Moving into your home

Expenses such as electricity and water consumption are not usually included in the price of long-term rental places. How much it will cost depends on the amount you consume.

Your home will be equipped with a meter, which records your consumption. You can read the meter yourself, and you must report the readings to the providing company when moving in and moving out.

How to report meters

You can often report your meter readings online or over the phone. Your bill will indicate the appropriate customer number and contact detail.

Central heating might be included in your rent as a monthly advance payment. The heating company will visit your residence once a year and conduct a reading of the exact amount consumed and adjust the heating bill accordingly.

Leaving a residence

You must read your meter and inform your provider of the readings before you move out of your residence. Otherwise you may be held responsible and be asked to pay for all consumption until the subsequent resident registered with the company.

Electricity in the Faroe Islands is 230 Volt and the electrical frequency is 50 Hertz. If you bring an electrical appliance to the Faroe Islands that does not accept 230 Volt at 50 Hertz, you will need a voltage converter.

These two types of plugs and sockets are the most common in the Faroes:

• Plug C: Popularly known as the Euro plug. It is unearthed and has two round pins.
• Plug K: It is earthed and has two round pins and a spade grounding pin.

General transportable 230 V class I electrical appliances such as coffee machines, irons and toasters do not need not be fitted with an earthed plug in normal residencies. If the socket has no earth connection, the ground wire cannot be connected, and it is therefore necessary to ensure that the socket is protected by means of ground fault circuit breakers (HFI/HPFI).

Depending on where you live, garbage bag containers are usually placed in your courtyard or basement. Please ask your landlord for detailed information on how to handle and dispose of your household waste.

Household waste handling in Tórshavn Municipality is automatically paid for through your local income tax.

All citizens in Tórshavn Municipality are required to sort their daily household waste into appropriate categories and for recycling.

Household waste and hazardous waste

Your household must be registered with the municipality in order to have your waste collected. All households will receive a roll of grey garbage bags and transparent bags twice a year.

The grey garbage bag is for regular household waste such as food, plastic, contaminated cardboard and paper and more. The grey bag must be securely attached inside a garbage bag container. Grey garbage bags must be safe for garbage collectors to handle and must not contain sharp or dangerous objects. Household waste is collected once a week. The grey garbage bag container must be placed no further than 20 metres away from a publicly accessible road on collection day.

The transparent garbage bag is for hazardous waste such as batteries, paint, acid, energy saving light bulbs and more. Place the transparent bag next to the grey bag on collection day when you need your hazardous waste to be collected. Hazardous waste can also be disposed of at the recycling plant outside of Tórshavn (Endurnýtslan á Hjalla).

You can check your waste collection day by entering your address in the link below (only in Faroese).

Recycling, Bulk waste, garden waste and incineration

Clean cardboard and paper that have not been in contact with food are recycled in the green wheelie bin. Households have either a small individual bin each or share a larger communal bin. The green wheelie bin is emptied every six weeks. You can check your waste collection day by entering your address in the website below (only in Faroese).

Bulk waste from private households in Tórshavn Municipality should be disposed of at the local recycling plants, see links below. This includes electronic waste, iron, timber, garden waste and more. The plant lady’s mantle (skøra) is an aggressive species and must be disposed of as waste for incineration.

Waste for incineration such as animal remains from fish or sheep should be disposed of at the recycling plant outside of Tórshavn (Endurnýtslan á Hjalla)

Reusable furniture and household items may be donated in a designated shipping container at the recycling plant outside of Tórshavn (Endurnýtslan á Hjalla). It is then refurbished by members of the charity Dugni and resold in the public charity shop Tinghúsið á Hjalla.

• Ruskinnsavningin (in Faroese only)
• Visit your local recycling plant (in Faroese only)
• Sorting guide (in Faroese only)

DEPOSIT AND RETURN SYSTEM

In the Faroe Islands you pay a deposit (in Faroese »pant«) for every beverage container with a »pant« indicator. You can get your deposit back by returning empty containers to the reversed vending machines in the supermarkets.

As a rule of thumb, the stores charging a deposit on their beverage containers have to accept the containers back and will then repay your deposit when you return the containers. Broken bottles cannot be returned but crushed aluminium cans may be returned. Stores have the right to refuse to accept specific containers that they don’t sell.

Note that wine, beer and liquor bottles can only be bought and returned at the State Liquor Store (Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins). Beer bottles and cans can also be returned to the breweries that sell them.

• Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins – The State Liquor Store (Google Maps)

If you want to change your Faroese address, you have to inform the municipality you are moving to or within about your new address.

You can inform the authorities about your change of address at the earliest four weeks before you move and at the latest five days after you have moved.

You can report your change of address at the online self-service Vangin.

NOTICE OF CHANGE OF ADRESS (VANGIN ONLINE SELF-SERVICE)

To use Vangin, you need to log in with your digital key Samleikin. To get your digital key, you have to register at the Samleikin website samleikin.fo. Your digital key comes as an app and is free of charge. Samleikin is available for everyone who is older than 15 and has a Faroese p-tal (civil registration number).

How to get Samleikin (samleikin.fo)

You must also inform these providers yourself about your new address:

• the postal service (Posta). This can be done via the link below
• your local bank
• your insurance provider
• your dentist
• your telephone provider
• the national electricity provider (SEV)

Posta - change address (only in Faroese)