Full tax liability
A non-Danish person running a business in Denmark will become fully liable for tax, if he or she becomes resident here or stays here for a period of at least six months, including short stays abroad for holiday or the like. Read more about tax liability
All income and expenses must be entered on the tax return, regardless of where they were earned or incurred.
If you are also resident in another country and are liable to file a tax return there as well, you can obtain tax relief in one of the countries. The general rule is that you pay tax on the profits from business activities in the country of work and tax on other income in the country to which you have the strongest ties.
Limited tax liability
As a self-employed person without permanent residence in Denmark, you have limited tax liability if you have a permanent establishment in Denmark. This means that you are liable for tax on profits made in Denmark.
Read more about permanent establishment in Denmark.
Registering as a self-employed person with full or limited tax liability
To be a self-employed person with a permanent establishment in Denmark, you must obtain a Danish CVR number (business reg. no.) to be registered for VAT, among other things. You register by completing the form Registration of non-Danish Company - Start 40.112 at virk.dk. After that, you need to get a Danish personal tax number and a preliminary income assessment (forskudsopgørelse), which calculates your personal provisional tax. Go to skat.dk/taxcard to get a tax card and a Danish personal tax number.
The Danish rules governing when a person is considered an employee or a self-employed person are more restrictive than in some other countries. For this reason, you are advised to check whether you are considered to be an employee and not a self-employed person under the Danish rules.
You will be regarded as an employee, if you are paid for personal work in a business where you work according to the employer's directions and for the employer's account and risk. This means that the Danish employer you contract with must withhold A-tax and labour market contributions for you as for its Danish employees.
Examples: You work alongside the business's employees erecting a wall, tweaking an IT system, cutting meat, packaging goods or driving the business' delivery vans. Maybe you also represent the business in dealings with its customers. You may in other contexts be a self-employed person in your home country, but under the Danish rules, you are considered to be an employee of the Danish business you are working for.
Read more about your business status for tax purposes