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FAMILY

What benefits are you entitled to if you have children in Denmark?

Having children is a costly business but luckily in Denmark, there is help. As well as affordable childcare there are other benefits you can claim if you have children in Denmark. Here are the details.

Published: 22 April 2022 16:23 CEST
Updated: 13 July 2023 16:33 CEST
a child
Having children is not a cheap business in Denmark. Luckily, help is available. Photo by Tanaphong Toochinda on Unsplash

When you have children in Denmark, there are various family benefits you could qualify for, depending on your circumstances. These are administered by Udbetaling Danmark.

The main one is:

Child and youth benefits (børne- og ungeydelsen), also known as børnepenge.

This is a tax-free payment that you receive for each of your children until they reach the age of 18.

The amount you receive depends on the age of your child, how long you have been earning the right to Danish family benefits, your income and the income of any spouse.

Child benefits are paid quarterly in advance from the first quarter after you have become a parent. So for example you receive money in January, for January, February and March.

When your child reaches the age of 15, you will receive a youth benefit instead of a child benefit, which is paid every month in arrears.

Payments used to be paid into the mother’s Nemkonto (designated current account) but from January 2022, that changed. Now half the payment is automatically made into each parent’s Nemkonto, unless parents share a Nemkonto.

How much can I receive in child and youth benefit?

This depends on the age of your child and the amount is slightly adjusted each year. The amount below is for 2022:

0-2 years: 4,653 kroner per quarter (2,327 kroner to each parent)

3-6 years: 3,681 kroner per quarter (1,841 kroner to each parent)

7-14 years: 2,898 kroner per quarter (1,449 kroner to each parent)

15-17 years:  966 kroner per month (483 kroner to each parent)

You receive the full benefit if you and your spouse each separately earn less than 828,100 kroner (2022), otherwise the amount is reduced.

You apply for child and youth benefit by completing a form, which can be found on borger.dk, under Family and Children. You need a copy of your contract of employment from your Danish employer and your children’s birth certificate.

What are the conditions to apply?

If you are a foreigner and work in Denmark, you may apply for child benefits if you:

  • share custody of the child
  • can document that you are related to the child
  • are a citizen in an EU/EEA country or Switzerland, if your child does not live in Denmark.

You must also have worked or lived in Denmark for a certain period within the past 10 years.

This is where it gets tricky.

You can only receive the full amount of benefit, after living in Denmark for 6 out of the past 10 years. Before this, it is a percentage of the benefit. It starts at 8.3% of the benefit amount and it increases every six months:

6 months: 8.3 percent, 1 year: 16.7 percent, 1.5 year: 25 percent, 2 years: 33.3 percent, 2.5 years: 41.7 percent, 3 years: 50 percent, 3.5 years: 58.3 percent, 4 years: 66.7 percent, 4.5 years: 75 percent, 5 years: 83.3 percent, 5.5 years: 91.7 percent, 6 years: 100 percent.

If you have received Danish family benefits before 1st January 2018 and are still entitled to it, you are covered by a two-year qualification requirement.

This means that you must have lived or worked in Denmark for at least 2 years within the past 10 years to get the full benefit amount. It starts at 25 percent at six months, 50 percent after 1 year, 75 percent after 1.5 years and 100 percent after two years.

If you are a citizen of an EU/EEA country or Switzerland, you can include the time you have received family benefits by living or working in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland.

So for example, if you move to Denmark with a 5 year old and you have 5 years of receiving benefits in the EU country you have come from, you will start receiving 83.3 percent of the total benefit amount for that child. This will increase to 91.7 percent six months later and 100 percent six months after that.

Udbetaling Danmark will verify this with the authorities in the country in which you have lived or worked, before the periods can be included.

Working in Denmark but your family lives somewhere else

If you live in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland and work exclusively in Denmark, you will in general be covered by the Danish social security system. This means that you will have the right to family benefits from Denmark if you meet the other conditions listed above.  

If Danish family benefits are higher than the benefits in the country where you live, Denmark will pay the difference. If the Danish benefit is lower than in the country where you are living, you will not receive family benefits from Denmark.

If you have any questions, you can contact Udbetaling Danmark or send a digital mail under ‘Familieydelser.’ The processing time for child and youth benefits is 30 weeks, so apply as soon as you can.

Remember to tell Udbetaling Danmark when your situation changes, otherwise you risk having to pay money back.

Child allowance (Børnetilskud)

Child allowance is a payment paid in special circumstances, on top of child/youth benefit if:

  • you are single
  • you have twins, triples, quadruplets 
  • you are a pensioner
  • you are in education
  • the father of your child is unknown
  • one or both parents are not alive
  • you have adopted a child 

The size of the child allowance depends on your situation. In 2022, the child allowance for a single parent  is 1,517 kroner per child each quarter.

Child support (Børnebidrag)

Child support is a contribution that one parent pays to the other if you do not live together.

Child support will not normally be used if you have a sharing arrangement and also share expenses for the child between the two of you.

Normal support amounts to DKK 1,460 per month (2022) and is adjusted annually on 1st January.

If you are unable to agree on the support, you can ask the Agency of Family Law (familieretshuset.dk) to reach a decision for you. 

Daycare discounts

The government subsidises 75 percent of all public daycare, so the cost of nursery (vuggestue) and kindergarten (børnehave) is low compared to many countries. Vuggestue (0-3 years) costs around  4,264 kroner per month, which includes lunch. Børnehave (3-6 years) costs around 2,738 kroner per month with lunch.

However, if your household income is below a certain threshold, you could be entitled to a discounted rate, which is called an income-based allowance.

Siblings daycare discount 

When you have more than one child, your pay half the amount of the cheapest place you have for any siblings in daycare.

Income for not using daycare

Some municipalities (kommuner) pay you money if you choose to look after your own child at home after maternity leave, so it’s worth ringing your municipality to find out.

Frederiksberg Kommune for example pay 8,141 kroner per child per month for looking after children under 3 and 4,198 kroner per month for children over 3. If you’re not from the EU, you qualify for this after living in Denmark for 7 years.

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FAMILY

Copenhagen forest kindergartens get delay on closure decision

A plan to close or downsize 33 municipal childcare institutions in Copenhagen including a number of famed forest kindergartens has been put on hold after the decision was blocked by a member of the city council.

Published: 19 June 2024 17:05 CEST
Updated: 19 June 2024 19:46 CEST
Copenhagen forest kindergartens get delay on closure decision

A decision to close or downsize 33 kindergartens and creches in Copenhagen was stopped from moving forward during a committee meeting at Copenhagen Municipality on Wednesday.

The Alternative Party, which has an elected councillor on the committee, used its right to push the decision from the closed committee meeting to the full City Council [Danish: borgerrepræsentation], where discussions between the parties on the proposed closures can be followed publicly.

“This matter screams of a lack of transparency. It’s hard to clearly see why the 33 institutions have been selected. We now think there’s a need for more openness and a better process and we are therefore taking the matter to the City Council,” Alternative’s councillor Emil Sloth Andersen said in a statement reported by the Ritzau newswire.

Sloth Andersen said over 1,000 comments had been received from parents during the proposal’s public hearing phase, expressing opposition to the plan and criticising it for failing to take into account the individual quality of the institutions slated for closure.

Although the final decision over the closures can be taken by Social Democratic lord mayor Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, Alternative’s wish is for a more “public, democratic and transparent” discussion on the cuts, according to Sloth Andersen.

As previously reported by The Local, some 33 institutions across the capital face either complete closure or a reduction in their capacity in a cost-cutting exercise in response to what the municipality says is a decline in demand for places. This is related to a drop in the number of young children who live in the city.

At risk from the cutbacks are a number of so-called udflytterinstitutioner, literally “excursion institutions” but probably better known as forest kindergartens.

These kindergartens, which revolve around a daily routine in which small children spend the majority or entirety of their time outside, including during winter, have gained the attention of international media in years past and been praised for their potential benefits to children.

Financial considerations “play a role” in determining which institutions will be closed, Copenhagen Municipality has previously said.

READ ALSO: Copenhagen’s famous forest kindergartens under threat from municipal closures

In a separate statement issued on Wednesday afternoon, the Copenhagen Municipality Children and Youth Committee [Børne- og Ungdomsudvalget] confirmed that the plan had been held up.

In the statement, the chairperson of the committee, Jakob Næsager of the Conservative Party, said he was “upset” about the outcome and accused Alternative of failing to take responsibility.

“I actually don’t understand why Alternative has chosen to put children, parents and staff in a position of uncertainty,” he said.

“We have 3,000 fewer children in the city than there were only four years ago, so of course we have to make downwards adjustments,” he said.

Elisabetta Taschini, whose eldest child attends the Jacob Holms Minde daycare in southern district Amager, said she was “among the many who have expressed their concern and sent proposals to the committee in the last weeks”.

Jacob Holms Minde is among the institutions which faces downsizing, including the closure of its forest group.

“Now, we wait and hope that the City Council will decide to keep all the forest kindergartens open, acknowledging the great pedagogical offer that they represent,” Taschini told The Local.

There is currently no firm date for discussion of the proposal in the City Council, the municipality said in the statement.

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