EU residence as a self-employed person

You must run your own business and bear the financial risk associated with it. The purpose of the business must be financial gain.

This means that you must be the founder or co-founder of the business and be the one who runs the business on a daily basis.

In addition, the business must be established and registered in Denmark.

The business must be genuine and effective. This means that genuine and effective work is carried out under the auspices of the business to a not insignificant extent.

It does not matter what legal status the company has.

SIRI makes a concrete assessment of the information and documents you submit in your application.

Below are a number of examples of factors that can be included in the assessment of whether you can be registered as a self-employed person:

• registration in the CVR register as a self-employed person
• the size of the turnover
• the business is active roughly regularly and for not a very short period
• information about VAT payments
• excise duties levied quarterly
• invoices
• information about inventory
• accounts
• annual statements 
• lease or other indication of where the business is to be operated from 

In ‘How to apply’ tab you can, amongst other things, see a number of examples of documents that may be relevant to submit together with the application form.

As an EU citizen, you may freely enter Denmark and you may begin to work upon arrival. You do not need a permit to work in Denmark.

There is no limit on the number of hours you may work while living in Denmark. This also applies if you are studying in Denmark. 

You do not need an EU residence document in order to begin work. This is the case even if you have – or have applied for – a residence document as a worker, as a self-supporting individual or for some other reason.

With an EU residence document in Denmark, you are entitled to partly user paid Danish lessons. However, you must have turned 18 and have your Danish address registered in the Danish National Register.

Your municipality of residence is obliged to offer you Danish lessons and refer you to a language centre.

If you have not been offered Danish lessons within a month after registering your address in Denmark, you can contact your municipality.

You will be taught together with other foreign nationals who have arrived in Denmark recently. 

During your stay in Denmark under EU rules, you must normally be able to support yourself and your family financially. Depending on your grounds for residence, that means you, amongst other things, may not receive cash benefits or other forms of public assistance regulated by the Active Social Policy Act (lov om aktiv socialpolitik).

If you or a family member receive such benefits while living in Denmark, your right of residence can be terminated and you can lose your right to be in Denmark.

Benefit payments from the municipality or any other public authority to a foreign national are reported to SIRI. SIRI will then assess whether this affects your grounds for residence. 

If you meet the requirements to be a worker as defined by EU law – or if you have retained worker status despite no longer working – receiving the above-mentioned benefits will normally not in and of itself lead to termination of your right of residence. The same applies if you have grounds for residence as the family member to a worker.

As an EU citizen, you may freely enter Denmark. 

If you plan on remaining in Denmark for less than three months, you do not need to apply for an EU residence document. If you are seeking employment, you may remain in Denmark for up to six months before obtaining a residence document.

If you plan on being in Denmark for longer than three months, or six months if you will be seeking employment, you need to apply for an EU residence document. If you have a residence document, you may remain in Denmark indefinitely, provided you meet the conditions for your grounds for residence. There is no date of expiry for residence documents. 

If your grounds for residence are terminated – e.g. if you stop working or studying – you must apply for a new residence document on other grounds – e.g. as a person with sufficient funds. If you are uncertain whether you meet the conditions for new grounds for residence, you must contact SIRI.

If you have left or will leave Denmark in connection with your business being terminated, you do not need to do anything about your grounds for residence. All you need to do is to inform the Civil Registration System (CPR) about your departure. You can do this on-line at lifeindenmark.dk (requires NemID).

If you want to stay in Denmark after your business it terminated, you must contact SIRI for clarification of your grounds for residence. In some cases, worker status – and thus grounds for residence as a self-employed person – can be maintained for a period after you have stopped running your own business. This depends, amongst other things, on the reason why you stopped running your own business, whether you registered with the job centre within the allotted time after you stopped running your own business, and how long before that you have been a self-employed person in Denmark.

If you believe that you meet the requirements for other grounds for residence, as a worker for example, or as self-supporting person, you must submit an application on these grounds.

SIRI will write to you to inform you if it is considering making a decision that could affect your grounds for residence. In such instances, you will have the opportunity to provide information or documentation to support extending your residence.