Denmark’s Ministry of Immigration and Integration said in a statement that the government will raise the fee for applying for Danish 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.

The drastic increase in the fee to 3,800 kroner in 2018 was justified by the government at the time as being necessary because of the cost of introducing mandatory citizenship ceremonies, at which naturalised Danes are required by the law to shake hands with a public official.

In Tuesday’s statement, the government did not specify what additional costs of citizenship case processing are the basis of the new 50 percent hike to the application fee.

An additional change to citizenship fee rules will see the introduction of a new fee for repeated applications from persons who have previously had two applications for citizenship rejected. Plans to introduce this new fee – costing 3,000 kroner – were first reported in March 2023.

Under current rules, when a person submits an application (and has thereby paid the existing 4,000 kroner application fee), they can apply again at no extra cost should their application not be successful.

That will now change, so that the first re-application does not bear an additional charge, but any further repeat applications will incur a new charge of 3,000 kroner per application.

Children and young people who were born in Denmark will be exempted from the fee increase and will continue to be charged the current fee of 4,000 kroner, the government also said.

Foreign nationals in Denmark who plan to apply for citizenship in the near future should keep in mind that the new fees will not take effect until parliament passes a bill providing for this.

That is because the fee adjustments must be made through a change to citizenship laws. This is expected to be processed in parliament “in the next assembly”, the government said in the statement, meaning after October 1st.

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In the statement, Immigration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek said he was “pleased that we are now raising the fee for applying for Danish citizenship with this agreement, so it more closely reflects the costs the Danish state has for processing the cases. That is only fair.”

The three parties in the coalition government – the Social Democrats, Liberals and Moderates – have agreed to implement the changes with the support of the opposition Liberal Alliance party.

The Conservative party, which helped pass the existing citizenship rules in 2021, is no longer part of citizenship agreements, the government confirmed in the statement.

That comes after the Conservatives on Tuesday refused to vote for a bill granting citizenship by law to approved applicants.