Denmark

• No tuition at all for EU, EEA and Swiss citizens, and SU on top if you hold Danish citizenship or, as another EU/EEA citizen, gain equal status (in practice through part-time work).
• One application, one portal, one deadline, up to eight ranked choices.
• The conversion from IB points to the Danish grade average is published, so you can work out where you stand before you apply.
• You can apply before you have results — your IB coordinator sends them directly through the IB's results service.
• Several strong English-taught programmes sit in cities far cheaper than Copenhagen.

• The deadline is 12:00 noon on 15 March, not midnight, and it applies to every IB holder including those who took the IB in Denmark.
• Most bachelor's degrees are taught in Danish and require Danish at A level or a pass in Studieprøven. The English-taught set is concentrated in a handful of institutions.
• Universities must cut academic bachelor intake by roughly ten per cent across 2025–2029, so older cut-off figures understate how competitive some programmes now are.
• If you can claim SU (Danish citizens, and EU/EEA citizens with equal status): the SU reform taking effect on 1 January 2027 cuts the grant frame for higher education from 70 to 58 portions and limits SU to the prescribed length of your programme.
• Applicants without MitID must print the signature page, sign it by hand and send it to every institution by 15 March, 12:00. It is never uploaded, and the application is incomplete without it.

The Agency publishes a conversion table each year. That average is what you compete on in quota 1.

The full table

Both mathematics courses — Analysis and Approaches and Applications and Interpretation — count the same way at each level. Global Politics has no fixed national equivalence; a few universities publish their own rule for it, and the programme pages show it.

Almost every programme names subjects and levels, and some name minimum grades too. Meeting the general entry requirement is not enough on its own.

Check yours against real programmes

That deadline applies to every applicant with an international qualification, including an IB taken at a Danish school, and whether you are aiming at quota 1 or quota 2. Your IB coordinator sends your results directly through the IB's results service — you do not wait and upload them yourself.

Step by step: how to apply

Programmes with more applicants than places split their intake into two quotas. Quota 1 takes most of the places. Quota 2 takes a smaller number and weighs whatever each institution publishes — typically grades in the required subjects, relevant work or study (Aalborg counts up to twelve months), and sometimes an admission test or an essay.

If you apply by 15 March and your average can be converted to the Danish scale, you are automatically considered in quota 1 as well as quota 2.

Aalborg's admissions office is unusually blunt about what does not count in its quota 2: motivational letters and recommendations are not considered relevant and are not required. Other institutions — Copenhagen Business School in particular — do want an essay. Check each one.

This is the single biggest constraint on studying in Denmark with an IB. The University of Copenhagen puts it plainly on its own bachelor page: 78 programmes, all taught in Danish. Aalborg has historically taught four in English. Most of the English-taught provision sits at Copenhagen Business School, Southern Denmark, the IT University, Roskilde and the university colleges.

If you took Danish A1 or Danish A Literature — at either level — you are fine. If you did not, and the programme is taught in Danish, you will need the Studieprøven language test or an equivalent.

Non-EU students also pay an application fee of roughly €100–200 to each university, and DKK 3,060 (2026 rate) for the residence permit.

If you hold a residence permit under Denmark's Special Act for displaced persons from Ukraine (Act no. 324 of 16 March 2022), you pay neither tuition nor the application fee.

SU is DKK 7,426 a month before tax in 2026 if you live away from your parents. Danish citizens can claim it, and so can EU/EEA citizens with equal status — through a parent who works in Denmark, five years living in Denmark or your own job. If you cannot claim SU, look first at your own country's student finance: several EU/EEA systems fund a full degree in another country.

Money, SU and the cost of living

Residency

EU and EEA citizens apply to SIRI for an EU registration certificate within three months of arriving, bringing a passport and letter of admission. Then a CPR number from your municipality, then a health card, then a bank account and NemKonto — each step depends on the one before it. If you already live in Denmark and hold a CPR number, you have done this already.

Working

EU, EEA, Nordic and Swiss citizens can work without restriction. Others get a limited permit: 90 hours a month from September to May and full-time in June, July and August.

Housing

Danish universities have no tradition of campus accommodation. Most students live in kollegier, often some distance from campus, or rent privately. Start months before you arrive and contact your institution the moment you are accepted — August and September are the worst possible time to arrive without a room.

Healthcare

Once you have a CPR number you receive a health card automatically and healthcare is free. Choose insurance group 1, as 98% of residents do: an assigned GP, free consultations, referrals to specialists. Dental care and physiotherapy are not covered.

Your IB is converted to the Danish scale exactly as everyone else's is.