Denmark VAT Calculator (Moms) — 2026 Rates

Denmark charges 25% moms on almost every taxable supply and operates no reduced rate whatsoever — the only member state in the European Union that can say that. This guide covers what that means in practice, where the 0% list stops, and how Danish registration, settlement periods and digital bookkeeping rules work in 2026.

Denmark's single rate, and why it stayed single

Danish VAT is meromsætningsafgift, universally shortened to moms. It was introduced in 1967 at 10%, and it has been a one-rate tax from the first day. The rate climbed in steps to 22% in 1980 and reached its present 25% on 1 January 1992, where it has stayed for more than three decades. What never happened is the thing that happened everywhere else: Denmark has never legislated a reduced band for food, books, medicine or hospitality.

The policy logic is that a reduced rate is a blunt instrument. It costs revenue on every buyer, including the ones who do not need help, and it drags an enormous classification workload behind it. Danish governments have consistently preferred to keep the VAT base broad and uniform and to redistribute through direct transfers, child benefit and public services instead. The result is a system that is unusually expensive at the till and unusually cheap to administer. There is no Danish equivalent of the arguments that occupy compliance teams in Dublin or Berlin over whether a particular biscuit, food supplement or e-book belongs in the reduced band — in Denmark it is 25% either way.

What this changes for a Danish price

Two practical consequences follow. First, a Danish grocery basket carries a materially higher tax burden than a Swedish or German one: 25% against Sweden's 12% on food and Germany's 7%. Second, every gross Danish price decomposes the same way. Because the rate is 25%, the tax embedded in any VAT-inclusive figure is exactly one fifth of it — 250 kr. of moms in a 1.250 kr. total — which is why Danish bookkeepers extract VAT by multiplying by 0.2 rather than dividing by 1.25. The two are the same operation.

Zero-rated versus exempt: the distinction that costs money

Denmark's list of 0% supplies is short and specific. It covers newspapers published more frequently than once a month — a derogation grandfathered in when Denmark joined the EEC and preserved under the VAT Directive's standstill provisions — plus exports outside the EU, intra-EU B2B supplies to a customer with a valid VAT number, and international passenger and goods transport. These are genuinely zero-rated: the supply is taxable at a rate of nothing, so the seller keeps the right to reclaim input moms on everything bought to produce it.

Exemption under momsloven § 13 is a different mechanism with a different bill attached. Danish healthcare and dentistry, education, insurance, most financial services, domestic passenger transport, the letting of real property, and non-commercial cultural activity are outside the scope of VAT entirely. No moms is charged on the sale — and no input moms is recovered on the costs. An exempt Danish business therefore absorbs 25% on its own purchases as a real cost, which is exactly why exempt sectors lobby to be zero-rated rather than exempt.

Businesses with both taxable and exempt income have to apportion input VAT between the two, usually on a turnover-based pro rata. That partial-deduction calculation is the single most common subject of Danish VAT adjustments, and it is worth getting the method agreed with Skattestyrelsen in advance rather than defending it afterwards.

Kunstnermoms: the 5% Denmark reaches without a reduced rate

There is exactly one place where the effective Danish burden falls below 25%, and it is engineered through the taxable base rather than the rate. Under momsloven § 30, when an artist — or the artist's heirs — sells one of the artist's own works for the first time, the taxable amount is set at 20% of the price rather than the whole of it. Apply the ordinary 25% to that reduced base and you land on an effective 5%:

Artists also get their own registration threshold — DKK 350,000 of first-time sales of their own works, against the DKK 50,000 that applies to everyone else. The concession is strictly limited to the maker's first sale: a gallery reselling the same canvas is back on the ordinary 25%, or on the second-hand margin scheme where that applies. It is a neat illustration of the Danish approach — where another country would write a reduced rate into law, Denmark shrinks the base and leaves the rate alone.

Registration and the DKK 50,000 line

You must register for moms once taxable sales exceed DKK 50,000 over any 12-month period, and the registration should be filed no later than eight days before the activity that takes you over begins. Registration is made through Virk/Erhvervsstyrelsen and produces a CVR/SE number that doubles as the VAT number in the form DK plus eight digits. Below the threshold registration is voluntary, and it is frequently worth doing: an unregistered business absorbs 25% on its own stock, equipment and professional fees with no way to recover it.

Non-established sellers get no threshold at all — a foreign business making taxable supplies in Denmark registers from the first sale. Since 2025 Denmark also participates in the EU SME scheme, which lets a small business established in another member state trade VAT-exempt in Denmark under an EX-number provided its EU-wide turnover stays under €100,000 and it respects the Danish domestic threshold, and lets Danish small businesses do the reverse elsewhere.

Settlement periods, deadlines and the DKK 1,400 fee

Skattestyrelsen assigns a settlement period by turnover, and it is one of the more generous schedules in Europe for small businesses:

• Half-yearly — taxable turnover under DKK 5 million. Returns due 1 September (January–June) and 1 March (July–December).
• Quarterly — turnover of DKK 5–50 million, and every newly registered business regardless of size. Due 1 June, 1 September, 1 December and 1 March.
• Monthly — turnover above DKK 50 million, or on request. Due the 25th of the following month.

Everything is filed through TastSelv Erhverv. A business that is habitually in a repayment position — an exporter, or one carrying heavy capital spend — can ask to move to a shorter period to get its refunds sooner. If a return is not filed on time Skattestyrelsen raises an estimated assessment (a foreløbig fastsættelse) and charges DKK 1,400 for each period it has to estimate, on top of interest running on the tax account. The fee is per period, so a dormant company that stops filing accumulates it quickly.

Digital bookkeeping, NemHandel and Danish e-invoicing

Denmark was one of the first countries in the world to mandate public-sector e-invoicing — B2G invoices have had to travel through NemHandel since 2005 — but it has approached the private sector from the accounting-system end rather than by mandating an invoice format. The revised Bookkeeping Act (bogføringsloven) requires businesses to keep their records in a registered or approved digital bookkeeping system, phased in from 2024 for companies filing annual reports, and reaching personally owned businesses with turnover above DKK 300,000 on 1 January 2026 (1 July 2026 where the system is developed in-house).

From 1 July 2026 businesses on registered systems are enrolled in NemHandel by default and prompted to issue e-invoices, which quietly puts the infrastructure for structured B2B invoicing in place without a formal issuing mandate. OIOUBL remains the Danish national format while the country migrates toward Peppol BIS for cross-border traffic. If you sell into Denmark, assume your Danish customer can receive a structured invoice, and agree the network before the first order rather than after the first rejection.

Danish moms calculation formulas

With a single rate there are only two operations to know, and a shortcut that only works because the rate is 25%.

Add 25% moms (net to gross)

Remove 25% moms (gross to net)

The shortcut is exact, not an approximation: at a 25% rate the VAT fraction is 25/125, which is one fifth. It is the arithmetic dividend of never having introduced a second rate.