READER QUESTION: How many years do I need to work in Denmark to qualify for the state pension?

Danish nationals resident in Denmark qualify for the country’s state pension (folkepension) when they reach the retirement age.

Currently, the retirement age is 67, because people who reach their 67th birthday in 2023 were born in 1956.

The retirement age is set to go up to 68 years for people born from 1963 onwards, and it has been lower in the past. You can see the retirement age for a range of birth dates in the table below.

Date of birth	Retirement age
Up to December 31st 1953	65
January-June 1954	65.5
July 1954-December 1954	66
January-June 1955	66.5
July 1955-December 1962	67
1963-1966	68
1967 or later	69

The future retirement ages are not set in stone – the Danish government can change them to bring them in line with extended life expectancies.

In general, you must fulfil three criteria to qualify for the Danish state pension: you must be a Danish citizen, reside in Denmark and have lived in Denmark for at least three years between the age of 15 and retirement.

However, exceptions to these rules apply, notably for foreign residents of Denmark.

It is also worth noting here that these rules only relate to the state pension. You may have a private pension in Denmark or your Danish employer may have paid into a fund on your behalf.

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If you are not a Danish citizen you can still qualify for the state pension if you have lived in Denmark for at least 10 years between the age of 15 and retirement age. In this case, you must have been living in Denmark for at least the last five years at the time you retire and are granted the pension.

Citizens of EU and EEA countries and Switzerland do not generally need to be a Danish citizen to qualify for the national pension, and are therefore covered by the same rules as Danes.

British nationals, who are no longer citizens of an EU country as of 2021 following the end of the Brexit transition period, are still eligible for the Danish state pension if they fulfil the regular criteria. This is because the UK and EU agreed to continue reciprocal pension arrangements after the UK left the EU.

This means that both Danish citizens resident in the UK, and British citizens resident in Denmark are still eligible for the Danish state pension.

Refugees may also qualify for the state pension under certain sections of Denmark’s Aliens Act (Udlændingeloven). However, different rules apply for refugees who arrived in Denmark after September 2015.

How much pension do I qualify for?

The amount of Danish state pension you can receive depends on the number of years you have lived in Denmark between the ages of 15 and retirement.

If you have worked and earned social pensions in other countries, these periods of time do not normally count towards your Danish pension, even if you lived in Denmark when your income was based abroad.

You qualify for the full state pension if you have amassed the equivalent of 40 working years in Denmark in the period in which you can earn pension (working age).

You can also receive the full pension if you lived in Denmark for nine tenths of the period between your 15th birthday and retirement age.

If the amount of time you have lived and earned pension in Denmark is less than this, you can receive a partial pension or brøkpension to give it its Danish term. This will be calculated based on the amount of time you lived in Denmark in the period that qualifies for pension accrual (not including periods in which you earned pension in other countries by working there).

What about pension I have earned outside of Denmark?

Whether you can receive a foreign pension in Denmark depends on the rules in the country where you earned that pension. When you apply for the Danish pension, however, your application automatically becomes an application for pension in other EU/EEA countries and Switzerland as well as other countries with which Denmark has agreements (conventions) in place.

The Danish authority responsible for paying out pensions, Udbetaling Danmark, forwards your application to authorities in the relevant country based on your personal information. More information on this can be found (in Danish) here.

Source: borger.dk