Data from General government financial assets and liabilities show that financial wealth in the general government sector has grown enormously in the years following the financial crisis of 2008-2009. At the end of 2009, net wealth amounted to NOK 3,750 billion, roughly one and a half times that year’s GDP. By mid-2026, it had risen to more than NOK 25 trillion, approximately 4.5 times GDP for the previous four quarters. The change in financial wealth is explained by the general government surplus, also referred to as net lending/borrowing, and by other changes – mainly revaluations. In the second quarter of 2026, the surplus was roughly NOK 230 billion, while revaluations amounted to as much as NOK 2,200 billion.
Revaluations create large fluctuations
General government’s financial wealth is dominated by the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG). Government revenues from petroleum activities are transferred to the fund, while the expected return on the fund’s investments is transferred back to public budgets. The first deposit in the fund was made in 1996. By 2003, assets held in GPFG already accounted for more than half of the sector’s total net financial wealth, and by the end of the second quarter of 2026, the fund represented fully 90 percent of the wealth.
Because of the fund’s enormous size and its exposure to international equity and foreign exchange markets, revaluations in government financial wealth tend to vary substantially from quarter to quarter. This is illustrated in figure 1.
The positive revaluations of more than NOK 2,200 billion in the second quarter of 2026 are the largest observed to date. The first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 also saw positive revaluations exceeding NOK 1,500 billion. On both of those occasions, a combination of rising equity markets and a significant depreciation of the Norwegian krone generated substantial positive revaluations. In the second quarter of 2026, however, the revaluations were mainly driven by increases in equity prices, while exchange rate movements played a relatively minor role. The largest declines in financial wealth occurred in the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. During those quarters, both weak equity markets and an appreciation of the Norwegian krone contributed to a marked reduction in the value of GPFG.
Revaluations explain two-thirds of the growth
Although the decline in financial wealth caused by negative revaluations has been substantial in some quarters, the overall increase over time has nevertheless been very large. This is illustrated in figure 2, where the NOK 21,500 billion increase in wealth since 2009 is broken down into net lending, that is, the surplus in general government, and revaluations.
Over the period, net lending amounted to nearly NOK 7,000 billion. Approximately one-third of the total increase in wealth can therefore be attributed to government revenues exceeding expenditures. Cumulative revaluations totalled NOK 14,500 billion during the same period and thus accounted for the remaining two-thirds of the increase in wealth. Of this amount, roughly NOK 2,100 billion, corresponding to 10 percent of the total increase, can be linked to the depreciation of the Norwegian krone. The remaining increase in value of NOK 12,400 billion was due to rising prices of equities and other financial assets owned by the government.
Saving of petroleum revenues
Norway’s fiscal policy guidelines imply that petroleum revenues are transferred to GPFG and invested in foreign financial markets, while the use of these funds over time should follow the expected return on the fund’s assets. As a result, the general government surplus, measured by net lending, is to a very large extent linked to petroleum revenues. In practice, the surplus therefore reflects the saving of petroleum revenues in financial markets.
To illustrate this close link, net lending can be compared with petroleum revenues as reported in General government revenue and expenditure. As shown in figure 3, financial saving can largely be explained by petroleum revenues in every year since the financial crisis. One important exception occurred in 2020, when measures introduced to limit the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a deficit in general government.