Right now, 1.4 million people in Denmark are sitting on unclaimed holiday pay — and according to ATP, the average amount per person is DKK 8,700, with a total of 12 billion kroner waiting to be collected. That is not a rounding error. That is your money, parked in a government fund, quietly expiring — and most international workers have no idea it even exists.
If you work in Denmark, arrived from abroad, and nobody at your job ever explained feriepenge, børnepenge, or the Danish benefits system to you — you are not alone. You are, however, losing money every single month you stay uninformed.
The Benefits Danish Employers Will Never Explain to You
Nobody is going to sit you down and walk you through what you are legally owed in Denmark. Your employer handles payroll, your tax is withheld automatically, and the system just... keeps moving. What most international workers never find out is that the Danish welfare system quietly accrues entitlements on your behalf — money in a state-managed fund, quarterly child payments, tax deductions — and that if you do not actively claim them, many of those entitlements simply disappear.
This is where workers get caught out. When international students or foreign workers decide to leave Denmark permanently, they often leave behind unspent holiday pay. The Danish system has specific protocols to ensure you do not lose the money you have legally earned — but only if you know those protocols exist in the first place.
The Danish benefits landscape covers several distinct entitlements: feriepenge (holiday pay), børnepenge (child and youth benefit), børnetilskud (child allowance), barselsdagpenge (parental leave pay), and critical tax deductions that reduce your bill automatically — but only if you are registered correctly. Let us go through each one, with the real 2026 figures.
What the Law Actually Says
The legal backbone for feriepenge is Ferieloven — the Danish Holiday Act. Feriepenge is not a perk. It is a state-mandated deferred salary scheme governed by the Danish Holiday Act (Ferieloven), and understanding how it works is a practical necessity for anyone employed in Denmark.
All employees earn 5 weeks (25 days) of paid holiday per year under the Holiday Act, accruing 2.08 days per month. Many collective agreements add 5 feriefridage, bringing the total to 6 weeks. The holiday year runs from 1 September to 31 August with a usage period extending to 31 December.
For child benefits, the governing authority is Udbetaling Danmark, and the relevant legislation sits under the Danish Social Services Act. Child and youth benefit is paid automatically if you live in Denmark and are covered by the social security system. You must apply for the benefit if you live in Denmark and work in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland, work in Denmark and live in another EU/EEA country, move to Denmark from another EU/EEA country or Switzerland, or are Danish and have moved back to Denmark. The word "automatically" in that first sentence is deeply misleading for international workers, as you will see below.
The Real Numbers for 2026
Every figure below has been verified from official or officially sourced data for 2026. No figures from memory. No approximations where exact numbers are available.
| Category | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Feriepenge rate (hourly workers) | 12.5 percent of gross salary | Ferieloven / borger.dk |
| Ferietillæg (salaried supplement) | 1 percent of annual taxable income | Ferieloven |
| Total unclaimed feriepenge (Denmark, 2026) | DKK 12 billion | ATP / The Local DK, June 2026 |
| Average unclaimed per person | DKK 8,700 | ATP / The Local DK, June 2026 |
| Child allowance (børnetilskud) — single parent | DKK 5,025 per quarter (tax-free) | lifeindenmark.borger.dk (2026) |
| Child allowance — multiple children (per extra child) | DKK 2,874 per quarter (tax-free) | lifeindenmark.borger.dk (2026) |
| AM-bidrag (labour market contribution) | 8 percent of gross salary | skat.dk (2026) |
| Personal allowance (personfradrag) | DKK 54,100 per year | skat.dk (2026) |
| Employment deduction (beskæftigelsesfradrag) | Up to DKK 63,300 (12.75 percent of salary) | skat.dk (2026) |
| Bottom tax (bundskat) | 12.01 percent | skat.dk (2026) |
| Municipal tax (national average) | 25.05 percent | PWC Tax Summaries (2026) |
| Employee ATP contribution (full-time) | DKK 1,188 per year | KPMG Denmark 2026 |
| Effective CBA wage floor | Sector CBAs (2026) |
The employment allowance (beskæftigelsesfradrag) is a percentage of salary after AM-bidrag is automatically granted as a deduction. For 2026, the maximum employment allowance is DKK 63,300. This is applied to your tax card without you lifting a finger — but only if SKAT has the correct information about your employment. If your tax card is set up wrongly, you may be overpaying and never know it.
The special child allowance is DKK 5,025 per quarter in 2026. The allowance is tax-free. Paid out quarterly, that is DKK 20,100 per year — completely tax-free — that single parents working in Denmark are entitled to claim and often do not.
What Your Employer Will Never Tell You
Here is what most people never find out. If you are an hourly worker, your holiday pay sits in the public FerieKonto system until you claim it. You cannot simply ask your employer for the money. You must follow a strict digital process to have the funds released to your bank account. Many international workers assume the money comes with their payslip. It does not. It sits in FerieKonto until you go and get it.
If you are deregistering your Danish CPR number and moving abroad, you are entitled to have all your accrued holiday pay paid out as a lump sum. You do not need to take actual time off to claim this money. To trigger this payout, you must officially deregister from the national registry (Folkeregisteret). Thousands of workers who have already left Denmark are sitting on this money right now, because they did not know to claim it before they boarded the plane home.
Three things you can do right now — today — before you leave work:
1. Check your FerieKonto balance. When you take holiday, you request payment through borger.dk or the FerieKonto app. Money is transferred within 1–2 business days. You can check your balance at any time on borger.dk with your MitID. Log into borger.dk → Feriepengeinfo. The number on the screen is yours.
2. Apply for børnetilskud if you have children. You have the right to child and youth benefits if you have lived or worked in Denmark, the Faroe Islands or Greenland for at least six of the last 10 years, or earned the right to family benefits in other EU/EEA countries or Switzerland. EU/EEA work periods abroad can count toward your qualifying time. You can apply for family benefits by completing an online application form or filling out a paper form and sending it to borger.dk. You need a MitID to apply for the benefits.
3. Verify your tax card at skat.dk. In Denmark, your employer withholds tax automatically based on your digital tax card — you do not calculate and pay your own tax throughout the year. The card is managed by SKAT and is only as accurate as the information behind it. Log into TastSelv at skat.dk/tastselv and confirm your personal allowance, employment deduction, and commuter deduction are all correctly registered. A wrong tax card means you are overpaying every single month.
Denmark vs The Rest of Europe
Six EU member states do not have a statutory minimum wage: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Austria, and Cyprus. These countries rely on sector-level collective bargaining agreements to set wages. What does that mean in practice? Unlike 22 of 27 EU member states, Denmark sets effective minimum wages entirely through sector collective bargaining agreements, with the lowest CBA-set hourly rates around DKK 130–150 (approximately €17–20). That is a floor the vast majority of EU countries with statutory minimums do not come close to matching.
Denmark is the cheapest and most flexible place to hire and exit. Sweden carries the highest employer cost, at a flat 31.42 percent, with the strongest dismissal protection. Norway sits in between on cost — roughly 26–30 percent all-in — but requires a formal process to let someone go. For you as a worker, the flip side of Denmark's low employer social contributions is that your rights and entitlements come primarily through collective agreements and the welfare system — not automatic payroll. That is exactly why you need to claim them actively. Among countries using collective agreements, the effective minimums in Denmark (approximately €18–19/hour) are among the highest in Europe — but only workers who understand the system fully benefit from everything it offers.
Use the EuroDuty salary comparator to benchmark your current Danish salary against equivalent roles across all 27 EU countries — and see exactly where you stand.
How to Claim What You Are Owed
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Check your feriepenge balance immediately. Go to borger.dk → Feriepengeinfo and log in with MitID. If you work hourly or on temporary contracts, your employer sets aside 12.5 percent of your pay as feriepenge under the Danish Holiday Act. To get it paid out, log in with MitID at borger.dk → Feriepengeinfo, state when you are taking holiday, and the money goes to your NemKonto.
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If you are leaving Denmark, deregister from Folkeregisteret and claim your full feriepenge payout. If you leave Denmark permanently, you can request payout of all accrued holiday pay from FerieKonto. Contact FerieKonto directly or apply through borger.dk. Processing typically takes 4–6 weeks. Do not leave without doing this.
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Apply for børnetilskud (child allowance) if you have children. Visit lifeindenmark.borger.dk under Family and Children. The special child allowance is DKK 5,025 per quarter in 2026. The allowance is tax-free. You will need MitID, your employment contract, and your children's birth certificates. Contact Udbetaling Danmark if you have questions about qualifying periods.
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Log into TastSelv at skat.dk and verify your tax card. Confirm your personfradrag is set at DKK 54,100 and your beskæftigelsesfradrag is registering correctly. If you paid too much preliminary tax, you will receive a refund (til gode) paid directly to your bank account. If you paid too little, you will need to pay the difference (restskat), typically in three instalments. Filing your annual return is done through TastSelv by 1 May (1 July with extension).
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Check your payslip every month. Check your payslips first: the feriepenge line should grow every month you work. If a month is missing, write to your employer and ask them to correct the reporting. What Feriepengeinfo shows is based on what employers report — so payslips are your evidence.
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Calculate your exact net salary. Use the EuroDuty salary calculator to see your real take-home after AM-bidrag, income tax, and all deductions — and make sure your employer is calculating correctly from the first payslip.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you are an hourly worker, your holiday pay sits in the public FerieKonto system until you claim it. You cannot simply ask your employer for the money. You must follow a strict digital process to have the funds released to your bank account. Log into borger.dk using your MitID, navigate to the Feriepengeinfo section, enter your planned holiday dates, and the net amount is transferred directly to your NemKonto within 1–2 business days. Holiday pay is considered standard income in Denmark, which means it is fully taxable. The figure you see on Borger.dk is already your net amount after AM-bidrag and income tax have been deducted.
Yes — and this is one of the most commonly missed entitlements. If you are deregistering your Danish CPR number and moving abroad, you are entitled to have all your accrued holiday pay paid out as a lump sum. You do not need to take actual time off to claim this money. Apply through borger.dk or contact FerieKonto directly. Make sure your NemKonto bank account is still accessible from abroad before you deregister, as your holiday allowance is paid into your NemKonto, which is the bank account Danish public authorities use to make payments such as tax refunds, child benefits and pensions.
You have the right to child and youth benefits if you have lived or worked in Denmark, the Faroe Islands or Greenland for at least six of the last 10 years, or earned the right to family benefits in other EU/EEA countries or Switzerland, or are residing in Denmark under the Greencard scheme. Crucially, you can also include periods during which you have accrued family benefit rights by living in or working in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland, if you are a citizen of an EU/EEA country or Switzerland. This means your years working in Germany, Poland, France, or any other EU country can count toward your qualifying period. Apply through Udbetaling Danmark via borger.dk.
AM-bidrag is an 8 percent mandatory contribution deducted from gross income to fund employment-related benefits like unemployment insurance, maternity leave, and sickness benefits. It comes off your gross salary before income tax is calculated. So if you earn DKK 40,000 gross per month, DKK 3,200 goes to AM-bidrag first, and your income tax is then calculated on the remaining DKK 36,800. Personal allowance (personfradrag) of DKK 54,100 in 2026 is tax-free for municipal and bottom tax. Your employment deduction of up to DKK 63,300 is applied automatically on top of that, further reducing your taxable income.
Denmark has a progressive tax system with multiple components: 8 percent labour market tax (AM-bidrag), 12.01 percent bottom tax, average 25.05 percent municipal tax, plus three additional brackets — middle tax (7.5 percent above DKK 641,200 after AM-bidrag), top tax (7.5 percent above DKK 777,900), and top-top tax (5 percent above DKK 2,592,700). Denmark's 2026 tax reform replaced the single top-tax bracket with three tiers: middle tax (mellemskat), top tax (topskat), and top-top tax (toptopskat). Most earners between DKK 641,200 and DKK 777,900 will pay less than they did in 2025. The maximum all-in marginal rate for the very highest earners reaches approximately 60.5 percent including AM-bidrag, which remains the effective ceiling on Danish income taxation.
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