Denmark · Tax regime
Tax Scheme for Researchers and Highly Paid Employees (Forskerordningen)
Reformed
Last verified July 2026
Open, and improved for 2026: the minimum monthly salary fell to DKK 65,400 after ATP, down from DKK 78,000 in 2025. Duration is 84 months (7 years), a lifetime maximum.
Denmark cut the entry threshold for 2026 while most of Europe was tightening — 32.84% flat for seven years is among the best expatriate deals on the continent, and the threshold cut widens eligibility meaningfully. But it is once in a lifetime and requires you not to have been Danish-taxable in the prior ten years, so sequencing errors are unrecoverable. Use it at the right moment or not at all.
Qualifying routes
65.4k DKK
Highly paid employee
minimum monthly salary after ATP, assessed as an annual average so a weak month can be offset
—
Approved researcher
no salary minimum for PhD-level approved researchers
The facts
- Qualifying figure
- 65.4k DKK
- Total landed cost
- 27% A-tax plus 8% labour market contribution = 32.84% effective, against a normal marginal rate of 52-56%. On DKK 2m a year that is roughly DKK 400,000 of annual saving.
- Timeline
- 1–3 months — registered through the employer with SKAT
- Physical presence
- Danish tax residence and genuine employment with a Danish employer
- Family
- individual to the employee; a spouse needs their own qualifying employment
- Permanent residency
- Separate track — the tax scheme confers no immigration status
- Citizenship
- 9 years
- Language test
- Prøve i Dansk 3 (B2 level, all four skills) plus the Indfødsretsprøven citizenship test
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- not liable to Danish tax in the previous 10 yearsemployment with a Danish employerminimum monthly salary of DKK 65,400 after ATP (no minimum for approved researchers)not have had significant influence over the employing company
What can go wrong
- ONCE IN A LIFETIME, and you must not have been liable to Danish tax in the previous 10 years. Burn it on a short assignment and it is gone forever. Sequence deliberately.
- ZERO deductions on covered income: no pension relief, no mortgage interest, no employment deduction. The 32.84% is not as cheap as it looks against a Dane's effective rate after deductions.
- The threshold FELL for 2026 to DKK 65,400/month — it did not rise. Any memo citing DKK 78,000 is a year out of date.
- Salary is assessed as an annual average, which gives useful flexibility across months.
- Both employee AND employer must notify if conditions lapse; failure means assessment errors and forfeiture of the remaining benefit.
- 84 months is a lifetime maximum, splittable across employers and periods — but it does not reset.