Danish citizenship can only be granted to foreign nationals via legal nationalisation: your application must actually be approved by a parliamentary majority.
Accepted applications are normally processed in parliament twice yearly, in April and in October, although 2025 saw a change to this with no citizenship bill tabled in the second half of the year.
During this process, the government tables a bill including the names of all people whose application for citizenship have been found to meet the criteria for naturalisation in the relevant period. This bill is always given the Danish title Forslag til lov om indfødsrets meddelelse, which loosely translates to “Proposal for legally granting naturalisation”.
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Currently, the processing time for citizenship applications is around two years.
To be granted citizenship, you must apply to the Ministry of Immigration and Integration for the eye-watering fee of 6,000 kroner.
Citizenship entitles you to a Danish passport and gives you the right to vote in parliamentary elections, as well as providing a permanent basis for residency in the country.
Danish requirements for citizenship are some of the toughest in the world. You must meet a number of closely-defined criteria and requirements in order to be eligible for citizenship by naturalisation.
It's also worth noting that plans are afoot to introduce personal screening of applicants for citizenship to test their personal views and compatibility with Danish society. These plans are in their early stages with a commissioned report into how they might be implemented due in mid-2026. Nevertheless, they could conceivably make waiting times longer, fees higher and criteria stricter.
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The existing requirements fall into six broad categories, all of which will be set out in further detail below.
- Give a declaration of allegiance and loyalty to Denmark
- Fulfil prior residency criteria
- Be free of debt to the public sector and be financially self-sufficient
- Have no criminal convictions
- Hold a full-time job or been self-employed for three and a half of the last four years.
- Meet criteria for Danish language skills
- Pass a citizenship test and demonstrate knowledge of Danish society and values
For children, stateless people born in Denmark, people whose previous Danish citizenships have lapsed and citizens of the Nordic countries, special rules apply. These will not be addressed in this article.
Declaration of allegiance and loyalty to Denmark
It is a condition for acquiring Danish citizenship by naturalisation that you declare allegiance and loyalty to Denmark and to Danish society. You must also declare that you will obey Denmark’s laws, including the constitution, and respect the fundamental values and legal principles of Danish democracy.
How do I do this, you might ask? The answer is, digitally. You sign the declaration online as you file your application on the Borger.dk website. You also reiterate the declaration when you attend the ceremony which confirms your citizenship, once you have been accepted for it.
Prior residency criteria
At the time of your application, you must already have a permit for permanent residency in Denmark for a minimum of two years, and have lived in Denmark for a specified number of years (see below).
People recognised as refugees, equated with refugees, or stateless, need a one year minimum permit for permanent residency.
Being a resident in Denmark means that you live permanently in the country and are registered at a Danish address (where you live) on the national civil registry (Det Centrale Personregister, CPR).
Certain applicants are exempt from one or both of the above conditions, for example Nordic citizens; former Danish citizens; people of Danish descent; members of the Danish minority of Southern Schleswig in Germany; applicants who are residing abroad due to the Danish spouse's work for Danish interests; and applicants who were born between 1961 and 1978 to a Danish mother and who could have acquired Danish citizenship if their mother had applied for it between 1979 and 1981; and children who apply for citizenship without their parents. You can read more about this here.
Permanent residency is granted via a number of different routes, depending on the way in which you originally made Denmark your home.
EU free movement
If you are a citizen of an EU country or the family member of an EU citizen, you can be granted permanent residency in Denmark after five years’ legal residency in the country under EU free movement rules. For this, you must make an appointment to hand in your application in person to the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI). SIRI has branch offices in Copenhagen, Odense, Aalborg, Aarhus and Aabenraa.
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Non-EU citizens
If you are not a citizen of an EU country, the path to permanent residency, and thereby citizenship, is longer. To qualify for a permanent residency permit (permanent opholdstilladelse), you must have been legally resident in the country under a limited residency permit (tidsbegrænset opholdstilladelse) for at least eight years (in some cases four years, and exceptions can also apply, for example for persons aged 18 or 19 and people with Danish ancestry).
There are also a number of stringent requirements related to criminal convictions, debt to the state and self-sufficiency, employment history and language skills. These will not be covered here, since they are superseded by the requirements for citizenship itself, but you can find more detail on permanent residency in the articles linked below.
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Length of stay
Normally, you must have lived in Denmark for nine consecutive years (without living elsewhere for more than three months) in order to qualify for citizenship. This period is reduced in some cases: for refugees it becomes eight years, citizens of Nordic countries need a two-year stay and people married to Danes qualify after 6-8 years, depending on the length of the marriage.
Other exceptions are made for those who have taken a significant portion of their education in Denmark, who may qualify after five years. If you moved to Denmark before your 15th birthday, you can become nationalised after you turn 18.
In certain cases, exemptions from residency duration requirements are made, for example if a Danish spouse has worked abroad or due to the applicant being stationed abroad while working for a Danish employer.
Public debt
Overdue repayments to the state, in the form of repayable social welfare payments, child support, excess housing support (boligstøtte), payment for daycare, police fines, municipal loans for paying deposits on rental housing, and unpaid taxes and fees can all result in rejection of a citizenship application.
Self-sufficiency
You are required to prove that you can provide for yourself. That means, for example, documenting that you have not received state social welfare support such as the basic unemployment support, kontanthjælp, or the welfare benefits provided to those granted refugee statues (integrationsydelsen), within the last two years.
Furthermore, you may not have received benefits of this type for more than a total period of four months within the last five years.
Other types of state benefit, such as the state student grant (statens uddannelsesstøtte, SU) and state pensions do not exclude you from qualifying for citizenship.
Unemployment insurance, parental leave and sick leave payouts (dagpenge) received over a total period of over four months will be added to the two years in which you must document that you were not supported by the state. Therefore, these types of benefit (which are partially self-funded) do not preclude you from applying for citizenship, and you can be in receipt of them at the time you apply.
Criminal convictions
Anyone who has received a criminal sentence, either conditional or unconditional, cannot become a Danish citizen under the country's naturalisation rules.
Milder punishments such as fines can result in a suspension from applying for a period of at least four and a half years. If someone has been penalised several times, the waiting period is extended.
You must declare while applying for citizenship whether you have committed a crime. If authorities later find (a two-year check is carried out) that you have not disclosed any criminal activities, your citizenship can be revoked.
If a crime was committed abroad, the case will be discussed by the Danish Parliament's Naturalisation Committee as to whether to grant dispensation.
Employment
You are required to have held a full-time job or been self-employed for three and a half of the last four years, and to still be employed at the time of application.
Full-time employment means employment in Denmark with an average working week of at least 30 hours. Employment as part of an education employment agreement with a company is also covered in this.
Applications are also considered by those who have been employed abroad by a Danish company or in connection with a spouse employed abroad by a Danish company for less than two years.
And those employed abroad for less than one year, where the posting or deployment is significant for the sake of the applicant's employment in Denmark.
There can be exceptions from this category, such as former Danish citizens, people of Danish descent, and members of the Danish minority of Southern Schleswig in Germany, certain children applying for citizenship without their parents, applicants who have reached the state pension age or have been granted an early retirement pension or senior pension.
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Language proficiency
In general, you must have passed the national Prøve i Dansk 3 or 'PD3' language test. This is an official exam by the Ministry of Education and marks the the conclusion of the free language course Danish Language 3, Module 5.
Passing PD3 is required for higher education and certain job positions as well as obtaining citizenship, and reaching this level corresponds to the European Framework for Languages level B2.
Having completed it means you will be comfortable with speaking, reading and writing in Danish at the time you apply for citizenship.
There are certain exemptions from the language requirements. Residents of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, as well as Swedish and Norwegian speakers, do not need to document Danish proficiency. Dispensation can be given for applicants with certain types of illnesses and disabilities, and different rules apply to children.
Prøve i Dansk 3: Everything you need to know about the Danish language exam
The Danish citizenship test
A condition of getting Danish citizenship, is that you demonstrate knowledge of Danish society, culture and history, by having passed the country's citizenship test, officially called Indfødsretsprøven af 2021.
In April 2021, the existing citizenship test, (indfødsretsprøven) consisting of 40 multiple choice questions, was supplemented with five extra questions about "Danish values" such as equality, freedom of speech and the relation between legislation and religion.
The citizenship test is held twice yearly, normally at the end of June and the end of November.
The pass mark is 36/45 and at least four of the five Danish values questions must be answered correctly. You’ll need to attach a certificate showing you’ve passed when you submit your application.
A few – but not many – exemptions apply meaning some people do not have to take the citizenship test. This includes children under 12 or people from Norway or Sweden, or people from the Danish minority in German region Schleswig-Holstein.
QUIZ: Can you pass the Danish citizenship test?
Where to apply
Applications for citizenship are made via the borger.dk citizens’ self-service website, where you must initially log-in using your MitID digital ID. You will then be guided through each step of the application and prompted to upload documentation. Applications can be saved in the system for up to a month. After this, you’ll have to begin from scratch.
You’ll be asked to confirm whether you are using legal representation for your application, then asked to fill in identity information. Some of this – your personal registration number and address, for example – will be automatically filled in. You will also be required to upload a photo of your passport.
Documentation which you will be asked to attach to the application includes certificates from your language and citizenship tests, educational certificates like degrees, a copy of your residence permit and your yellow public health insurance card.
For any given year in the last 12, you are obliged to give details of any stay outside of Denmark lasting four weeks or more. Additionally, if you spent a total of six weeks outside of the country in a calendar year, you have to give details of every single trip (even if all of the trips were under four weeks individually). This part of the application can be time consuming.
Given the hefty application fee, it is important to make sure you have everything in your application correct. It is beyond the scope of this article to cover the many different ways in which personal circumstances and history might affect a citizenship application, but there are options for seeking advice.
You can contact the Ministry of Immigration and Integration for guidance on citizenship rules. Their contact information (including an email address) can be found here.
You also have the option of seeking legal advice. Several organisations in Denmark can provide free or low-cost legal aid to residents, including foreign nationals.
What happens next?
Once your application is submitted, it’s time to play the waiting game. In mid-2025, the processing time for applications was approximately 24 months, according to the immigration ministry. Four years previously in 2021, it was 14 months.
If all goes well and your application is approved by the ministry, you will receive a letter notifying you that you can expect to be accepted for citizenship at the next round of parliamentary procedure, provided you still fulfil the requirements at that time.
Once the new law making you a citizen comes into force, you will be sent a declaration that you have been accepted for citizenship with one final condition: you attend a ceremony, declare that you will uphold Denmark’s laws, values and principles, shake hands with an official and become a citizen.
Sources: Udlændinge- og Integrationsministeriet (1), (2), Borger.dk, Nyidanmark.dk
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