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‘We’ve found a solution’: Denmark extends deadline for post-Brexit residency

The Danish government announced on Monday that British nationals, who had missed a previous deadline to secure their post-Brexit residency status, will now have until the end of 2023 to apply or resubmit their late application.

Published: 27 March 2023 14:37 CEST

'We've found a solution': Denmark extends deadline for post-Brexit residency

A file photo of the Danish and UK flags at the Danish parliament. Denmark's immigration ministry has extended an application deadline for post-Brexit residency for British nationals under the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

After the UK left the EU, Britons resident in Denmark before the end of 2020 were required to apply to extend their residence status in Denmark and receive a Danish residence card under the terms of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

A significant number of British residents – at least 350, according to official figures released at the beginning of this year – did not apply before the original deadline of December 31st, 2021, however.

Many were subsequently given orders to leave Denmark and Danish immigration authorities came in for much criticism from rights groups representing Britons in Europe, who accused them of not correctly applying the rules of the Withdrawal Agreement.

But on Monday the Danish government announced that the initial deadline will now be extended until the end of 2023.

This extended deadline will apply to all British citizens who applied after the original deadline and whose applications were subsequently not processed.

Brits who had moved to Denmark before the end of 2020 but never submitted an application to extend their Danish residency after Brexit will also have until the end of this year to submit an application, the Ministry of Immigration and Integration said.

A major complication with the original application deadline was an error relating to information letters sent out by the authority that processes the applications, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI).

The information letters, sent in 2020, were intended to inform all British nationals living in Denmark of the need to apply for their residence status in Denmark to be continued after Brexit. But an error at the agency resulted in most people who moved from the UK to Denmark in 2020 not receiving the information mails.

The Local has previously reported on individual Britons who faced having to leave homes, jobs and loved ones in Denmark over the issue.

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“I am very pleased we have found this solution,” Minister for Immigration and Integration Kaare Dybvad Bek said in the statement.

“It has always been the government’s intention to make it easy and smooth for resident British nationals to stay in Denmark. There are some people who didn’t apply on time and we want to give them an extra chance,” he said.

Mads Fuglede, immigration spokesperson with coalition partner the Liberals (Venstre), said that “In light of Brexit, we decided in parliament that it should not harm British residents of Denmark that the United Kingdom is no longer part of the EU. I am therefore also pleased we have found a solution for the Britons who did not apply on time”.

All British residents of Denmark applying within the new deadline are still required to be eligible for ongoing residence in Denmark under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, meaning they legally took up residence in Denmark under the EU’s free movement provisions prior to the UK’s exit from the EU. This does not represent any change to the rules under the earlier deadline.

British residents who must now submit applications by the new deadline should be aware of the distinction between an earlier application being rejected, with it not being processed.

In general, applications that missed the old deadline were not processed, unless SIRI deemed there to be special circumstances justifying the late submission. In these cases, SIRI informed the applicant that their application could not be processed, citing the missed deadline as the reason for this.

Persons whose applications were processed but were rejected because they did not meet the criteria for ongoing residence under the Withdrawal Agreement will not be given the chance to reapply, the ministry said.

People who moved to Denmark after the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31st, 2020 are still subject to general Danish immigration rules for third-country nationals.

The deadline extension will require a legal amendment which will be sent into the hearing phase of parliamentary procedure “as soon as possible”, the ministry said.

Member comments

Anonymous - 27 March 2023 at 19:53 CEST

Just deport them, they should have been aware brexit brought additional rules and the requirement to submit paperwork was very widely published. If they can’t comply with simple rules they don’t deserve to stay.

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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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