Tag Archives: residency

Danish-German border

Getting Registered in Denmark

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In a previous post I described my first attempts at getting registered in Denmark. Those first attempts were a failure. Luckily things started to look more positive from then on. Following the writing of that post I decided to email the state administration offices in southern Denmark and got a reply saying that I could use that e-mail to forward my application! So that is what I did.

A few days later I received a letter saying that I should turn up at the Aabenraa state administration office with my passport. As the offices were closed on Monday (for some employee training?) I went to Aabenraa yesterday with my passport. After waiting for around 30 minutes I was called in to an office, where they asked to see my photo-ID, printed off the registration certificate, and off I went – I am an official resident of Denmark!

Ann in Denmark

Registration certificate – check! CPR number – to go!

The CPR number is the Danish personal identification number. You need it to to open a bank account, to rent a house and a million and one other things I am yet to discover. While the registration certificate is applied for at the state administration offices, the CPR number is applied for at the citizen service (Borgerservice) in your respective town hall.

I was quickly served at the citizen service. The process involved filling in one form and presenting my passport and residence certificate. I was also asked to select a doctor which I did from the list provided. I now have to wait for my CPR number to be issued.

Overall, as Judith Doyle had commented on my previous post, once I got to Denmark it was all quite easy. An added bonus was that everyone spoke English to me – that is, until the counter lady at the citizen service realised that Michael was Danish! From that point on all she spoke was Danish, even if her English was very good. I was quite surprised to say the least!

Applying for Residency (EU)

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Although I am an EU citizen and should, therefore, have freedom of movement within EU countries, this doesn’t mean that I can just swan up to any country and settle there. It was, surprisingly, that easy when I moved to the UK. In Denmark I need to jump through a few more hoops however.

Border post from the election in 1920

The first on my list of things to do was applying for a registration certificate. This certificate is the piece of paper I need to be able to stay in the country for more than 3 months (or 6 months if a job seeker).

There should be three ways of applying for this certificate:

  1. at the state administration offices in Denmark,
  2. via mail or email,
  3. or at the Danish mission abroad.

As I was not yet in Denmark I tried option 3 first. I tried to call the embassy but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. I decided to try and visit the embassy in London myself, but there I was not even allowed in to speak to anyone. My final try involved getting Michael to call himself to a new number I was given, where he was told that I should apply when I get to Denmark. So option 3 was scrapped.

In the same way, it was not clear where to send the documents by email or post. I tried to call Danish Immigration but they kept on telling me that I should call somewhere else but didn’t know the number of where I should call. Also, no one seemed to know that Malta is in the EU, so that approach also didn’t work too well. I then hunted down another number online and finally got through to someone who spoke English and knew what I needed. Unfortunately it seems that although I can send them things by email, this won’t speed up the process at all as the application will only be processed once I appear in front of them in person. Therefore, I am not too sure why they list the last 2 as options.

On to my last option: waiting till I arrived in Denmark. I managed to find a list of state administration offices in Southern Denmark on the Danish Immigration Services website by going through the Danish language part using googletranslate.