Taxes in Denmark for Students 2026: Tax Card, Fradrag, Rates

Last updated: October 2026. All rates and amounts below are for the 2026 income year and were checked on skat.dk, borger.dk and Skattestyrelsen’s legal guide in October 2026. This is general information, not personal tax advice.

Luckily, taxes in Denmark are done electronically, and if you follow this survival guide there is not much you need to worry about. Below you’ll find how much you are going to be taxed, which tax card to use for SU and your student job, and how to get money back with fradrag (deductions).

Quick answer

• You pay tax on everything above your personal allowance. In 2026 the first 54,100 DKK of your yearly income is tax-free (personfradrag).
• On a salary, 8% AM-bidrag comes off first. Then you pay bundskat (12.01%) plus kommuneskat (about 25% on average). That’s why students usually see a tax rate of around 37 to 38% on their tax card, before deductions.
• Your real tax is lower than that. After the personal allowance and the 12.75% employment deduction, a student earning 10,000 DKK a month pays roughly 22% of their gross pay in total (worked example below).
• Use your hovedkort (main tax card) in one place only. If SU uses your hovedkort, give your employer your bikort. Don’t let two payers use the hovedkort, or you’ll get a bill (restskat) next spring.
• Keep your forskudsopgørelse updated on skat.dk whenever your income changes. Your yearly tax statement (årsopgørelse) arrives in March.

▶YouTube

Danish tax rates 2026 at a glance

The 2023/2024 tax reform changed the brackets from 2026: the old topskat became a lower-rate mellemskat, and a new topskat and toptopskat were added for high earners. As a student you will almost certainly only pay AM-bidrag, bundskat and kommuneskat, but here’s the full picture.

Sources: skat.dk: bundskat, mellemskat, topskat and toptopskat, skat.dk: tax cards and the 2026 personfradrag, tax.dk: beskæftigelsesfradrag 2026. Your exact municipal rate is shown on your forskudsopgørelse.

How much tax will I pay as a student in Denmark?

Here’s a simplified example for 2026: a student with a part-time job paying 10,000 DKK a month (120,000 DKK a year), no SU, living in a municipality with the average 25% kommuneskat and not a church member.

The 37 to 38% you see on your tax card (the trækprocent) is the rate your employer withholds on every krone above your monthly deduction. Because the first 54,100 DKK are tax-free and the employment deduction lowers your municipal tax, your total tax ends up much lower. If you get SU as well, the SU uses up part of your personfradrag, so more of your salary is taxed. Skat.dk has an official calculator for exactly this: regn ud, hvad du får udbetalt.

Tax cards in Denmark: hovedkort, bikort and frikort

The only barrier between you and the fun coupons

Tax cards (skattekort) are a gateway between you and your salary in Denmark. They are not physical cards: they’re digital records that tell your employer, and SU, how much tax to withhold before paying you. Your employer fetches the card directly from Skattestyrelsen. You only have to tell them which card to use.

Older guides (including an earlier version of this one) call them A-kort and B-kort. The current names are:

Even with a frikort, you still pay 8% AM-bidrag on salary. Source: skat.dk: Hovedkort, bikort og frikort.

Which tax card should I use for SU?

When your SU starts, SU uses your hovedkort by default, according to su.dk. That’s usually the smart choice: SU arrives every month, so your deduction gets used evenly. Then give your student job your bikort.

If your job pays more than your SU, you can flip it: tell SU via minSU to use your bikort, and give your employer the hovedkort. Either way works, as long as only one payer uses the hovedkort. If two do, you get your deduction twice during the year and pay it back as restskat.

You can check which card each payer is using in TastSelv under Indkomstoplysninger fra eIndkomst. You can’t change it yourself there: you have to ask the payer to fetch the right card.

What happens if I have no tax card?

If your employer can’t find a tax card for you, they must withhold 55% of your pay with no deductions (Kildeskatteloven § 48). You get the excess back after the year ends, but it’s painful in the meantime. So set up your tax card before your first payday.

How to get your tax card as a new student

1. Get your CPR number and MitID. Our arrival essentials guide covers both.
2. Log in to TastSelv on skat.dk with MitID.
3. Open your forskudsopgørelse (preliminary income assessment) and enter what you expect to earn this year, including SU.
4. Skattestyrelsen creates your tax cards automatically, usually within a few days.
5. Tell your employer whether to use your hovedkort, bikort or frikort.

If you’re not on the CPR register yet, skat.dk’s Coming to study page explains your options.

Forskudsopgørelse: what to fill in as a student

Your forskudsopgørelse is your estimate of this year’s income and deductions. Your tax cards are calculated from it. Skat.dk offers some fields in English. If you can’t see them, Google Chrome’s built-in translation works fine.

What to check:

1. Salary (lønindkomst): what you expect to earn this calendar year before tax. If you moved to Denmark in September and earn 8,000 DKK a month, that’s 4 × 8,000 = 32,000 DKK for this year, not 96,000.
2. SU: normally filled in automatically. Double-check it, as it’s sometimes wrong. All amounts are before tax.
3. Befordring (field 417): your commuting deduction (see below).
4. Union fees (field 458) and a-kasse (field 439): deductible, see below.
5. B-income: if you work as a freelancer or self-employed courier (for example with Wolt), the income is B-income, and you pay tax on it yourself as B-skat. See skat.dk: B-indkomst.

Update it every time you change job, earn more or less than expected, or stop receiving SU. The 2027 forskudsopgørelse opens in TastSelv in mid-November. Our guide to ending the tax year in Denmark walks through it step by step.

Sometimes, calling SKAT takes a while, be ready for that. You can also use their chat function, it’s faster.

Fradrag: what is it, and which ones can students get?

Fradrag directly translates to deduction. In the world of taxes, it’s the part of your income you don’t pay tax on. Deductions don’t put cash straight into your pocket: they lower the income you’re taxed on. A deduction of 1,000 DKK is typically worth around 250 to 380 DKK in tax, depending on the type.

Kørselsfradrag: deduction for commuting to work

This is the holy grail of commuters. You can deduct your transport between home and work if the round trip is more than 24 km a day (so the job is more than 12 km away). In 2026 you get 3.17 DKK per km for the part of the daily round trip between 25 and 120 km, and 1.59 DKK per km above 120 km. The Folketing raised the 2026 rate retroactively in June 2026, so if you commute, update your forskudsopgørelse now to get it on your payslip.

• It doesn’t matter how you travel (bike, train or car), and you don’t need to be the driver.
• Only count days you actually commuted: not home-office days, holidays or sick days.
• Commuting to your university is generally not deductible, because SU isn’t counted as salary. A paid student job does count. From 2026 there are special rules for students who live in an outer municipality (yderkommune) or on a small island.

Source: skat.dk: Kørselsfradrag. The page also has a calculator.

Union and a-kasse fees

Union membership fees are deductible up to 7,000 DKK a year (2026), and a-kasse fees are deductible too. Both are normally reported to SKAT automatically, but check fields 458 and 439 on your forskudsopgørelse. Source: skat.dk: A-kasse eller fagforening.

As a student, you can often join an a-kasse for free if you meet its student conditions (typically a programme of at least 18 months and a yearly income below about 319,000 DKK including SU, for up to five years). Then there’s nothing to deduct until you graduate and start paying, but your membership time already counts. For example, CA A-kasse and Min A-kasse publish those student conditions on their sites. Membership doesn’t guarantee unemployment benefits for every international graduate, so read our 2026 a-kasse comparison and what an a-kasse is before you sign up.

Extra deduction for international students from certain countries

Thanks to tax treaties, students from some countries can get a guest student deduction on top of the normal personfradrag: up to 54,100 DKK in 2026 on salary from work in Denmark, reduced if you’re only here part of the year. The countries listed in Skattestyrelsen’s legal guide are Brazil, the Philippines, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, India, Indonesia, Iceland, Jamaica, Kenya, South Korea, Malaysia, Morocco, Montenegro, Pakistan, Portugal, Romania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zambia. Several of them (Brazil, India, Jamaica, Kenya, South Korea, Malaysia, Montenegro and Portugal) have special rules with different amounts.

You apply with form 04.062. Sources: Skattestyrelsen’s legal guide (C.F.8.2.2.20.2). We cover it, along with housing benefit, in our guide to student benefits in Denmark.

Tax return in Denmark (årsopgørelse): key dates

Your årsopgørelse (tax assessment notice) shows whether you paid too much or too little tax last year. For the 2025 income year, these were the dates on skat.dk:

When it arrives, check that your salary, SU and deductions are right, and add anything you forgot, like kørselsfradrag. Read our årsopgørelse and restskat guide for what to do if you owe money.

Do I pay tax on investments as a student?

Yes. Gains and dividends from shares and funds are taxed separately from your salary, as share income or capital income. If you invest, see how investing is taxed in Denmark and the 17% aktiesparekonto, which is the simplest tax setup for most students.

FAQ about taxes in Denmark

What is fradrag in Denmark?

Fradrag means deduction: an amount you don’t pay tax on. Everyone gets a personfradrag (54,100 DKK in 2026), and workers get the beskæftigelsesfradrag automatically. You can add others yourself, such as kørselsfradrag for commuting to work. The monthly fradrag on your hovedkort is your personfradrag (plus expected deductions) divided over the year.

Tax card A or B in Denmark: which one do I use?

The old names A-kort and B-kort are now called hovedkort (primary) and bikort (secondary). Use the hovedkort where you earn the most, and the bikort everywhere else. If you’re on SU, SU usually has your hovedkort, so your job gets the bikort.

What’s the difference between the primary and secondary tax card?

The primary card (hovedkort) includes your monthly deduction, so tax is only withheld above it. The secondary card (bikort) has no deduction, so tax is withheld from the first krone. Only one payer may use your primary card.

How much am I going to be taxed on a part-time job in Denmark?

Your tax card will typically show 37 to 38% (bundskat plus your municipality’s rate), applied after 8% AM-bidrag. Because of the personfradrag and employment deduction, your total tax is lower: around 22% on 10,000 DKK a month in our example above. If the job is on your bikort, you’ll see more withheld each month, because the deduction is used elsewhere (usually by SU).

What is my tax number in Denmark?

For individuals, your tax number is your CPR number. You need it, plus MitID, to log in to skat.dk and create your tax card.

Is the tax card a physical card?

No. It’s a digital record your employer fetches from Skattestyrelsen. You just tell your employer which card to use.

What are the tax brackets in Denmark in 2026?

After 8% AM-bidrag: bundskat 12.01% and kommuneskat (about 25% on average) above your personfradrag, mellemskat 7.5% above 641,200 DKK, topskat 7.5% above 777,900 DKK, and toptopskat 5% above 2,592,700 DKK. See the table at the top.

What if I owe tax and can’t pay?

If you don’t pay restskat by 1 July, a 5.7% surcharge is added, and amounts up to 25,368 DKK (including the surcharge) are added to next year’s tax, which means a smaller monthly fradrag. Bigger amounts are collected in instalments in August, September and October. Details in our year-end tax guide.

Do I pay tax on SU?

Yes, SU is taxable income, but no AM-bidrag is taken from it. How much you keep depends on which tax card SU uses and what else you earn. Our SU guide explains the rules, and how to apply for SU covers the application.