Doctors, insurance and emergencies in Copenhagen

The yellow health card

The sundhedskort is ordered automatically once your CPR registration is approved, arrives by ordinary post within two to four weeks and is free. It carries your name, address, CPR number and your assigned GP, and it entitles you to treatment in Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. If it has not arrived after four weeks, contact a Citizen Service Centre within six months or you may be charged a fee. The Sundhedskortet app is a fully valid substitute for the plastic card and can display your children's cards too, which is worth setting up while the post is still in transit.

• The card doubles as identification at municipal offices, libraries, post offices and shops.
• Copenhagen's guidance also lists it among what you need in order to obtain MitID.
• A replacement for a lost or damaged card costs DKK 40 (2026).

Group 1 or Group 2

Group 1 is the default: you are registered with a named GP, treatment by that GP is free, and you need a referral from them to see a specialist. Group 2 lets you consult any GP or specialist without registering, but the care is only partly covered and you pay whatever exceeds the regional subsidy. Group 2 patients still need referrals for physiotherapists, chiropodists and psychologists. Switching group is only possible after a year in your current one, costs DKK 40 (2026), takes effect when the city receives the payment, and produces a new card within three weeks.

• Changing GP also costs DKK 40 (2026) and triggers a new card automatically.

112, 1813 and out of hours

Call 112 for acute, life-threatening illness or injury, accidents, ambulances and fire. For everything else outside your GP's hours, call 1813, the Capital Region's medical helpline, and call it before going to an emergency room rather than turning up at one. From a non-Danish mobile the number is +45 1813. Save both before you need them, because looking them up during the event is not the moment.

The weeks before you are covered

CPR takes two to three weeks to process and the card another two to four after approval, so plan on roughly a month or more from arrival with nothing Danish in place. No Danish authority publishes advice on what an unregistered newcomer should do in that window, so arrange cover before you travel rather than after you land. Private consultation and insurance prices here are not tabulated by any public body either, so whatever you are quoted has to be compared on your own.

In order

1. 1Arrange private or travel cover for the first month or two, before the CPR exists.
2. 2Save 112 and 1813, with +45 1813 for a foreign mobile.
3. 3Register for CPR; the yellow health card is ordered automatically on approval.
4. 4Install the Sundhedskortet app as soon as the CPR number arrives, rather than waiting for the post.
5. 5Check the GP named on the card, and change it for DKK 40 if the practice does not suit you.
6. 6Chase the card through a Citizen Service Centre if it has not come within four weeks.