Starting a business in Denmark
A CVR number from virk.dk in minutes - the Danish work is all in MitID, moms and knowing that no registration fee was ever the point.
Checked against the sources on 2026-08-30
Before anything else
Denmark makes the registration trivial and puts the friction where Denmark puts everything: digital identity. With MitID and access to virk.dk, an enkeltmandsvirksomhed (sole proprietorship) registers free in minutes and the CVR number arrives immediately. Without MitID nothing moves, so a newcomer’s first business step is at the citizen service centre, not the business portal.
There is no separate tax registration for a sole trader - profit lands in your personal return, advance tax adjusts through your forskudsopgørelse, and the whole apparatus assumes you check skat.dk yourself. Danish authorities do not send bills; they expect you to look.
The legal shell
Enkeltmandsvirksomhed or ApS?
Enkeltmandsvirksomhed
The default one-person start.
Free to register.
Personal liability, and banks increasingly want to see activity before opening an erhvervskonto - the account hunt can outlast the registration by weeks.
ApS
Liability shield, partners, or investors.
DKK 20,000 minimum capital (lowered from 40,000) plus a ~DKK 670 registration fee; formation documents are standard enough to do without a lawyer in simple cases.
Annual reports are filed and public, and the capital must genuinely exist at formation.
The sequence
Register on virk.dk
Where: virk.dk, with MitIDCost: DKK 0 for a sole proprietorshipTakes: Minutes; the CVR number is immediate
You choose the activity code and whether to register for moms (VAT) at once. The CVR number is the business identity for everything after - bank, invoices, contracts.
Moms: register at DKK 50,000
VAT registration is compulsory once turnover passes DKK 50,000 over twelve months - low by European standards, so most real businesses register from the start. Filing is quarterly (or half-yearly for small ones) on skat.dk, and the 25% rate has essentially no reduced bands to worry about.
Watch out: Certain services (some education, health, financial services) are moms-exempt but pay lønsumsafgift instead - check before assuming exemption is a win.
Set the advance tax and the pension habit
Where: skat.dk
Update the forskudsopgørelse with expected profit so B-skat instalments match reality. Nothing forces pension savings or insurance on you; arbejdsskadeforsikring becomes compulsory only with employees. The safety net you had as an employee is now a to-do list.
What it costs to start
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sole proprietorship registration | DKK 0 |
| ApS registration | ~DKK 670 + DKK 20,000 capital |
| Accounting softwareDigital bookkeeping is required by the bookkeeping act for most businesses. | DKK 100-300/month |
The words on the forms
- CVR
- The central business register and the number it issues.
- virk.dk
- The business portal where registration happens.
- MitID
- The national digital identity - the true prerequisite.
- Moms
- VAT, 25%, compulsory registration at DKK 50,000.
- Forskudsopgørelse
- The advance tax assessment you adjust yourself.
- B-skat
- The instalments self-employed income is taxed through.
- Erhvervskonto
- The business bank account - often the slowest step.
The traps
- Waiting for a bill: skat.dk expects you to adjust advance tax yourself.
- Underestimating the bank-account hunt for a fresh CVR with no history.
- The DKK 50,000 moms line being crossed casually - it is one good project.
- Skipping the digital bookkeeping requirement because the business is small.
Where to check this yourself
- virk.dkRegistration and every later filing.
- skat.dkMoms, B-skat and the advance assessment.
- ErhvervsstyrelsenCompany law and the bookkeeping act.
This is a map, not legal or tax advice - and an honest one about how it was drawn: the Germany guide was written by a person who walked the route; most other countries were drafted with AI against the official sources and have not yet been walked by someone who did it. Laws change. Every guide carries the date it was last checked and the sources to check it yourself - and if you have been through one of these routes, your corrections are exactly what this handbook wants.