The Positive List for Skilled Work
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | Positivlisten for faglærte 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. |
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| Official name (English) | The Positive List for Skilled Work as of 2026-08-03[3] |
| Legal basis | Udlaendingeloven (Aliens Act), LBK nr 1183 of 25 September 2025, section 9 a(2)(2); quota section 9 a(35), renewals exempt section 9 a(36); extension condition section 9 a(13) as of 2026-08-03[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 2 is a job offer with an employer meeting the target-education-ratio and no-additional-contribution test under the Employers' Educational Contribution Act, where the job is not covered by item 1, is at minimum skilled level under annex 1 and is in a shortage area, subject to the quota in section 9 a(35) – 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. The employer-side education-ratio condition appears on SIRI's page for this scheme and on no other, as the Laerepladss-AUB test; and section 9 a(35)'s quota of 1,000 for permits based on employment as a social- og sundhedshjaelper matches the quota footnote the list itself carries. |
| Instrument type | residence permit as of 2026-08-03[3] |
Permit terms
| Initial duration | up to 4 years as of 2026-08-03[3] Employment of 4 years or more is normally granted 4 years; shorter employment is granted the length of the employment. |
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| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-08-03[3] |
| Renewal duration | Not established from a qualifying source[3] No extension length published. |
| Work rights | own activity only as of 2026-08-03[3] Only the job and the company the permit was granted for; a new position in the same company needs a new permit. Sideline job by separate permit. Unpaid voluntary work allowed. No Schengen work rights. |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Yes as of 2026-08-03[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. |
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Requirements
| Job offer required | Yes as of 2026-08-03[3] |
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| Salary threshold |
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| Labour-market test | No as of 2026-08-03[3][4] No individual market test. The employer-side apprentice-training obligation below is a domestic-training condition, not a test of whether a domestic worker is available for the post. |
| Qualification requirement | Recorded at the source, but not reducible to a single value[3][4] |
| Employer sponsorship | Yes as of 2026-08-03[3] AR1 or AR6, and more than paperwork on this scheme: the employer must itself pass the apprentice-training test below, so the permit turns on the employer's compliance record as well as the applicant's job. |
| Job-search route | No as of 2026-08-03[2][3] Not a job-search route, and it carries no job-seeking entitlement – SIRI's job-seeking-permit page omits it from the qualifying schemes and this page states only that the permit is revoked when the job ends. |
Process
| Where to apply from | either as of 2026-08-03[3][4] Aliens Act section 9 a(5). |
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| Observed processing time | 3 to 4 months as of 2026-08-03[3] |
| Fees |
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| Quota |
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Physical presence
| maximum consecutive absence | 6 months · to keep the permit as of 2026-08-03[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. |
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Family inclusion
| Family members may be included | Yes as of 2026-08-03[1][3] |
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| Eligible relations | spouse, registered partner, unmarried partner, minor child as of 2026-08-03[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 rights | full 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.
Verification
| Sources cited | 5 |
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| of which official (tier 1) | 5 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2026-07-23 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-08-22 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-22 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [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] Job seeking permit
Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) · official guidance · Tier 1 · Published 2026-06-18 · Accessed 2026-08-20 - [3] The Positive List for Skilled Work
Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-08-03 · Accessed 2026-08-20 · Archived copy - [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] Apply for a permanent residence permit
The Danish Immigration Service · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-07-07 · Accessed 2026-08-19