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BREXIT

Should British-Danish dual citizenship applicants also apply for post-Brexit residency?

British nationals who are applying for, or have been approved for, Danish citizenship in 2021 likely also need to apply for post-Brexit residency in Denmark.

Published: 17 September 2021 15:21 CEST
Updated: 19 September 2021 16:45 CEST
Should British-Danish dual citizenship applicants also apply for post-Brexit residency?
British nationals with active Danish citizenship applications are likely to need to apply for post-Brexit residency status. Photo: Nils Meilvang/Ritzau Scanpix

British nationals who moved to Denmark under EU free movement rules before December 31st 2020 must submit an application for new residence status and a new residence document in 2021.

But what about those who are applying or have already been approved for Danish citizenship?

Citizenship entitles you to a Danish passport and gives you the right to vote in parliamentary elections, as well as providing a permanent basis for residency in the country. It also means you retain the right to live and work in Denmark (and other EU countries) even if you leave Denmark.

You must, of course, meet a number of closely-defined criteria and requirements in order to be eligible for citizenship by naturalisation.

Permanent residency means that a person is allowed to stay in Denmark and does not need to apply for residence again, though is important to note that if you leave Denmark for more than two years, you will have to revoke your permanent residency. 

It also means you no longer need to meet the conditions for your original grounds for residence, so you won’t lose your right to reside in Denmark if you stop working or studying, for example.

READ ALSO:

But if you are a British national who is eligible for Danish citizenship, and even if you have already applied for Danish citizenship, you probably need to apply for the post-Brexit residence status as well.

If you have applied for Danish citizenship but not yet received a decision, you need to apply for the post-Brexit status. That is because you would not be expected to become a full Danish citizen by the end of 2021.

Under Danish law, citizenship can only be granted to foreign nationals via legal nationalisation: applications must be voted through by parliament. Successful applicants for citizenship receive notification that they will be accepted on the next naturalisation bill. These are normally put forward twice a year, in April and October, and voted through around June and December respectively.

But once the bill with your successful citizenship claim has passed parliament, you are still not a full citizen until you have attended a so-called ‘citizenship ceremony’ at your local municipality and shaken hands with a local official.

Dependent on how far you have come through this process in 2021, you will likely still need to apply for the post-Brexit permanent residency.

“Citizenship is initially effective from the moment the applicant has participated in a citizenship ceremony, if this is a condition [exemption is granted in specific cases, ed.],” the Ministry of Immigration and Integration told The Local via email.

“The law which is expected to be tabled in October 2021 is expected to be passed in December 2021, taking effect around the turn of the year. Since municipalities must conduct citizenship ceremonies one to four months after the law granting the right to citizenship takes effect, the applicant would not be able to take part in a citizenship ceremony before the end of 2021,” the ministry explained.

For applicants not required to take part in the ceremonies, it is currently unclear whether the law will take effect in 2021 or 2022, it added, meaning people in this situation should also apply for post-Brexit status.

As such, British applicants who currently reside in Denmark under the pre-Brexit EU rules for permanent residency must apply for the new document before December 31st.

“If the applicant does not apply for a new residency document according to the (Brexit) withdrawal agreement by the end of 2021, that person risks losing their right to reside in Denmark,” the ministry wrote.

But one group of 2021 citizenship applicants may not need to apply for post-Brexit permanent residency, according to the immigration ministry: those whose applications were already ratified by parliament in June this year.

This group will have already taken part in citizenship ceremonies or have one coming up soon, since these must be held between July and October 2021.

If you have taken part in a citizenship ceremony during this time you will have become a Danish citizen before the deadline for application for post-Brexit permanent residency, namely December 31st.

“However, the ministry generally recommends everyone encompassed by the withdrawal agreement to send their application for residency status to SIRI,” the ministry wrote.

It should be noted that while EU free movement allowed British nationals to live anywhere in the EU, the withdrawal agreement “only gives right in the country in which that person has taken residence and not in other EU member states,” the ministry told The Local.

Additionally, British citizens who moved to Denmark under EU free movement before switching to the new withdrawal agreement residency status will still be eligible for family reunification under EU rules, the ministry also confirmed to The Local. This is provided by the withdrawal agreement and remains valid if that person later becomes a Danish citizen.

“This applies even though the family member does not yet reside in Denmark. However, it is a requirement that the family relation existed before the expiry of the transition period on December 31st, 2020,” the ministry stated.

According to figures provided to The Local by the immigration ministry, the end of the transition period does not appear to have prompted a spike in Brits applying for dual citizenship.

Ministry figures show 527 Brits applied for Danish citizen ship in 2019, followed by 507 in 2020. The data carry a degree of uncertainty because they are based on a registration system, rather than a statistical count.

So far this year (up to September 15th), 290 people with British citizenship have applied for Danish naturalisation, the ministry said.

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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.” 

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