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European route E6
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European route E6
European route E6 (Norwegian: Europaveg 6, Swedish: Europaväg 6, or simply E6) is the main north–south thoroughfare through Norway as well as the west coast of Sweden. It is 3,056 km (1,899 mi) long and runs from the southern tip of Sweden at Trelleborg, into Norway and through almost all of the country north to the Arctic Circle. As many travellers who love road trips use E6 to get to Nordkapp, a common misconception is that E6 leads to North Cape, but the route ends in Kirkenes close to the Russian border. To get to North Cape, one has to fork off E6 at Olderfjord and take European route E69, from the mainland through the North Cape Tunnel, onto the island of Magerøya. The Norwegian part of E6 functions as Norway's transport backbone, often being the only continuous paved road, connecting north and south. When E6 gets interrupted, Norway gets cut into two pieces (Norge er delt i to), and detours are often hundreds of kilometers long, through Sweden, or along the coast, involving ferry crossings. For more examples of frequent closures of E6, please see below, in chapter Vulnerable infrastructure, often interrupted.
From south to north, the E6 runs through Trelleborg, Malmö, Helsingborg, Halmstad, Gothenburg, Svinesund in Sweden, before crossing the border at the Svinesund Bridge into Norway. It then passes Halden, Sarpsborg, Moss, Vestby to the capital Oslo. North of this, it passes by Gardermoen, Hamar, Lillehammer, Dombås, Oppdal, Melhus to Trondheim.
Beyond Trondheim, the E6 meets Stjørdalshalsen, Verdalsøra, Steinkjer, Grong, Mosjøen, Mo i Rana, then over the Saltfjellet mountains. It then passes through Rognan, Fauske, and Hamarøy towards Bognes, where there is a ferry crossing over the Tysfjorden to Skarberget. It then runs through on via Narvik, Setermoen, Nordkjosbotn, Skibotn, and Alta to Olderfjord, where European route E69 continues north towards Nordkapp. The E6, meanwhile, turns south towards Lakselv and Karasjok, then runs on the west bank of the Anarjohka, which forms the border with Finland. Beyond the border, it passes through Varangerbotn, and Kirkenes, where the road terminates just east of the town centre.
Between Trelleborg and Kirkenes, there is a more than 800 km (500 mi) shorter route using E4 and E75, among the longest detours any European route has. In Finnmark there are several shorter alternative routes to the E6. Moreover, on the stretch from Oslo to Trondheim, following E6 strictly is a 40-kilometre (25 mi) detour compared to using Norwegian National Road 3 or Norwegian National Road 4 for their applicable portions of the trip.
The road is a 2+2 lane motorway from outside Trelleborg to Moelv, about 740 kilometres (460 mi). The last Swedish part of the E6 motorway through Bohuslän was completed in 2015. This motorway is also connected to Central Europe by uninterrupted motorway (via E20). Some stretches further north also have four lanes or motorway standards. The rest of the road is usually 6–10-metre (20–33 ft) wide ordinary road. Some parts in the north of Norway are less than 6 m (20 ft) wide, making it very tight when heavy vehicles meet. The northern half of the road, north of Trondheim, is also often fairly curvy, making high speeds a possible safety hazard.
E6 passes over treeless mountain passes in a few places in Norway. In the winter, bad weather and snow storms can cause the road to be temporarily closed, though, unlike many minor roads, it is kept open wherever practical. Because the road is the main artery through the country, cyclists and leisure travellers avoid the southern sections owing to the excessive traffic. In the north, traffic used to be sparse in 2009, but traffic numbers on E6 may have increased since the number of mobile homes in Europe has doubled, or because road trips and van life are being largely promoted on social media.
Travellers driving from Svinesund, at the border between Norway and Sweden, to the other end of E6 in Kirkenes, will pass around 32 electronic toll stations on the Norwegian stretch of E6 between Svinesund and Bjerkvik. Without prior registration, the cost of a straight trip from Svinesund to Kirkenes, with a petrol or diesel car weighing less than 3500 kilos, remaining only on E6, was NOK 1072 (about €90,45) with rush hour fares included, by the end of October 2024. The last electronic toll station would be Hålogaland Bridge, between Narvik and Bjerkvik. The number of tolls to pass and pay for will however increase as soon as one drives off the E6, into cities with toll rings, either for sleeping in a hotel or for sightseeing. The number of toll stations one encounters on E6 can decrease when road projects have been paid for and toll stations are abandoned. The number of toll stations can also go up in the future if new roads need to be financed. As of October 2024, there are no electronic road tolls on E6 in Finnmark.
The Norwegian system of electronic tolls is based on the assumption that every road user has a credit card and a smartphone to register their vehicle at www.Autopass.no, a website owned by the Norwegian national road administration. There is no place or way to pay for your tolls with cash. If the tolls aren't paid by registering the vehicle online, a bill with a higher price will be sent to the vehicle owner's address. It is also not possible to evade toll sections by taking smaller parallel roads. Quite a lot of foreign visitors to Norway do not understand how roads that are not motorways can even be toll roads. Others are complaining that the Norwegian road toll system works like a trap, because the amount of road toll in cities like Oslo and Trondheim tends to depend on multiple factors, like time of travelling and emission category of the vehicle, making it impossible to predict the exact price of a road trip from the Swedish border at Svinesund till Nordkapp (North Cape). Most toll calculation apps, tools, or websites will not allow you to set out a road trip that keeps you driving on E6 all along the way.
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European route E6
European route E6 (Norwegian: Europaveg 6, Swedish: Europaväg 6, or simply E6) is the main north–south thoroughfare through Norway as well as the west coast of Sweden. It is 3,056 km (1,899 mi) long and runs from the southern tip of Sweden at Trelleborg, into Norway and through almost all of the country north to the Arctic Circle. As many travellers who love road trips use E6 to get to Nordkapp, a common misconception is that E6 leads to North Cape, but the route ends in Kirkenes close to the Russian border. To get to North Cape, one has to fork off E6 at Olderfjord and take European route E69, from the mainland through the North Cape Tunnel, onto the island of Magerøya. The Norwegian part of E6 functions as Norway's transport backbone, often being the only continuous paved road, connecting north and south. When E6 gets interrupted, Norway gets cut into two pieces (Norge er delt i to), and detours are often hundreds of kilometers long, through Sweden, or along the coast, involving ferry crossings. For more examples of frequent closures of E6, please see below, in chapter Vulnerable infrastructure, often interrupted.
From south to north, the E6 runs through Trelleborg, Malmö, Helsingborg, Halmstad, Gothenburg, Svinesund in Sweden, before crossing the border at the Svinesund Bridge into Norway. It then passes Halden, Sarpsborg, Moss, Vestby to the capital Oslo. North of this, it passes by Gardermoen, Hamar, Lillehammer, Dombås, Oppdal, Melhus to Trondheim.
Beyond Trondheim, the E6 meets Stjørdalshalsen, Verdalsøra, Steinkjer, Grong, Mosjøen, Mo i Rana, then over the Saltfjellet mountains. It then passes through Rognan, Fauske, and Hamarøy towards Bognes, where there is a ferry crossing over the Tysfjorden to Skarberget. It then runs through on via Narvik, Setermoen, Nordkjosbotn, Skibotn, and Alta to Olderfjord, where European route E69 continues north towards Nordkapp. The E6, meanwhile, turns south towards Lakselv and Karasjok, then runs on the west bank of the Anarjohka, which forms the border with Finland. Beyond the border, it passes through Varangerbotn, and Kirkenes, where the road terminates just east of the town centre.
Between Trelleborg and Kirkenes, there is a more than 800 km (500 mi) shorter route using E4 and E75, among the longest detours any European route has. In Finnmark there are several shorter alternative routes to the E6. Moreover, on the stretch from Oslo to Trondheim, following E6 strictly is a 40-kilometre (25 mi) detour compared to using Norwegian National Road 3 or Norwegian National Road 4 for their applicable portions of the trip.
The road is a 2+2 lane motorway from outside Trelleborg to Moelv, about 740 kilometres (460 mi). The last Swedish part of the E6 motorway through Bohuslän was completed in 2015. This motorway is also connected to Central Europe by uninterrupted motorway (via E20). Some stretches further north also have four lanes or motorway standards. The rest of the road is usually 6–10-metre (20–33 ft) wide ordinary road. Some parts in the north of Norway are less than 6 m (20 ft) wide, making it very tight when heavy vehicles meet. The northern half of the road, north of Trondheim, is also often fairly curvy, making high speeds a possible safety hazard.
E6 passes over treeless mountain passes in a few places in Norway. In the winter, bad weather and snow storms can cause the road to be temporarily closed, though, unlike many minor roads, it is kept open wherever practical. Because the road is the main artery through the country, cyclists and leisure travellers avoid the southern sections owing to the excessive traffic. In the north, traffic used to be sparse in 2009, but traffic numbers on E6 may have increased since the number of mobile homes in Europe has doubled, or because road trips and van life are being largely promoted on social media.
Travellers driving from Svinesund, at the border between Norway and Sweden, to the other end of E6 in Kirkenes, will pass around 32 electronic toll stations on the Norwegian stretch of E6 between Svinesund and Bjerkvik. Without prior registration, the cost of a straight trip from Svinesund to Kirkenes, with a petrol or diesel car weighing less than 3500 kilos, remaining only on E6, was NOK 1072 (about €90,45) with rush hour fares included, by the end of October 2024. The last electronic toll station would be Hålogaland Bridge, between Narvik and Bjerkvik. The number of tolls to pass and pay for will however increase as soon as one drives off the E6, into cities with toll rings, either for sleeping in a hotel or for sightseeing. The number of toll stations one encounters on E6 can decrease when road projects have been paid for and toll stations are abandoned. The number of toll stations can also go up in the future if new roads need to be financed. As of October 2024, there are no electronic road tolls on E6 in Finnmark.
The Norwegian system of electronic tolls is based on the assumption that every road user has a credit card and a smartphone to register their vehicle at www.Autopass.no, a website owned by the Norwegian national road administration. There is no place or way to pay for your tolls with cash. If the tolls aren't paid by registering the vehicle online, a bill with a higher price will be sent to the vehicle owner's address. It is also not possible to evade toll sections by taking smaller parallel roads. Quite a lot of foreign visitors to Norway do not understand how roads that are not motorways can even be toll roads. Others are complaining that the Norwegian road toll system works like a trap, because the amount of road toll in cities like Oslo and Trondheim tends to depend on multiple factors, like time of travelling and emission category of the vehicle, making it impossible to predict the exact price of a road trip from the Swedish border at Svinesund till Nordkapp (North Cape). Most toll calculation apps, tools, or websites will not allow you to set out a road trip that keeps you driving on E6 all along the way.
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