Tax in Denmark: VAT, income tax, company tax, capital gains
25%
Denmark charges 25% Moms on most goods and services. The rate is verified against Skattestyrelsen / Skat.dk (Danish Tax Agency) / EU TEDB on 19 August 2026; the top personal income-tax rate is 32.01% (2026 tax year, Skatte- og Vækstministeriet (svmn.dk)), and the headline company tax rate is 22% (OECD Corporate Tax Statistics).
Moms in Denmark
Value-added: Moms is charged on sales and reclaimed on purchases, so only the added value is taxed.
- Standard rate
- 25%
- Local name
- Moms — Value Added Tax
- Type
- VAT
- Reduced rates
- None on record
- Filing
- Quarterly / Monthly / Annual
- Authority
- Skattestyrelsen / Skat.dk (Danish Tax Agency) / EU TEDB
- Current rate since
- 1 January 2000
Introduced 1967 (at a 10% standard rate)
Denmark adopted VAT in 1967 at 10% and has raised it steadily to today's 25%, reached in 1992. What makes the Danish system unusual is what it never built: while every other EU country carved out a ladder of reduced rates, Denmark kept one rate for almost everything, with a zero rate for newspapers and periodicals and essentially nothing in between.
What it replaced: Denmark's earlier single-stage sales tax, swapped in 1967 for a value-added "moms" — one of the first VATs anywhere outside France.
Income tax in Denmark
The top personal income-tax band is 32.01% for the 2026 tax year (shown as ~60.5% (incl. 8% labour-market contribution) in the rates table, which includes levies).
Company tax in Denmark
The headline corporate income tax rate is 22%. In effect since 1 January 2026.
Indicative only: confirm with Denmark's national tax authority. OECD 2026: central statutory CIT 22%, combined (central+sub-central) 22%
Capital gains tax in Denmark
- Shares
- Gains on listed shares are aktieindkomst (share income), a separate schedule: 27% on share income up to DKK 79,400 (2026; DKK 67,500 in 2025) and 42% above; thresholds doubled for cohabiting married couples (DKK 158,800 in 2026).
- Property
- Taxable property gains (ejendomsavance) of individuals are included in kapitalindkomst (PSL § 4(1) no. 14), not personal income, unless the property is in the virksomhedsordning. Capital income is taxed at municipal + state rates; positive net capital income above DKK 48,800 (2023 level) enters the mellemskat (7.5% from 2026) base, with a tax ceiling of 42% for positive net capital income; the new 2026 topskat (7.5%) base is personal income plus positive net capital income above DKK 48,800, applying above DKK 690,000 (2023 level).
- Holding period
- None - gains taxed on realisation regardless of ownership period; average-cost method.
Did you know? Denmark tax facts
Denmark charges 25% on almost everything and has no reduced rate at all — no cheaper band for food, medicine or children's clothes. The only step below the standard rate is a zero rate for newspapers and periodicals.
VAT was introduced in Denmark in 1967 at 10% and reached 25% in 1992, up from 22% the year before. Since 1967 the standard rate has ranged between 15% and 25%.
Source: OECD Consumption Tax Trends — Denmark ↗Books are the first crack in that single-rate wall: from 1 July 2026 Denmark zero-rates books, dropping them from 25% to nothing, as a response to falling reading rates.
Physical books, e-books and audiobooks all qualify, and suppliers keep the right to deduct input VAT. Streaming and subscription access does not count, because that is treated as a right of use rather than a sale. Whether something is a 'book' turns largely on whether it carries an ISBN and could plausibly exist in print.
Source: BDO — Denmark: Updates on Zero-Rate VAT on Books ↗Denmark's income tax is capped by a 'skatteloft' — a legal ceiling of 52.05% on the combined municipal and national rate — but add the 8% labour-market contribution taken first and the top marginal rate reaches 55.9%.
Wikipedia: the maximum effective marginal rate on labour income in 2019 was '55.9%', combining the 8% labour market contribution with the 'tax ceiling' (skatteloft) of 52.05%; 'income tax was introduced in Denmark via a fundamental tax reform in 1903'.
Source: Wikipedia — Taxation in Denmark · checked 10 October 2026 ↗Members of the Danish National Church pay a church tax of roughly 0.7% of income — but Statistics Denmark refuses to count it as a tax, classing it as a 'voluntary transfer from households to the state'.
Wikipedia: the exact rate varies by municipality; Statistics Denmark does not classify the church tax as a proper tax, describing it as a 'voluntary transfer from households to the state'. According to the OECD, 'Denmark had the highest tax to GDP ratio of all its member countries in 2021', at about 47.4%.
Source: Wikipedia — Taxation in Denmark · checked 10 October 2026 ↗
More stories, for every country that has one, on the tax facts page.
Ask your AI assistant about tax in Denmark
The figures on this page are callable by any MCP-compatible assistant through the free Tax MCP. Add https://taxmcp.ai2fin.com as a custom connector in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or your own agent — no login, no API key — then ask:
- “What is the Moms rate in Denmark, and what is the source?”
- “Estimate income tax in Denmark on DKK 60,000 for 2026.”
- “What is the company tax rate in Denmark and how is it sourced?”
Connect in three steps, and what a connected answer looks like: Tax MCP.
Denmark, answered
Questions about tax in Denmark
- What is the Moms rate in Denmark?
- The standard Moms (Value Added Tax) rate in Denmark is 25%, verified against Skattestyrelsen / Skat.dk (Danish Tax Agency) / EU TEDB on 19 August 2026. Value-added: Moms is charged on sales and reclaimed on purchases, so only the added value is taxed.
- What is the top income tax rate in Denmark?
- The top personal income-tax band in Denmark is 32.01% for the 2026 tax year, verified against Skatte- og Vækstministeriet (svmn.dk) on 6 October 2026. The free income-tax calculator on this site works through the bands below it, and shows the rate table it used.
- What is the company tax rate in Denmark?
- The headline corporate income tax rate in Denmark is 22%, as published by OECD Corporate Tax Statistics (checked 6 October 2026, verification pending). Indicative only: confirm with Denmark's national tax authority. OECD 2026: central statutory CIT 22%, combined (central+sub-central) 22%
- How is capital gains tax charged in Denmark?
- In Denmark, the regime is mixed, verified against Skattestyrelsen (skat.dk) on 6 October 2026. On shares: Gains on listed shares are aktieindkomst (share income), a separate schedule: 27% on share income up to DKK 79,400 (2026; DKK 67,500 in 2025) and 42% above; thresholds doubled for cohabiting married couples (DKK 158,800 in 2026). Holding period: None - gains taxed on realisation regardless of ownership period; average-cost method.
- Can an AI assistant look up tax rates for Denmark?
- Yes. The free Tax MCP at https://taxmcp.ai2fin.com gives Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP-compatible agent the same sourced figures as this page: the Moms rate, an income-tax estimate, the company tax rate, the capital gains rule and a side-by-side comparison with other countries, each answer citing the authority and the date it was checked. Add the endpoint as a custom connector; there is no login or API key.
Sources
- Skattestyrelsen / Skat.dk (Danish Tax Agency) / EU TEDB
- Skatte- og Vækstministeriet (svmn.dk)
- OECD Corporate Tax Statistics
- Skattestyrelsen (skat.dk)
- OECD Consumption Tax Trends — Denmark
- BDO — Denmark: Updates on Zero-Rate VAT on Books
- Wikipedia — Taxation in Denmark
Last checked 10 October 2026. General information computed from published government rates, not tax advice. Check the linked authority or a registered adviser before relying on a figure.
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