The result of the 2026 Danish election hung in the balance on Tuesday evening with the exit poll suggesting neither the left or right wing blocs would win enough seats to form a majority.
But whoever ends up taking charge of the country, a look at their election pledges in the run up to Tuesday's vote revealed that many policies will impact foreigners.
Denmark's prime minister Mette Frederiksen pulled the Social Democrats to the left in this election campaign, suggesting she's aiming to form a left-of-centre government, perhaps with the Green Left party and the Social Liberals.
The other main prime ministerial contender, Troels Lund Poulsen, leader of the Liberal Party (Venstre), on the other hand looked likely to need the support of the far-right Denmark Democrats and Danish People's Party, as well as the Liberal Alliance, Conservatives and Moderates, to form a government.
That could potentially open the way to some unwelcome reforms for foreigners in the country.
Citizenship
If you thought Denmark's citizenship rules were strict enough, think again. Several parties have pledged to make it even harder to become a naturalised Dane.
The Liberal Alliance wants the citizenship application process to be tightened so that each applicant has to be individually screened to ensure that they do not have an "antidemocratic mindset" and support “fundamental free rights and democracy”.
The Liberal Party (Venstre), meanwhile, has proposed a plan for a five-year probationary period for citizenship. Under this proposal, new citizens who receive an unconditional prison sentence during this five-year period would lose their Danish citizenship.
Danish law currently only allows for citizenship to be revoked for crimes causing “serious harm to Denmark’s vital interests”. This is the threshold for revoking citizenship set by the European Convention on Nationality.
The Liberal Party said it wants to negotiate an amendment to the convention with its co-signatories so that it can bring in the probationary period, and has threatened to leave the convention if it fails.
Easing international recruitment rules
The Moderate Party has said it wants to make it much easier for foreign workers to come to Denmark, proposing a radical liberalisation of the work permit system which will allow employers to hire international workers directly if the position is covered by and meets the requirements of a union collective bargaining agreement.
This would see the Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) largely lose its role in vetting work permits, since 100 percent of public sector jobs and three-quarters of private sector jobs are covered by collective agreements.
The party also wants to:
- cut the work permit salary threshold (beløbsordning) by 10,000 kroner a month to 27,500 kroner for non-OECD citizens.
- implement a one-month processing guarantee for work and residence permits
- allow flexible salary packages including stocks and options
- simplify short-term stay arrangements so workers need only register biometrics once per year rather than for each entry
Making life easier for international students
The Social Liberal party has pledged to make Denmark more welcoming and accessible for international students, proposing a string of liberalising measures, including:
- abolishing the cap on English-language higher education programs
- extending job-search residence permits for international graduates from one to three years
- making professional master’s programs (erhvervskandidatuddannelser) free for non-EU students
- establishing a retention incentive (fastholdelsestaxameter) for English-language programs
Tax rises
The Social Democrats have proposed a 0.5 percent wealth tax on anyone with combined assets worth 25 million kroner (€3.3m), or 50 million kroner for couples, with the tax only levied on the portion of wealth above these thresholds.
The party claims the tax will raise 6.5 billion kroner in annual revenue, which it plans to use to fund its “Lilleskolen” initiative, which would hire roughly 4,000 new teachers and invest 5 billion kroner in Danish schools.
If this functions like the Norwegian wealth tax, it is likely to include all assets regardless of the country of origin. Real estate owned internationally is exempted from Norway’s wealth tax, but other significant assets, such as retirement savings and other investments, are not, even if held in an IRA.
In a related policy, the left-wing Red-Green Alliance has called for higher taxes on share and capital ownership, which would then be used to fund tax cuts for people on low incomes.
Tax cuts
The Liberal Party (Venstre), Moderate Party and Social Democrats reached a political agreement in January to cut VAT on food from 2028, with the Liberals calling for a reduction in VAT from 25 percent to 20 percent on all food items, and the Moderates instead wanting VAT to be completely eliminated from fruit and vegetables.
The Social Democrats, the senior partner in the coalition, remained undecided but prefers a general reduction, meaning they may drag their feet on this agreement if they form a new left-wing coalition after the election.
The Liberal Party also planned to cut corporate tax from 22 percent to 20 percent, as part of its 20 billion kroner tax reform.
The Moderates were also planning on reforming Denmark’s housing tax system, replacing the current dual system of ground rent (grundskyld) and property value tax (ejendomsværdiskat) with a simpler, unified tax that would be lower overall.
As part of this, it plans to levy a new capital gains tax when homes are sold, which would come alongside a “friværdigaranti” (home equity guarantee) protecting homeowners’ equity. The party has said it wants a special commission to be set up after the election to develop concrete proposals.
More foreigners to be deported
The Liberal and Social Democratic parties have been competing over who has the toughest policy on deporting foreigners, while the far-right Denmark Democrats and Danish People's Party tested the boundaries of what is politically acceptable.
The Social Democrats' core policy revolves around its plan for a new Deportation Agency (Udvisningsstyrelse), to handle deportation cases.
"Too many cases are today dragged through long court proceedings. Deportations should be able to be processed through a separate administrative track," Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard has said.
The party has also continuing to campaign for asylum reception centres outside the EU, where asylum seekers can stay while their cases are processed. As before, it wants to do this alongside other EU countries.
The Liberal Party has pledged a "comprehensive deportation reform" with the “clear starting point” that foreigners sentenced to at least one year of unconditional imprisonment should be deported.
The party has also called for GPS ankle monitors for foreigners without legal residence who repeatedly violate rules at departure centres. Finally, it wants to cut aid to countries who refuse to take back citizens rejected for asylum in Denmark, such as Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Afghanistan, as a way of increasing returns.
The Danish People's Party has said it will not support a future centre-right government which does not commit to ensuring “net emigration” of Muslims from Denmark, a policy parties on the left complain violates Denmark's tradition of freedom of religion.
"Is it polite? Is it politically correct? Is it how you make friends at Christiansborg?" posted the party's leader Morten Messerschmidt on X. "No. But it is necessary for Denmark to remain Danish.”
The Denmark Democrats, meanwhile, have said that their support will be contingent on "a concrete plan to repatriate the Syrians who are here". The party wants a future prime minister to present a repatriation plan for Syrians within 100 days of forming a government. Around 28,000 Syrians have a temporary residence permit in Denmark, while 4,557 have a permanent one. The Denmark Democrats want all of these permits to be reviewed.
Integration
The Social Democrats has proposed, once again, that no school, daycare, or youth education institution should have more than 30 percent bilingual students by 2030. They party also wants to remove state funding for Muslim free schools.
The Denmark Democrats have proposed installing surveillance cameras with facial recognition technology in “parallel society" areas with high concentrations of convicted criminals. The technology would be used to alert police when individuals violate residence bans and to assist investigations of serious crimes.
The party's leader Inger Støjberg, a former immigration minister who received a 60-day prison sentence and was expelled from parliament in 2021 for issuing an illegal directive while in the post, has claimed that “law-abiding citizens will not notice anything".
Housing
A key plank of the Liberal Party's election platform has been to push to increase the number of Danes who own their own home, with party leader Troels Lund Poulsen stated that “the police officer, the nurse, and the hairdresser should have the opportunity to own a home, whether they live in the capital or Holstebro.”
Proposals included converting empty commercial spaces into owner-occupied housing, allowing municipalities to require that half of all new construction be owner-occupied, facilitating loans outside major cities, and speeding up building permit processes.
Poulsen has emphasised that “Venstre will not increase property taxes in Denmark,” positioning the party against recent debates about housing taxation while acknowledging that both rental and cooperative housing remain important.
The Social Democratic party has ruled out making any changes to existing property taxes or imposing new capital gains taxes on housing.
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