Denmark How To

How to get a CPR number in Denmark

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What is a CPR number, and do you need one?

A CPR number is your Danish civil registration number. The letters stand for Det Centrale Personregister, the Central Person Register, and the ten-digit number it gives you is the key to almost everything in Denmark: your salary, a bank account, a doctor, insurance and any contact with the authorities borger.dk. You need one if you intend to stay in Denmark for more than three consecutive months Life in Denmark.

How to get MitID in Denmark

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What is MitID and why do you need it?

MitID is Denmark’s national electronic ID. It is how you prove who you are when you log in to your bank, skat.dk, your digital post, the health service and almost every other online service in Denmark MitID.dk.

Without it, most of the country runs offline for you. You cannot check your tax, read letters from public authorities, or manage your bank account. Newcomers often get MitID at the same appointment where they register for a CPR number Life in Denmark.

How to open a Danish bank account as a foreigner

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Can you open a Danish bank account as a foreigner?

Yes, but not on day one. A Danish bank will normally want a CPR number, and in practice MitID as well, before it opens a full account for you. To open an account you contact a bank of your choice and bring photo ID such as your passport and your address details Life in Denmark.

There is a second route for people without a CPR number. Under Danish rules on payment accounts, anyone lawfully resident in the EU/EEA has a right to a basic payment account, and a bank cannot refuse you simply because you have no Danish address Finanstilsynet.

How to get a tax card and understand Danish tax

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What is a tax card, and do you need one?

A tax card (skattekort) tells your employer how much tax to take from your pay. It is not a physical card. It is digital information you find in E-tax (TastSelv) at the top of your preliminary income assessment, the forskudsopgørelse skat.dk.

If you are not Danish and you get a job in Denmark, you need a tax card and a personal tax number. You only need a CPR number issued once, because the same number is used whenever you are in Denmark. If you do not have one yet, the tax authorities generate it at the same time as the tax card skat.dk.

How to rent an apartment in Copenhagen as a foreigner

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How does renting in Copenhagen actually work?

Copenhagen runs two rental markets side by side. The private market is fast, expensive and competitive. The public, non-profit sector (almen bolig) is cheap but allocates by waiting list, often measured in years. Most newcomers start in the private market and join a waiting list in the background.

The word you will see everywhere is lejebolig, which just means a rented home. An apartment you buy outright is an ejerbolig. A cooperative share is an andelsbolig.

Insurance in Denmark: what is mandatory, what is critical, what you can skip

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What insurance is actually mandatory in Denmark?

Three things are mandatory, and as an employee most of them are not your problem.

Employers must take out arbejdsskadeforsikring (work-injury insurance) for their staff. It covers employees, or their survivors, for injury or illness caused by work. It is not something you buy as an employee, and there is no opting out, as Forsikringsoplysningen explains.

Anyone who owns a car, motorcycle or moped must have liability insurance (ansvarsforsikring) to use it on a public road. It covers damage you cause to other people and their property, not your own car or yourself as the driver. If you do not pay it, the police can seize your number plates, and you pay any damage yourself. See borger.dk and Forsikringsoplysningen.

How to insure your bike in Denmark and how bike theft works in Copenhagen

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Why does bike insurance matter in Copenhagen?

Bike theft in Denmark is not a rare event. Gjensidige reports that over 48,000 bikes were reported stolen in 2024, roughly 130 a day. The Danish Crime Prevention Council recorded about 40,000 a year in the early 2020s. If you cycle daily in Copenhagen, you are statistically exposed, and a stolen bike is often your main way of getting around.

Insurance is what turns that from a total loss into an inconvenience. The good news is that you probably already have cover.

How to get a doctor in Denmark and how the healthcare system works for newcomers

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How does the Danish healthcare system work for newcomers?

Denmark’s health service is funded by taxes and mostly free at the point of use. If you work legally in Denmark you are covered by it, but you have to register and get a health card first. Once registered, you are expected to go through a named family doctor (egen læge) rather than turning up at a hospital for routine care.

How to get your children into school and daycare in Denmark

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How does childcare and school work in Denmark?

Denmark’s system splits childhood into clear stages, each with a Danish name you will see on every form. Municipal daycare runs from around 6 months to school start, and the folkeskole (municipal primary and lower secondary school) runs from age 6 to about 16. Both are subsidised, and both are allocated by your address through the kommune (municipality). The City of Copenhagen sets out the stages and age ranges on its public childcare page.

How to find a job in Denmark when you don't speak Danish

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Can you get a job in Denmark without speaking Danish?

Yes. Plenty of people do, and in the right sectors English is simply the office language. Denmark’s public employment service for internationals, Workindenmark, is built entirely around that idea. The realistic English-friendly fields are IT and software, engineering, pharma and life science, research and academia, shipping and logistics, and parts of hospitality, cleaning, production and warehousing. Copenhagen and the biotech belt around it lean most heavily on English.

How to join clubs, play sport and make friends in Denmark

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How do you make friends in Denmark?

The honest answer: through a shared activity, not through small talk. Danish social life is built around the forening (association), a member-run club for almost anything, from football and handball to choirs, board games and scouts. Join one and you get a fixed weekly appointment with the same people, which is how Danes actually become friends. The national sports confederations, DIF and DGI, are the umbrella bodies for most local clubs, and your kommune lists the ones near you.

How to rent a car in Denmark: licences, insurance, tolls and parking

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Can you rent and drive a car in Denmark?

Yes, and it is straightforward once you understand the licence rules, the insurance excess and the tolls. Rentals are widely available in Copenhagen, Aarhus and at the airports. The main things that catch newcomers out are the age limits, the fact that a non-EU licence must be exchanged after 180 days of residence, and the high insurance excess the basic price includes.

Public transport in Denmark: Rejsekort, Rejseplanen and DOT explained

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Do you need a travel card in Denmark at all?

You can travel on a single ticket, but most people who live here use a travel card because it is cheaper and simpler. Denmark has one shared fare system across bus, train, Metro and light rail, and the same ticket works whichever one you take Din Offentlige Transport.

The blue plastic Rejsekort that everyone used to carry was retired on 30 June 2026 DOT. Its replacements are the Rejsekort app, the personal Basiskort and the anonymous Basiskort Rejsekort. If you had money on an old card, the balance was paid into your NemKonto automatically in August 2026 Rejsekort and Rejseplan.

Cycling in Denmark: the rules, and how to buy a used bike without getting scammed

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Do you need a bike in Denmark?

Nobody will make you buy one, but most people here get around by bike, and a bicycle is a vehicle under the Road Traffic Act - with equipment rules and fines attached Færdselsstyrelsen.

What kit does the law require on a bike?

A two-wheeled bike may be at most 3.5 metres long and 1 metre wide, and it must have at least two independent brake systems. It must also carry Færdselsstyrelsen:

Exchanging a foreign driving licence for a Danish one

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Can you drive on your foreign licence in Denmark?

It depends entirely on where the licence was issued borger.dk.

EU, EEA (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), Faroe Islands, Greenland and Switzerland: your licence is valid in Denmark. You may drive on it until it expires, or exchange it for a Danish one with no test.
Everything else (a “third country” licence): it is valid for 180 days from the date you take up habitual residence in Denmark. After that you must hold a Danish licence, which means exchanging yours and passing a controlling theory and practical test borger.dk.

Some third-country licences count as “group 1” or “group 2” arrangements, where a car licence can be exchanged without a test. As of 2026 those include licences from Australia (Australian Capital Territory), Brazil, Japan, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), North Macedonia, South Korea, Russia, Switzerland and Ukraine, with a medical certificate Odense Kommune.

Apartment deposit and moving out in Denmark: how to get your money back

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How much deposit can a landlord charge?

The cap is set in the Rent Act (lejeloven). A landlord may ask for a deposit of up to three months’ rent (excluding utilities) in a residential letting, and may also ask for up to three months’ rent in advance Boligministeriet.

Add the first months’ rent and the total you hand over at signing can reach nine months’ rent. That is legal, normal in Copenhagen, and the biggest cash shock for newcomers.

Bringing your family to Denmark: family reunification and accompanying family

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Which of the three routes is yours?

There are three completely different sets of rules, and mixing them up wastes months.

You are an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen. Your family comes under EU free movement. No Danish reunification conditions, no 24-year rule, no financial guarantee.
You hold a Danish work or study permit and you are not an EU citizen. Your spouse, registered partner, cohabiting partner or child under 18 applies as an accompanying family member New to Denmark.
Your spouse or family member is settled in Denmark as a Danish citizen, permanent resident or refugee. This is family reunification, and it is the hardest route New to Denmark.

Route 1: family of an EU citizen

If the person in Denmark is a non-Danish EU citizen with their own right of residence, their family members apply for an EU residence document. It is free, the normal processing time is about three months and up to four if more information is needed New to Denmark. Family can be an EU citizen or a citizen of a country outside the EU.

Surviving your first Danish winter: light, warmth and the practical kit

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How dark does it actually get?

Darkness is the defining feature of a Danish winter, not cold. At DMI’s station in Copenhagen the day at the winter solstice is about seven hours long, while the June solstice gives roughly seventeen and a half hours DMI. In practice that means December sunrise around 8:30 and sunset around 15:35, with the earliest sunset in mid-December.

The city does not stop. It moves indoors, and the daylight becomes something you schedule rather than something you have.

Weekends in Denmark: what Danes actually do, and where to start

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What does a Danish week actually look like?

The week has a shape, and once you see it, the country makes more sense.

Monday to Thursday are working days, and social life is limited. People go home, cook, train, and look after children.
Friday is the social night. Workplaces and clubs run fredagsbar (Friday bars), friends meet for beers or dinner, and the tone is relaxed. This is the single most important evening for a newcomer.
Saturday is family and errand day: sport for children, shopping, cleaning, and often a long dinner with friends in the evening.
Sunday is quiet. Shops are open, but Danish Sunday is slow: walks, brunch, family visits, and very little organised social activity.

Opening hours are looser than many newcomers expect. Ordinary Sundays are not restricted by the shop closing act, but the act does prohibit retail opening on the ten public holidays and Constitution Day, and on Christmas Eve, with shops closing by 15:00 on New Year’s Eve retsinformation.dk.

What it actually costs to live in Copenhagen in 2026

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What does Copenhagen actually cost in 2026?

Rent dominates everything. Danish rents rose about 2.5% in the year to the third quarter of 2026 Statistics Denmark, and Copenhagen is the tightest market in the country. If you get the housing right, the rest is manageable. If you get it wrong, no salary feels big enough.

What does rent cost, by area and type?

These are market ranges as of 2026, not official averages. The official series tracks the direction of rents, not individual addresses Statistics Denmark.

Do you need a visa or residence permit for Denmark? EU vs non-EU explained

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The fork: are you an EU citizen or not?

There are three different worlds of paperwork, and yours depends on your passport.

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens do not need a residence permit. You have the right to live and work in Denmark under EU free movement rules, but you should register for an EU residence document from SIRI, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration New to Denmark. It is free, and for workers the processing time is the same day under normal circumstances New to Denmark. There are separate routes for workers, students, the self-employed and people who can support themselves without working.

Holiday pay (feriepenge) in Denmark: how to find and use the money you earned

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What are feriepenge, in plain language?

Feriepenge is holiday pay. If your job does not pay your normal salary while you are on holiday, your employer has to set aside 12.5% of your pay as holiday pay instead, and you draw on that pot when you take your days off retsinformation.dk. Twelve point five per cent is not arbitrary: it is the cash value of five weeks off in a forty-week working year.

Your first 90 days in Denmark: the arrival checklist

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What has to happen first, in what order?

Everything in Denmark hangs off one number. Your CPR number is issued when you register at the national register (folkeregister) at your local borgerservice (citizen service centre) or an International Citizen Service centre Life in Denmark. CPR gives you MitID, and MitID gives you a bank account, NemKonto, your tax card and access to public services online. Nothing else works smoothly until that chain is started borger.dk.

About this site

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What this is

A free English-language service for the roughly 700,000 internationals living in Denmark — and the ones still deciding whether to come. Two things, every day:

A short digest of Danish news in English, with a link to every original.
Practical guides that answer the questions nobody answers well: CPR, MitID, banks, tax, rent, insurance, school, doctors, jobs, clubs, cars.

We are not a newsroom. We do not chase scoops. We translate, filter and explain — and where a Danish authority publishes the rule, we send you to that authority rather than asking you to trust us.

How we use other people's news

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We summarise news that Danish outlets report. It is their work and their traffic — our job is to help people who cannot read Danish yet find it. So the rules we hold ourselves to are strict:

What we do

We write our own line. Every digest item is a fresh English sentence describing what happened — a fact, in our own words. We do not translate or reproduce the publisher’s abstract, and we never copy article text.
We name the source and link to it. Each item says which outlet reported it and links the canonical article, so the click, the advertising and the subscription go to them.
We use published feeds. Where an outlet publishes an RSS feed for reuse, we read that feed. DR publishes its news feeds for free use and its own help page says so.
We copy no images. No photographs, logos or graphics from other publishers appear on this site.
We respect machine-readable opt-outs. Where an outlet has reserved text-and-data-mining rights (TV 2 has, under Danish copyright law §11b and DSM article 4), we do not machine-process it at all — no fetching, no summarising, no excerpts.
We honour takedowns immediately. Ask and it is gone the same day, no argument, no conditions. {{ site.Params.contactEmail }}

What we never do

Republish an article, in full or in long extracts.
Present another outlet’s reporting as our own.
Reuse another outlet’s images.
Scrape a site whose robots.txt or terms say no.

For publishers

If you are a Danish newsroom and you would like your stories summarised here — or your feed added or removed — write to us. We would rather have your link than your silence, and we are happy to follow whatever conditions you set.

Privacy

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Short version: you can read everything here without an account, and we do not sell or share your data.

What we collect

Nothing, to read. No login, no paywall, no personal data required.
Cookieless analytics. We count page views and referrers in aggregate, with no cookies and no cross-site tracking, so no consent banner is needed. If you have “Do Not Track” on, we do not count you.
Email, only if you write to us. If you email a correction or a question, we keep the message and your address to reply. We do not add you to any list unless you ask, and we never sell it.
Email, if you subscribe to the weekly email. Signing up for the weekly “what changed in Denmark” email stores your address, the page you signed up from and the date — in our mailing-list tool (Airtable) and in an append-only log file. That is the whole record: no name, no phone, no profile, no behavioural history. Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing stops the use of your address immediately.
If you buy the ebook, the payment happens entirely on the checkout provider’s site. We receive your email address and order details so we can send you the file and updates. We never see your card number.

What we do not do

No advertising trackers, no social pixels, no fingerprinting.
No tracking pixels or open-rate spying in the weekly email — we do not know whether you opened it.
No sharing of reader data with third parties for their own purposes.
No dark patterns, no fake urgency, no “12 people are reading this”.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask to see, correct or delete anything we hold about you — in practice that is at most an email thread. Write to {{ site.Params.contactEmail }} and we will answer within 30 days.

The ebook

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Everything on this website stays free. No paywall, no account, no “members only” half-answer. The ebook is for people who want it in one place — and it is how the site pays for itself.

What’s in the ebook

Every guide on this site, edited and cross-referenced, in one PDF and EPUB.
The first-90-days planner — week 1, week 2, month 1 and month 3 laid out as checklists you can tick off, in the order that unblocks the next step. The site publishes the order and the timelines for free on the arrival order page; the planner is the week-by-week version, with what to bring to each appointment and what to do when a step stalls.
Checklists you can tick off: documents to bring to Borgerservice, what to take to the bank, what to bring to a viewing, what to pack for your first Danish winter.
Plain-language glossaries of the Danish words that appear on official letters: folkeregister, forskudsopgørelse, indboforsikring, a-kasse, pladsanvisning, selvrisiko, boligstøtte.
Templates: a CV laid out the Danish way, an email asking a landlord for a viewing, and a message to your child’s daycare.

Price and format

{{ site.Params.ebookPrice }} — one-off, no subscription. PDF + EPUB, DRM-free, plus free updates for one year whenever rules change.

The weekly email: what changed in Denmark

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What it is

Once a week, on Thursday morning, one email in English: what actually changed in Denmark in the last seven days — and only the parts that change what you have to do.

New rules, fees, thresholds and deadlines: CPR, MitID, tax, housing, healthcare, schools and daycare, transport, work permits.
What each change means for you, in one or two sentences, with the authority linked so you can check us.
Anything on this site that was updated because the rules moved.

No “10 tips to thrive in Copenhagen”. No sponsored placements. If nothing that matters changed, you get a short email saying so.

What to do first when you move to Denmark: the arrival order

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If you have just landed in Denmark — or you land next week — this is the order that works. Nine steps, each one unlocking the next, with the real cost and the real waiting time. Every step links to the full guide with the documents, the forms and the office you have to deal with.

What order should you do things in when you move to Denmark?

Get a CPR number. This is your Danish civil registration number and the key to almost everything else: salary, bank account, doctor, insurance and daycare. Apply online through your municipality or an International Citizen Service (ICS) centre, then attend an in-person appointment with your passport, proof of your Danish address and your residence paperwork. Cost: free. Time: about 2–3 weeks for the application to be processed, then the appointment; the yellow health card follows by post in 2–4 weeks. Guide: How to get a CPR number in Denmark.
Get MitID. Denmark’s national digital ID. Set it up yourself in the MitID app by scanning a chip passport or national ID card and your face, or at Borgerservice with valid ID and a booked appointment. Ask for it at the same appointment where you register your CPR number if you can. Cost: free (up to three code displays or readers are free; a MitID chip costs 143.60 DKK). Time: minutes in the app, or the wait for a Borgerservice appointment. Guide: How to get MitID in Denmark.
Open a Danish bank account. You need a normal account for your salary, your rent, MobilePay and your NemKonto — the account the authorities pay money into. Banks apply anti-money-laundering checks, so bring ID, your CPR number, proof of address and often proof of work. Cost: a basic payment account is free or a reasonable fee (Nordea charges 135 DKK per quarter in 2026). Time: the bank must decide within 10 working days of a complete application. Guide: How to open a Danish bank account as a foreigner.
Get your tax card (skattekort). Do this before your first payday. Log in to skat.dk/tastselv with MitID, open your forskudsopgørelse, enter your expected salary and your first working day, and approve it. Cost: free. Time: usually generated immediately online, and your employer is told automatically. Guide: How to get a tax card and understand Danish tax.
Choose a doctor (egen læge). Register with a GP on borger.dk once you have your CPR number and yellow health card. Group 1 gives you free care through your named doctor; group 2 lets you see any doctor and pay part yourself. GP visits, hospital treatment and emergency care are free. Cost: free (changing doctor later costs 40 DKK in 2026 unless you have just moved). Time: the yellow card takes about 2 weeks. Guide: How to get a doctor in Denmark.
Sort out housing. Rent privately through portals and agents, or join a housing association waiting list. Expect competition, a deposit and prepaid rent, and landlords who screen your income. You need CPR and MitID to sign most contracts digitally and to claim housing benefit. Cost: by law up to three months’ rent in deposit plus up to three months’ rent in advance; housing benefit (boligstøtte) can pay up to 1,194 DKK a month without children. Time: weeks to months, and longer for public housing waiting lists. Guide: How to rent an apartment in Copenhagen as a foreigner.
Take out insurance. Employers must carry work-injury insurance (arbejdsskadeforsikring) and vehicles on public roads need liability insurance, but the policy almost every household needs is indboforsikring: contents, personal liability and legal-expenses cover in one. Cost: a median 2,909 DKK a year for contents cover in 2026. Time: usually the same day online. Guide: Insurance in Denmark: what is mandatory, what is critical.
Apply for school or daycare. Do this as soon as you have a CPR number, because places are allocated by waiting list. Apply through your kommune’s pladsanvisning (placement system) for vuggestue, børnehave and SFO, and through the school admission portal for the folkeskole. Cost: in Copenhagen, 3,555 DKK a month for a vuggestue place without lunch and 2,042 DKK a month for SFO/KKFO, with July free and a sibling discount. Time: apply early; popular places have months-long queues. Guide: How to get your children into school and daycare in Denmark.
Find work. Denmark hires in English in IT, engineering, pharma and life science, academia, shipping and parts of hospitality and logistics. Search jobindex.dk, Jobnet, workindenmark.jobnet.dk and LinkedIn, join an a-kasse and a union from day one, and check the work-permit route before you accept an offer. Cost: free to search; an a-kasse and union membership are monthly costs that pay for themselves if you lose the job. Time: the standard week is 37 hours with five weeks’ paid holiday; the Pay Limit Scheme threshold is 552,000 DKK a year in 2026. Guide: How to find a job in Denmark when you don’t speak Danish.

Why does your address come before the CPR number?

The list starts with CPR, but CPR registration needs a Danish address where you actually live Life in Denmark. You cannot register at a hotel booking, and a c/o address only works if you genuinely live there CPR-kontoret. So in practice your first task is somewhere to live, and the CPR step starts the day you move in. Non-EU citizens should also watch two deadlines: apply for CPR registration within six months of the date your permit was issued, and no later than five days after you move into your Danish address International House Copenhagen.