dk.txt

Persons over 21 years of age
You can apply at the earliest when you have reached the age of 21, and the application must be with the Ministry of Immigration and Integration Affairs no later than the day before your 22nd birthday. If you apply too early or too late, the application will only be considered as an application for proof of Danish citizenship. If you have previously applied for proof of Danish citizenship, this is not a guarantee that you have retained your Danish citizenship by your 22nd birthday.

How do you meet the conditions for preservation?
You can retain your Danish citizenship if you have cohesion with Denmark. Slightly more simply said, you must have maintained an affiliation or affiliation with Denmark, and that is the basis for you, of course, to be allowed to retain your Danish citizenship.

In practice, the assessment of whether you have retained the connection to Denmark is divided into two:

if you meet the residency requirement or
does not meet the residence requirement, but can still document affiliation with Denmark.
If you meet the residency requirement
In order to be able to retain your Danish citizenship, you must have resided in Denmark for a period which shows that you have a sufficient affiliation with Denmark. There are two options to meet the residency requirement.

If you have lived in Denmark for a minimum of 3 consecutive months and have been registered in the population register with residence in Denmark, this is fulfilled. Alternatively, you must be able to document
that you have resided in Denmark for a total of one year in total. You must therefore be able to count all stays in Denmark - holidays, family parties, summer school, folk high school stays, etc., to give 52 weeks. If you have not resided in Denmark for a full year, the requirement will be considered fulfilled if the duration of the total stays is close to one year and other circumstances surrounding the stays indicate that the stays are an expression that you - when you filled 22 years - had a current and personal connection to Denmark.
However, you should be aware that greater emphasis will be placed on staying in Denmark closer to the 22nd birthday - e.g. a high school stay as a 19-year-old will be more important than having attended a Danish kindergarten as a 4-year-old. Emphasis will also be placed on whether the stays can be assumed to be an expression of your own desire to visit Denmark, or whether they are a result of, for example, parents 'or employers' dispositions.

Finally, residence in another Nordic country for a total of at least 7 years can be equated with residence in Denmark for 3 months.

If you do not meet the residency requirement
If the residence requirement above is not met, the following will be included in the assessment of whether the applicant can retain his Danish citizenship:

You can prove that you have maintained a special connection to Denmark
There is no single answer as to what a sufficient affiliation with Denmark will mean. The Indigenous Rights Office will always make an overall assessment of your circumstances and whether you have maintained a special connection to Denmark. You can e.g. show that you have an interest in the Danish language, culture, society and history.

Examples of circumstances that may help to prove that you have maintained a special connection to Denmark:

You have family and friends in Denmark that you yourself are in direct contact with e.g. through social media, and who you see when you are in Denmark.
You are a member of a Danish association or organization, e.g. a Danish football club, a Danish sailors' church or Danes Worldwide.
You have in other ways maintained the connection, interest and relationship with Denmark.
Any Danish skills
Again, there are no specific requirements for how your Danish skills are. When applying, describe your language skills as accurately as possible. At the same time, two references must also comment on your Danish skills. For example, it is very normal for Danish children born and raised abroad that they speak good Danish, while the spelling is a bit lame. But don't worry, this is not what puts an end to the preservation of your Danish citizenship.

If you have received Danish lessons, it will be a good idea to enclose documentation in the application.

*) Section 8 of the Citizenship Act
Section 8 of the Danish Citizenship Act lays down the preservation rule:

§ 8 A person who was born abroad and has never lived here in the kingdom and has not stayed here under conditions that indicate cohesion with Denmark, loses his Danish citizenship at the age of 22, unless the person in question thereby becomes stateless. . However, the Minister of Immigration and Integration Affairs or the person he authorizes to do so may, upon application submitted before this time, allow the right of citizenship to be retained.

PCS. 2. If a person loses his or her citizenship under this provision, his or her child may also lose his or her citizenship if the child has acquired the citizenship through him or her, unless the child thereby becomes stateless.

PCS. For the purposes of paragraph 1 is equated with residence in a Nordic country for a total of at least 7 years with residence here in the kingdom.

Need more help?
Do you have more questions or need further help? Then write to [email protected] or call the legal advice on (+45) 3332 0913. You can contact the advice

Monday: 9 - 16
Tuesday: 10.30 - 18.30
Wednesday: CLOSED
Thursday: 9 - 16
Friday: 9 - 16
If you want case processing and specific help for your application, go here and fill out one of our contact forms.

See also in our event calendar if we will soon have a webinar on the subject.