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Brexit: What Brits in Denmark need to do before and after December 31st

With the end of the Brexit transitional period between the EU and United Kingdom approaching, UK nationals in Denmark must take steps to maintain their residency in 2021 – including those who already have legal residence in the country.

Published: 10 November 2020 14:51 CET
Updated: 5 December 2020 11:08 CET

Brexit: What Brits in Denmark need to do before and after December 31st

Photo: Niels Ahlmann Olesen/Ritzau Scanpix

The Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (Styrelsen for International Rekruttering og Integration, SIRI) has contacted British citizens registered as living in Denmark to inform them of steps they may need to take prior to December 31st and will need to take after that date.

Any Britons in Denmark who have dual Danish nationality or dual nationality with an EU or Nordic country or Switzerland are not affected – but everyone else is.

Legal residents prior to December 31st, 2020 have right to stay

This is an important fact to know from the SIRI circular. If you are registered as a legal resident in Denmark under EU free movement rules prior to December 31st, your right to reside in Denmark can be preserved following that date.

“According to the withdrawal agreement you can maintain your residence rights in the host member state as defined in the EU rules on free movement. This means that you can continue to live, work or study in Denmark on the same conditions as now,” the letter states.

As such, if you have either form of legal residence in Denmark (temporary or permanent) obtained via EU free movement rules prior to December 31st, you will be able to stay after that date, although you will need to submit a new form in 2021 (more on this below).

What do I do if I’m not currently registered as resident in Denmark?

Under the terms of the withdrawal agreement, UK citizens and their family members can continue to exercise their right to free movement in accordance with EU rules until December 31st, 2020. You can therefore apply for residency under EU free movement rules up to that date via the New to Denmark website. You should do this as soon as you can.

What happens if I’m not registered as resident in Denmark on or after January 1st, 2021?

If you have not registered as Denmark-resident under EU free movement rules by the end of the current year, you will count as a “third country” national (i.e. of a country with no free movement arrangement with Denmark) as of January 1st.

You will have to apply for a residence permit as a third country national under the Danish Aliens Act if you want to take up residence in Denmark: a pathway significantly more difficult than preservation of your free movement status. Click here for official information on the various ways to qualify for residence as a third country national.

I am British and already have residence in Denmark under EU free movement rules. Do I need to do anything?

Yes, you do. But not before January 1st.

SIRI’s circular states that “in order to preserve your residence right in Denmark in accordance with the withdrawal agreement you are obliged to submit an application for issuance of a new residence status and a new residence document”.

A new online application platform for this will be launched on the New to Denmark website. The platform will be launched on January 1st, according to SIRI. You will be able to submit the application no sooner than January 1st, 2021 and no later than December 31st, 2021. So, some time in 2021 – but not necessarily at the beginning of the year (see below for an explanation of this).

All UK citizens and their family members who have taken up legal residence in Denmark under EU free movement rules before December 31st this year must apply to continue their residence status. This includes permanent residents (people who have lived in Denmark under EU rules for over 5 years are entitled to permanent residency).

Cross-border workers from the UK will similarly need to apply to confirm their status in order to continue to work in Denmark and live in the UK or another EU country without a work permit.

What happens when and after I apply?

Next month, reminders will be sent out to UK nationals (via the eboks secure email system) as to when they must submit applications – these will be spread across the year so as to prevent a backlog, so you might not have to send anything in January, for example. You will keep your right to reside in Denmark up to the point you send your application as well as while it is being processed.

SIRI states that, “if you meet the conditions of the withdrawal agreement, SIRI will issue a residence card which documents your right to reside in Denmark.”

Residence cards are valid for, respectively, five years (temporary residence) and ten years (permanent residence).

Do I need to submit anything I might not already have?

Yes, unfortunately you do. In addition to the regular types of documentation you would have had to provide with an EU free movement application, you will also need to submit biometric data for the residence card.

That means you will need to get your biometric data recorded at one of SIRI’s five branch offices, located in Copenhagen, Odense, Aalborg, Aarhus, and Aabenraa.

Did this article cover any questions you might have about retaining residency after Brexit? Did we miss anything or would you like us to follow anything up with the Danish authorities? Let us know.

Member comments

Anonymous - 10 November 2020 at 17:22 CET

Article says SIRI has contacted British residents but I haven’t heard from them to date.

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'I feel exiled': How Brits in Europe are locked abroad with foreign partners

Europe is home to hundreds of thousands of British nationals, many of whom have foreign partners and children. But if they want to move to the UK to live and work it will soon become more difficult.

When it comes to getting a partner visa, the UK has some of the strictest rules in Europe. In addition to hefty fees and a healthcare surcharge, the Home Office requires British citizens and long-term residents who bring their foreign partner to the UK to have a minimum income showing they can support them without relying on the social security system.

The minimum income up until now was set at £18,600 (€21,700), or £22,400 (€26,100) if the couple had one child, plus another £2,400 (€2,800) for each other child.

But these income requirements will rise steeply from April 11th 2024.

How it works: What Brits in Europe should know about UK’s new minimum income rules

From this date the minimum a British national or long-term resident will need to earn if they want to return home will increase to £29,000 (€33,800) and up to £38,000 (€44,313) by spring 2025, although there will no longer be an additional amount for accompanying children.

Alternatively, families need to prove they have at least £62,500 (€72,884) in cash, which from 11 April will increase to £88,500 (€103,207).

‘Family life has been destroyed’

To put this in context the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford suggests that around 50 percent of UK employees earn less than the £29,000 threshold and 70 percent less than £38,700. The Observatory also says that while the number of people affected by the policy is small compared to the overall UK immigration (family visas represent 5 percent of all entry visas), the impacts on concerned families can be “very significant”.

The Migration Observatory notes that other European countries apply income thresholds to sponsor foreign partners. Spain, for instance, requires sponsors to have an annual income equal to the social security salary. In Denmark, sponsors must not have claimed social benefits in the three years before the application. But in Spain and the US, the partner’s foreign income also counts towards the threshold.

So what does this mean for mixed British and international families living in Europe who might want or even need to return to the UK to live?

Campaigners have complained that many Britons with foreign partners have simply been “locked abroad” or families have been separated while they try to meet the minimum income or savings requirement.

Reunite Families UK, a non-profit organisation supporting people affected by the UK spouse visa rules, says this policy causes distress, especially for children.

Some 65 percent of respondents in research carried out by the group said that their child received a diagnosis of a mental health condition due to the separation of their parents.

“Since its introduction, this policy has destroyed the family life of countless people and children,” Matteo Besana, Advocacy and Campaigns Manager at Reunite Families UK said.

“Women have been forced to become single parents to their children and live away from their partner and the father of their children only because they didn’t meet the threshold.

“As shown by our research on the mental health impact of the policy, these are scars that, particularly for children, will be carried for the rest of their lives,” Besana said.

The people most likely to be affected are women, who tend to earn less or not work because they took on caring responsibilities. Also heavily impacted are people under 30 and over 50 years of age, people living outside London and the Southeast of England where wages are higher, and those belonging to specific ethnicities, according to the Migration Observatory.

The Local spoke to two British women, in Italy and Sweden, struggling to return to the UK with their families because of these rules.

More savings needed

Sarah Douglas, who has been living in Italy since 2007, was planning to return to Scotland with her Italian husband and three children.

“It was always our long-term goal to move back to the UK after we had our children and once we’d have saved enough to buy a home in the UK,” she said.

“In hindsight, we should have gone after the Brexit referendum, but in the beginning it wasn’t clear what the final deal would be and I naively assumed that situations like mine would be taken into account and we would have the right to return… Once it did become clear, we were in the middle of the pandemic and it wasn’t the time to move,” she said.

Having stayed home to take care of the children, Sarah will find it hard to land a job near her family in Scotland that meets the minimum income required to sponsor a foreign partner for a UK visa.

Her husband, a computer programmer, has been trying to get an employment visa, “but most of them state that you must already have permission to work in the UK,” Sarah says. And applying for British citizenship is not an option for a non-UK resident spouse.

‘People need to be aware’

Sarah and her husband are trying to save as much as they can, an alternative to the income requirement, but the amount they need is rising to almost £90,000, meaning it may be a long time before they have enough to move home.

While the aim of the UK’s policy is to ensure families moving to the UK are not a burden on the taxpayer, the reality is that people arriving on a family visa are not able to claim any benefits from the UK government.

“They should judge the overall financial viability of the family unit, rather than just the earning potential of the sponsoring partner,” Sarah says.

“We could live well with my husband’s salary and he could work remotely. We are stable and financially secure, but because I don’t earn any money, they say we are not able to support ourselves.”

Sarah says that most of the British public are unaware of the minimum income requirement.

“People think if you are married, your husband is allowed to come to the UK, but when I say no, it doesn’t work like that, they are really surprised. A lot of people are not aware of how this could affect them,” she said.

Looking for a job from abroad

Another British women who lives in Sweden with her South African husband and two children and plans to move to the UK told The Local how the minimum income requirement had put them in a “precarious and stressful situation”.

The woman, who preferred to remain anonymous said: “After having the two children, I was very fortunate to find a research position and do my PhD, which is a salaried position in Scandinavia, and now that I finished, we are looking to leave.

“But I need a job in the UK to sponsor my husband, and as a new graduate with limited work experience, it is not easy. It is even more difficult when you are not in the country and I missed out on opportunities because they wanted an immediate start. I really don’t want to move without my whole family,” she said.

She says the UK’s policy is “gendered and geographically discriminatory” because it makes life harder for women and also harder for anyone who is planning to move to a part of the country that isn’t in London, where salaries are higher.

“I feel exiled from my country and separated from my family there,” she said.

Her husband, she argues, has his own company and could continue working remotely from the UK, earning well above the requirement. He would also pay taxes and national insurance while having to pay the healthcare surcharge, a form of double taxation, she argues. But that would not entitle him to a visa.

“Our house is on the market now. We have booked removal companies for the 6th of June. The dog is booked for his transport. I just think this policy is so out of touch with the modern world,” she said.

Reunite Families UK has called on the government to recognise the right for British or settled citizens to bring their close family members to the UK and scrap the minimum income requirement. Alternatively, the group says the rules should take into consideration the earning potential of both partners and consider “the best interests of children”.

A petition on the UK parliament website asks the government to reconsider the minimum income policy. If it reaches 100,000 signatures, it will have to be debated in parliament.

This article has been produced by Europe Street news.

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