In the past 30 years, the percentage of the Danish population who do not hold Danish citizenship has tripled, according to new figures from the Rockwool Foundation.
In 1992, around 166,000 people living here were not citizens, while that number rose to 620,000 in 2023. Percentage-wise, that’s a rise from 3 percent of the population to ten percent.
Starting in 2006, the number of people living in Denmark without citizenship, who came from “Western countries”, rose significantly, according to the figures. This is primarily due to expansion of the EU in 2004, where 10 countries, including Poland, Hungary and Estonia, joined the bloc. This made it easier for them to move to Denmark.
Statistics Denmark defines “Western countries” as the EU, Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, the UK, the Vatican, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
At the start of the 90s, around 6 in 10 people in Denmark without Danish citizenship came from so-called “non-Western” countries, defined as all other countries than those listed above. That figure has now dropped slightly to 5 in 10.
The number of people born in Denmark without citizenship has also risen in the past 30 years, from less than one percent of the population in 1992 to 2.5 percent of the population in 2023. In numbers, that’s a rise from 38,000 to 150,000 people. People in this group are not eligible for Danish citizenship until they become adults, unless their parents are granted citizenship.
The percentage of babies born in Denmark each year without Danish citizenship has also risen since the 1990s, from 6-7 percent then to around 10 percent now ‒ primarily the children of immigrants from “Western” countries. The amount of children born in a single year without citizenship, who still do not have citizenship by the time they turn 18, has also risen from around 27-28 percent in 1992-1996 to 47 percent in 2004 (this is the most recent figure as children born after 2004 had not turned 18 when these figures were collated).
Finally, the number of immigrants without Danish citizenship has also risen over the same period, from around 2.5 percent of the population in 1992 to around 8 percent of the population in 2023.