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DANISH CITIZENSHIP

How many Danish citizenship applications are rejected each year?

This week the Danish government announced it would ask those people applying for citizenship for the third or subsequent time after previous rejections, to pay additional fees. We take a look at just how many citizenship applications are rejected each year.

Published: 24 March 2023 18:21 CET
A citizenship day at Christiansborg, Copenhagen
A citizenship day at Christiansborg, Copenhagen on Sunday 22nd May 2022. There were 733 rejected citizenship applications in 2022. Photo: Philip Davali/Ritzau Scanpix

Under Danish law, citizenship can only be granted to foreign nationals by legal nationalisation, so applications must be voted for by a parliamentary majority.

Accepted applications are processed by bills put in front of parliament twice a year, in April and in October.

Since updated citizenship rules introduced in 2021, the bills are now organised according to the nationality of applicants, rather than the previous practice of listing them alphabetically.

Therefore, the figures from the Ministry of Immigration and Integration below, show rejected citizenship applications, divided into the country categories: “Menap’ countries [Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan ed.] plus Turkey; stateless;  other non-Western countries; Western countries.

There are a number of reasons a Danish citizenship application can be rejected, including criteria related to residency, language, criminal records and financial self-sufficiency. A Danish citizenship test must also be passed before applying.

These figures were last updated on 14th March 2023.

Source: Ministry of Immigration and Integration

The number of rejected applications has noticeably decreased over the last two years and peaked between 2017 and 2020.

The highest amount of rejections came in 2018 when 62 percent of applications were rejected. The lowest amount of applications rejected was last year but it was also the year with the lowest number of applications.

This is when the new citizenship rules had come into affect, which as well as listing applicants according to nationality, also clamped down on those who have broken Danish laws. The new rules included asking applicants about “Danish values” in five extra questions on the citizenship test and the need for applicants to have been in full time work or self-employment for three and a half of the last four years.

The table below is the number of citizenship applications each year, broken into country categories. 

It is those applying for citizenship from the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey that face the most rejections each year. 

The fee for applying for citizenship is currently 4,000 kroner. When a person submits an application, they can apply again at no extra cost should their application not be successful under the existing rules.

Now a third or subsequent application by the same person will incur an additional fee, the immigration ministry said in a statement.

The objective of this is to “prevent applicants who receive a rejection from uncritically reapplying in cases with no outlook towards a different result, thereby risking increased processing times for naturalisation cases”, the immigration ministry statement reads.

A law change would be required to implement the new fee for repeated citizenship applications. The government said it expects to table a bill in the next parliamentary year, which commences in October.

Because the coalition government has a parliamentary majority, any bill it tables has a high chance of being adopted.

No decision has yet been made on either the amount of the additional fee, or on the reduction for young people who were born or grew up in Denmark.

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DANISH CITIZENSHIP

‘It’s a concern’: How foreigners view Denmark’s move to hike citizenship fee

We asked our readers in Denmark about the government’s decision to make applying for citizenship 50 percent more expensive.

Published: 6 June 2024 18:43 CEST
'It's a concern': How foreigners view Denmark's move to hike citizenship fee

Denmark’s government on Tuesday announced it will rise the fee for applying for citizenship from 4,000 kroner to 6,000 kroner.

The government said it was raising the fee for apply for citizenship to 6,000 kroner so that it “more closely reflects the costs of case processing”.

The current 4,000 kroner fee, has applied since 2021 when it was raised from 3,800 kroner. The new hike means the fee is five times more than the 1,200 kroner that was charged to applications prior to 2018.

READ ALSO:

We asked for your thoughts on this and it’s fair to say we got differing takes.

“If a person really loves Denmark and needs the citizenship of Denmark, then he/she should be ready to accept Denmark for what it is and be ready to contribute to the society as a future Dane,” said Selina.

Selina, who lives in Esbjerg, stated she would be happy to pay up to 20,000 kroner in fees to apply for Danish citizenship.

She also pointed out that, even with the incoming increase, the cost of applying for citizenship in Denmark remains less than the fee for non-EU nationals applying for permanent residency.

READ ALSO: What’s the difference between temporary and permanent residency in Denmark?

“We need to also respect that there is a cost incurred to the government to source employees to check our applications. The hourly wage here is high compared to other countries, which is why in return we also get paid high salaries,” she continued.

Selina said that, during five years living in Denmark, she had spent “nearly 15,000 kroner [on] application fees for me and my family just for residency visas, and I don’t complain!”

“I am not at all concerned about any cost for application fees and I do not understand why people make it a topic of discussion when a fee increases for them to apply for citizenship in one of the world’s happiest countries, actually,” she said.

Selina was not the only person to mention the cost of various types of residency permit against the citizenship fee.

“(The) initial family reunification application is 8,575 kroner, with renewal costs of 4,075 kroner, so 4,000 kroner for Citizenship seems like a bargain!”, Caz, who lives in Randers said.

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

A British national who is the spouse of a Dane, Caz said she plans on applying for citizenship “when the time comes around”.

“But so far it costs a small fortune to live here,” she said.

“The journey towards a citizenship is becoming more and more expensive, if you also add the cost of the permanent residence (which is required for citizenship),” said Salvador from Chile, a six-year resident of Denmark.

“The value becomes quite high for some households,” he noted, adding that he plans to apply for citizenship in around two years.

Some of the readers who responded to our survey rejected the government’s explanation that the fee raise was related to costs.

“A succession of steep price rises clearly indicates the government wants to reduce the amount of new citizens, instead of welcoming them. This is not about covering costs,” James, a UK national who lives in Gentofte said.

Although he is working towards qualifying for citizenship, James described the cost as a “concern”.

“I recently received my permanent residency in Denmark and do have some eventual plans to apply for the Danish citizenship as soon as I become eligible,” wrote Anuradha, who lives in Farum.

“The cost does seem to be on a higher side, however I see it as a one-time cost and definitely there is no guarantee that I will get the Danish citizenship so it is a calculated risk with no guarantee of getting the citizenship, either,” she said.

“I am sure that there are certain percentage of people who would still be applying irrespective of this cost and it would not really impact as long as they are motivated to apply for the citizenship,” she reflected.

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