Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

BREXIT

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).

READ ALSO: EU citizen? Here's how your free movement rights apply in Denmark

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

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

INTERVIEW

‘A noticeable change’: What Denmark’s plans to change family reunion rules mean

Olivia Scott, chair of the campaign group Marriage Without Borders, tells The Local that while the Danish government's plans to make it easier to bring a foreign spouse to the country are welcome, they don't go nearly far enough.

Published: 3 May 2024 17:12 CEST
'A noticeable change': What Denmark's plans to change family reunion rules mean

Scott, a Dane who is married to an American, told The Local that her organisation, Ægteskab Uden Grænser, had mixed views about the bill, which will give Danish international executives the same rights to bring a foreign wife to Denmark as foreign executives, halve the bank guarantee or bankgaranti those bringing a spouse to Denmark have to leave for their local municipality, and reduce language requirements for the Danish partner. 

“For some it will make a noticeable change,” she said of the bank guarantee change, “because it is going from being around 114,000 kroner to 57,000 kroner which is much more digestible, especially for younger people, so of course that’s welcome. But we just don’t think it should be there at all.”

As municipalities almost never draw funds from the deposits to support spouses who have come to Denmark, the system, she said, was actually costing them more in adminstration fees than they were gaining from it. “So it ends up becoming a cost for our municipalities and for our government, instead of serving the purpose it’s supposed to serve.” 

READ ALSO: What’s in the new law on bringing a foreign spouse to Denmark?

As for the plan to allow Danish executives returning to Denmark for work to bring a foreign wife and family under the same rules as apply to foreign executives, she said this followed a pattern in Denmark where only so called mønsterborgere, or “outstanding citizens” were welcome to bring spouses to the country. 

“Yes, there are some people that will benefit from this, and we’re always happy when there are regulations that change for the better,” she said. “But this is still just a small group.” 

Olivia Scott is chair of Marriage without Fronteirs. Photo: private

She said the attention being given to Danish executives in the bill simply served to emphasise the gap in the way regular Danes and “highly educated Danes with a lot of money” are seen by the government. 

“That this regulation is making it easier for highly educated individuals with good jobs, is, again, confirming this premise that it is only ‘outstanding citizens’ that we feel should be able to enjoy the ability to be family unified,” she said. 

The third part of the new law, which alters the language requirements for the Danish partner was, she said, welcome, as many Danes who wanted to bring a spouse to Denmark were being foreced to take a Danish exam to prove their ability to speak their own native language.  

“There has been a group of elderly gentleman that simply do not have the physical documentation that they passed their ninth grade. It’s called the afgangseksamen. It’s a physical document that they have lost over the last couple of decades, and so they have had to go and take a Danish test to certify their level of Danish, which is ridiculous because they’re Danish and they’ve lived and studying here their whole life.”

As for the final bit of the new bill, which will block spousal reunions if either the Dane or their partner has been charged or is under prosecution for a crime, Scott said Marriage without Borders supported the idea that someone who has been sentenced for comitting a hard crime is limited in their ability to get family reunification.

“But maybe there should be consideration paid to how long ago the crime was committed,” she said. 

In addition, she said, there was little evidence that foreign spouses tended to commit crimes, so the change would have little impact. 

“If you go and you look at statistics on foreign spouses family reunified with Danish citizens, the crime rate is lower in this specific group than it is among regular ethnic Danes.” 

Finally, she said that even if the bill represented a step forward, her organisation intended to keep pushing for additional relaxations of Denmark’s draconian family reunification rules. 

“Obviously, we hope that it’s going to go further, but we as an organisation are not going to be happy until the day when the rules for family reunion according to Danish law are equalised with those under EU law,” she said. “We cannot accept that the under EU law, you can come to the country as long as you can financially support yourself, and you can obtain permanent residency in five years, whereas for Danish laws, you are locked-into sometimes decades of struggles for no reason.” 

SHOW COMMENTS