Haanes continued good form the following season, defeating Geoffrey Paish as Norway went down 1–4 to a Great Britain which would reach the semi-finals.

Successive 0–5 defeats to a Lennart Bergelin-led Sweden team followed, before Johan Haanes won his final Davis Cup game in 1951.

In 1953, Norway achieved their first victory, with Nils-Erik Hessen, Rolf Pape and Finn Søhol defeating Luxembourg in Mondorf-les-Bains.

Hegna and Melander faced François Jauffret and Patrick Proisy, who had both reached the last four at Roland Garros and at the time both were ranked in the top 40, in the singles matches.

Nevertheless, Norway were not qualified for the main draw in the European Zone in 1974, and after Hegna and Thorvald Moe secured a 4–1 win over Iran they required to beat Spain in a play-off in Barcelona.

Three players debuted against Senegal; Bent Ove Pedersen and Audun Jensen lost the doubles match, while Anders Håseth played singles with one win and one loss.

The five-set doubles match became crucial, where Matt Doyle and Peter Wright won 6–4 in the final set, and Ireland went on to promote to Group One.

Still in Group Two, Norway lost 2–3 to Luxembourg in 1989, the debut match of 16-year-old Christian Ruud, who along with Pedersen would form the basis of the team in the 1990s.

Ruud came up with a straight sets win over Tuomas Ketola as Norway got revenge for their 1992 defeat, won 3–2, and survived for another year.

In 1995 Norway won their first round tie for the first time in four attempts; against Israel, newly relegated from the World Group, Ruud defeated Eyal Ran and Gilad Bloom, both top-200 players.

The win qualified Norway for a World Group play-off match with Belgium, but Dick Norman and Johan Van Herck were too strong, and won 5–0 at Hasle, only conceding one set.

Stian Boretti and Jan Frode Andersen nevertheless went through the 2002 season with wins over Egypt, Denmark and Ivory Coast, and Norway entered Group One for the sixth and thus far last time.

Norway played eight matches during their four-year stay in Group Two, achieving a 3–5 record with wins over Ukraine, Monaco (in first of two relegation play-offs) and Zimbabwe.

Boretti had to retire from a 2006 tie in Macedonia, where Norway were 1–2 down before the final day's singles matches, and Erling Tveit took Lazar Magdinčev into a fifth set.

Boretti and Tveit did nearly all the work, playing five singles and four doubles ties each, and despite a loss to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Norway won the final two matches over Tunisia and Morocco to secure promotion.

In Group III the following year, Norway still fielded a team of Boretti and Tveit, though both players had now retired from the challenger tour.