Blog Post

Denmark’s most useful Denmark work permit route has something almost no other country offers: no salary threshold at all. If your occupation is on the Positive List, the test is whether the pay is customary for the role, not whether it clears a number.

The shortage list does the work that a salary threshold does elsewhere. Here is how Denmark’s four routes fit together and which one you are likely to be on.

The four routes

Read the first and third rows together and the logic becomes clear. The Pay Limit Scheme says: if you earn enough, we do not care what you do. The Positive List says: if you do something we are short of, we do not care what you earn, provided it is the normal rate. Most applicants qualify more easily on the second.

The Positive Lists, and what is actually on them

SIRI, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, publishes two lists on nyidanmark.dk:

• The Positive List for Higher Education, with around 190 job titles. Engineers, IT specialists, nurses, doctors and researchers.
• The Positive List for Skilled Work, with around 65 titles. Electricians, plumbers, welders, carpenters and care workers.

That second list matters more than its length suggests, because it is one of the few routes in Europe where a skilled trade gets you in without a degree and without a high salary. Denmark is short of trades and has written that into the rules rather than leaving it to a points system.

The lists are updated every six months, based on labour market analysis. So an occupation that was not on it last year may be on it now, and the reverse. Check the current version rather than any summary, this one included. More detail in our guide to the Positive Lists.

Coming to look, rather than to take a job

The job seeking permit is the route this post was originally about, and it is worth being precise about who it suits. It lets you enter Denmark to look for work rather than to start it, so it sits alongside the European job seeker visas rather than alongside the schemes above.

Denmark’s version is largely tied to having studied there or to holding a qualification that maps onto the Positive Lists, which is the condition that tends to be left out of roundups. If you did study in Denmark it is among the easiest options in Europe; if you did not, check the condition before planning around it.

Compare it with the alternatives before committing: eight countries with job seeker visas sets them side by side, and Germany’s Opportunity Card runs a year with 20 hours of permitted work a week, which is the most generous of them.

Cost and timing

Note who pays. As on every legitimate route covered on this site, the employer carries the sponsorship cost. If a recruiter asks you to cover the SIRI fee or charges you for a placement, that is not an unusual arrangement, it is the shape of a fraud.

One month is fast by European standards, and four years is a long first permit. Both are reasons Denmark is underrated relative to its larger neighbours.

What to do

1. Check both Positive Lists first. If your occupation is on either, that is your route and there is no salary threshold to clear.
2. If it is not, compare the two pay limit schemes. DKK 446,000 is a considerably lower bar than DKK 552,000.
3. Check the list version. They change every six months.
4. Ask what is customary for the role, since on the Positive List that is the actual test.
5. Start qualification recognition early if your profession is regulated. It is slower than the one-month permit decision by a wide margin.

Related: changes to the supplementary pay limit scheme and eight countries with job seeker visas. Browse Danish shortage jobs with visa sponsorship on our board.

Last checked September 2026. The Positive Lists are updated every six months and the pay limits were revised in January 2026. Confirm the current list and threshold with SIRI before applying.