Registration, banking and utilities in Copenhagen

Who registers, and how it now starts

You can apply for a CPR number only if you are staying more than three consecutive months and have somewhere to live. Registration in Copenhagen is no longer a walk-in: you submit an online application, which you cannot do earlier than four weeks before you arrive, wait roughly two to three weeks for processing, and are then emailed a personalised link to book the in-person appointment. That appointment is with International Citizen Service East at International House Copenhagen, Nyropsgade 1, 1602 København V. Everything there is free of charge.

• The counter is open Monday and Wednesday only, 09:00 to 15:00. Phone +45 33 66 10 00, email cph@kk.dk.
• The office serves Copenhagen and 37 partner municipalities, and handles CPR, the SIRI residence document, the health card, MitID, the tax card and U2 unemployment-benefit export in one place.
• Once registered, report a move no earlier than 4 weeks before it and no later than 5 days after it. Leaving Denmark for more than six months means deregistering, and the municipality or an ICS will tell you the window for that.

The order, by nationality

EU citizens do four things in sequence: gather the documents, apply to SIRI for the EU residence document on form OD1A, submit the online CPR application to the municipality, then attend the CPR appointment. The residence document must be valid and no older than six months on the day of that appointment, which is why SIRI comes first. Non-EU citizens must already hold the residence or work permit from SIRI or the Danish Immigration Service before the CPR application, alongside the passport biodata page, proof of accommodation and, where relevant, marital-status and children's birth certificates. Nordic citizens need only a passport or national ID card and no residence document at all.

Proof of accommodation

Proof of accommodation in Denmark is a required upload for every nationality, and without somewhere to live you cannot be registered at all, which is the ordering problem that traps people arriving on a sublet or a hotel booking. A signed lease in your own name is the clean case; anything else — staying at a friend's address, a room you own, a long hotel stay — is judged by International House, and they publish which documents they will accept. Ask them before you upload rather than after, because a document they reject means booking the appointment again from the start. Whatever you send, make sure the full address, the date and the signatures are all actually on it.

The tax card, and the 55%

If your employer has no tax card for you, 55% is deducted from your salary, which makes this the one piece of paperwork worth starting before you land. You do not need a CPR number first: the digital form 04.063 issues a tax number alongside the card if you do not have one. Applying through self-service at skat.dk/tastselv generates the card immediately, with approval taking up to five days, while the digital form takes about two weeks. Do not apply earlier than one month before you start the job.

• Attach a fully signed employment contract, a passport page or a national ID card issued by a public authority, a work permit if you are from outside the EU, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland or Liechtenstein, and a marriage certificate if relevant.
• Moving to Denmark normally triggers full tax liability: any non-Danish income or property has to be stated on both your preliminary income assessment, the forskudsopgørelse, and your årsopgørelse.
• The annual assessment, the årsopgørelse, appears in E-tax from 23 March. Most people's deadline to check and correct it is 1 May; 1 July is the deadline only for those who must file a full tax return, such as the self-employed or people with foreign income.

MitID and NemKonto

MitID is the national digital identity, and getting one requires that you already hold a CPR number, an administrative CPR number issued by SIRI, or a personal tax number. You can register yourself through the app if you have a biometric passport with an embedded chip; otherwise you book an appointment at International House Copenhagen. NemKonto is the account public authorities pay into for tax refunds, child benefit, holiday allowance and unemployment benefit, it needs a CPR number, and it is free to assign. It does not have to be a Danish account, since an existing foreign one can be nominated on a form, and authorities can only pay in rather than withdraw or see your balance.

In order

1. 1Apply for the tax card as soon as you have a signed employment contract, from a month before you start.
2. 2EU citizens: apply to SIRI for the residence document on form OD1A.
3. 3Non-EU citizens: have the residence or work permit in hand before anything else.
4. 4Submit the online CPR application, no earlier than four weeks before you arrive.
5. 5Check with International House which accommodation document they will accept, then assemble it complete with full address, date and signature.
6. 6Book the CPR appointment when the personalised link arrives, checking the residence document will still be under six months old on the day.
7. 7Set up MitID once the CPR number exists.
8. 8Assign a NemKonto so the authorities can pay you.