, searchable by name by local colleagues and neighbors (if someone searches you, the notification tells you). In Finland you are covered by the November publication. Knowing this before a posting saves the surprise
- Viewing the Norwegian lists from Japan is effectively impossible. Searching requires login with a Norwegian electronic ID, making it in practice a system for local residents. Finland likewise presupposes local tax office terminals or phone
- Japan, too, has partial "visibility" advancing. Beyond executive-pay disclosure at listed companies, there is mandatory wage disclosure in job postings and publication of gender pay gaps at large companies — Japan's route is transparency at the level of institutions and statistics, not individuals. Your own taxable income and tax amounts can be checked anytime on your withholding slip or a municipal tax certificate
- On digital government and the handling of data, Estonia's 3-minute tax return is an instructive contrast. It pushes data linkage to the limit while letting individuals see "who queried my information" — the same idea as Norway's viewing notifications. In Japan as well, filing via e-Tax and the spread of Myna Portal are steadily expanding how much of your own tax data you can handle yourself
What to do today
What to do today
- Check whether you can state your own "income and tax paid" precisely. Using your withholding slip or a municipal tax certificate, write down your income, income tax and residence tax (in the Nordics this is public information — start by knowing your own numbers)
- Open the "interaction history" in Myna Portal and see when and where your tax and income data has been queried between government agencies (Japan, too, has a feature close to Norway's viewing notifications)
- If you feel like comparing salaries, compare against the distribution in the National Tax Agency's Statistical Survey of Private-Sector Salaries rather than against other people (research shows comparisons with those close to you are the ones most likely to lower satisfaction)
FAQ
Q. Can I search a Norwegian's tax payments from Japan?
A. Effectively no. Searching the tax lists requires login with a Norwegian electronic ID and is limited to users aged 16 or older. Moreover, when you search, your name, birth year and postal code are shown to the person you searched, so anonymous viewing is impossible. There is also a cap of 500 views per month.
Q. Do Nordic people not care about privacy?
A. They do care, and every country keeps adjusting. Norway introduced viewer notification in 2014, after which snooping-driven searches fell by about 92%, and Finland avoids online publication, limiting access to tax office terminals and phone. The systems have been revised in the direction of "publish, but make viewers bear cost and responsibility too."
Q. Did Japan ever have a similar system?
A. Yes. The public notice of high-value taxpayers, popularly known as the choja banzuke or "rich list." The names, addresses and tax amounts of people whose income tax exceeded 10 million yen were posted each May, but the lists were misused for crime and solicitation, publication dodging spread, and the Personal Information Protection Act took full effect in 2005 — so the system was abolished in the 2006 tax reform.
Q. Does publishing tax payments reduce tax evasion?
A. Research shows some effect. When Norway's tax lists went online in 2001, one estimate found the declared business income of the self-employed rose by about 3%. On the other hand, another study estimated that easier income comparison widened the happiness gap between high and low earners by 29% — both the effect and the side effects have been documented.
References (sources)
* Figures and rules are based on materials published by each country as of August 2026. Research figures (the ~3% rise in declared income, the 29% widening of the happiness gap, etc.) are estimates from the respective papers. Foreign systems apply to residents and taxpayers of those countries and do not affect the tax obligations or personal-data handling of residents of Japan. This article is a comparative overview for information purposes; for individual decisions, consult a tax office, tax accountant or other professional.