Profile

The Positive List for People with a Higher Education

Route status

Active as of 2026-08-17[3]

Open to new applications under the rules recorded below.

Residency route facts

Identity

Identity
Official name (local)Positivlisten for personer med en videregående uddannelse as of 2026-08-22[3]
Heading of the Danish-language edition of this route's own page on nyidanmark.dk, transcribed as published. The Aliens Act enumerates the grounds by section number and gives the permits no names of their own, so the authority's published Danish heading is the local name.
Official name (English)The Positive List for People with a Higher Education as of 2026-08-17[3]
Legal basisUdlaendingeloven (Aliens Act), LBK nr 1183 of 25 September 2025, section 9 a(2)(1); the list itself and its two-year delisting floor section 9 a(34); regional employment council statements section 9 a(8); extension condition section 9 a(13) as of 2026-08-17[3][4]
SIRI's scheme page cites no statutory section anywhere in its text. The identification is made from the consolidated Aliens Act's own wording: section 9 a(2) enumerates the employment and self-employment grounds as numbered items, and item 1 is a job offer in a position on the positive list referred to in section 9 a(34), in a field of national shortage (litra a), of regional shortage as recorded by the regional employment councils (litra b), or of national shortage within an unemployment insurance fund's professional field (litra c) – which is this scheme's distinguishing condition as SIRI states it. Both sources are Tier-1 and describe the same rule; nothing is inferred from silence. SIRI's page describes exactly those three add-mechanisms – the Labour Market Balance Model, the Regional Labour Market Councils and the profession-specific unemployment insurance funds – and states the same two-year floor before a title can be delisted.
Instrument typeresidence permit as of 2026-08-17[3]

Permit terms

Permit terms
Initial durationup to 4 years as of 2026-08-17[3]
Employment of 4 years or more is normally granted 4 years; shorter employment is granted the length of the employment plus an automatic 6-month job-seeking permit.
RenewableYes as of 2026-08-17[3]
Renewal durationNot established from a qualifying source[3]
No extension length published.
Work rightsown activity only as of 2026-08-17[3]
Only the job and the company the permit was granted for; a new position in the same company needs a new permit. A sideline job needs a separate permit. Unpaid voluntary work is allowed. A territorial restriction rides on this scheme alone: where the job title was added to the list by a Regional Labour Market Council, the holder may work only for the company or a branch of it inside the municipalities that council covers – meetings elsewhere in Denmark and business trips abroad are allowed – and the restriction falls away after four years' residence.

Permanent residence and citizenship

Permanent residence and citizenship
Counts toward permanent residenceYes as of 2026-08-17[3][4][5]
Permanent residence requires eight years' uninterrupted legal residence held throughout on a permit under Aliens Act sections 7-9 f, 9 i-9 n, 9 p or 9 q (1) or (2), which the Immigration Service enumerates on its permanent-residence page. This route's permit is granted under section 9 a, which falls inside that range, so time on it counts. Whether the holder also meets the separate employment and supplementary conditions is a question about the individual, not about the route.

Requirements

Requirements
Job offer requiredYes as of 2026-08-17[3]
Salary threshold
    • Measured against: statistical average
    • Amount: Recorded at the source, but not reducible to a single value[3]
      Researched and sourced; the field cannot hold the answer. This scheme sets no numeric floor at all. The test is that the offered salary must not be lower than is normal in the field the applicant will work in, and where SIRI has doubts it asks experts in the field – typically one of the regional labour market councils – to assess it. There is no published number to record, for this scheme or for a given job title. 'statistical_average' is the least-wrong basis for the assessment SIRI describes but no figure exists to attach to it. A second, non-numeric salary test applies alongside: the salary and terms of employment offered must not be inferior to the standards of the professional field, and SIRI can refer the assessment to the regional labour market councils. Only liquid salary, labour-market pension contributions and paid holiday allowance count towards either test; paid canteen, car, phone, internet and housing do not.
Labour-market testNo as of 2026-08-17[3][4]
No individual market test: membership of the positive list is itself the shortage mechanism, and the statutory ground at section 9 a(2)(1) imposes no advertising or vacancy condition on the individual job, in contrast to item 13.
Qualification requirementdegree, regulated profession as of 2026-08-17[3]
SIRI states that every job title on this list requires a completed higher educational programme, relevant to the title. The levels the list itself uses are: at least three years' education at bachelor level; at least three years' IT education at bachelor level; professional bachelor's degree; master's degree; higher educational programme. A number of titles carry an additional marker for Danish authorisation, Danish official recognition or Danish official permission, which is why 'regulated_profession' is recorded alongside 'degree' rather than instead of it.
Employer sponsorshipYes as of 2026-08-17[3]
AR1 (two parts) or AR6 under power of attorney.
Job-search routeNo as of 2026-08-17[2][3]
Not a job-search route, but it carries the 6-month job-seeking entitlement: automatic where the permit is issued for less than 4 years, and on application within two days where the holder becomes unemployed through no fault of their own. No work during the job-seeking period.

Process

Process
Where to apply fromeither as of 2026-08-17[3][4]
Aliens Act section 9 a(5).
Observed processing time1 to 3 months as of 2026-08-17[3]
Fees
    • Kind: application
    • Amount: DKK 6,810 as of 2026-08-17[3]
    • Charged per: application
    • Paid by: applicant
    • Condition: Sole Tier-1 publisher (SIRI).

Physical presence

Physical presence
maximum consecutive absence6 months · to keep the permit as of 2026-08-17[3]
SIRI states the standard Danish lapse rule for this permit: the holder must not give up their Danish address or stay abroad for more than 6 successive months, and a breach makes the permit lapse. A dispensation can be applied for in advance.

Family inclusion

Family inclusion
Family members may be includedYes as of 2026-08-17[1][3]
Eligible relationsspouse, registered partner, unmarried partner, minor child as of 2026-08-17[1][3]
Spouse, registered or cohabiting partner, and children under 18 living at home. SIRI's accompanying-family page adds the conditions the scheme page does not state: the family member must live at the same address as the sponsor, a cohabiting partner needs 1.5-2 years of documented cohabitation, and one case order ID, one fee and one application form are required per family member.
Family members' work rightsfull as of 2026-07-23[1]

Your next step

Read the requirements above considering your own situation: the income multiple, the absence limits, who you can bring. Check the country record for the reference figure those amounts are calculated from, and for anything that has changed recently.

The next step is your own case. That assessment is legal work. Create profile for our assistance in this.

Profile benefits

  • A 30-minute call with our consultant, who reads your profile first.
  • An offer for legal support built around your case, covering the whole process.
Create profile

Verification

Verification
Sources cited5
of which official (tier 1)5
Oldest as-of date2026-07-23
Newest as-of date2026-08-22
Reviewed on2026-08-22
Schema version1.1

Sources

  1. [1] Accompanying family member to an employee
    Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-07-23 · Accessed 2026-08-20 · Archived copy
  2. [2] Job seeking permit
    Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) · official guidance · Tier 1 · Published 2026-06-18 · Accessed 2026-08-20
  3. [3] The Positive List for People with a Higher Education
    Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-08-17 · Accessed 2026-08-20
  4. [4] Bekendtgoerelse af udlaendingeloven (Aliens Act, consolidated), LBK nr 1183 af 25/09/2025
    Udlaendinge- og Integrationsministeriet / Retsinformation · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2025-09-25 · Accessed 2026-08-22
  5. [5] Apply for a permanent residence permit
    The Danish Immigration Service · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-07-07 · Accessed 2026-08-19

Ask legal assistance

Send a message and ReResident will reply.

What you send stays with ReResident. It is read in order to reply to you, and it is deleted twelve months after it arrives. The privacy page says what's kept, for how long, and who can see it.

    Sending this shares your message and contact details with ReResident so it can reply. Kept for twelve months. · Privacy