This "guide" is made as an unofficial helper to get settled in Denmark as an employee in the university, especially targeted towards PhD Student. It's not exhaustive, it might be biased, it might be wrong or outdated, so do not take it as the full and complete truth, but as a foundation to help you ! Always visit the official website of the government and of ITU to be sure of the presented guidelines. We still believe this guide to be worthy as a starting point, to get a first grasp and not feel overwhelmed by all the tasks, and the small tips that can be important to know.
You can contribute to this guide ! As most people are going through the same things, the whole point of this guide is to avoid having everyone wasting energy trying to figure out the same stuff. If you have any worthwhile addition to make for specific cases, additional tips, nuances, other sources to back up... anything to help make this guide a better helper, please contribute !
Denmark work ecosystem is revolving around Collective Agreements. Unions representing the workers are discussing with employers and companies to find a set of rules around salary, pension, benefits. This is why it's relatively hard to make common statements for everyone, and that I will speak specifically for people working at ITU as academics. Bottom line: if you are a PhD student and you take the regular pension scheme, your net monthly salary will be around 22000 dkk, or around 2950 euros.
Holidays are counted through an account with feriepenge, or holiday pay. By default, you get 2.08 paid day for holidays every month that you worked full time, or 25 days in a full year from September to August. This is amounting to a specific sum of money. On top of that, you accrue five special days of holiday annually, or 0.42 day per month of employment. So you have 6 weeks of paid holidays.
To quote the ITU Intranet: "The Holiday Act (Ferieloven) requires you to take four weeks (20 days) of holiday in the holiday year (1 September to 31 August the next year). You are entitled to taking (and in general should) three weeks (15 consecutive workdays) during the period from 1 May to 30 September. The remaining two weeks (10 days) are called remaining holiday (“restferie”) and may be taken at any time during the holiday year. ITU is closed in the period between Christmas and New Year, and you must therefore take holiday in the days covered by this period."
You need to put Week 52 as Holidays, and by default Week 28/29/30 (corresponding to most of July) are put as Holidays too, you need to change things on the platform if you want to change that, but you need to put 3 weeks regardless between 1 May and 30 September.
You have 16 month to use your holidays, but 5 weeks are from September to August schedule, while 1 week is from January to December. I you started in September 2000, you will win holidays until August 2001 that you have until December 2001 to use. You will also have 1 day of special holiday from the time working between January 2000 and December 2000, to use starting in May 2001 to 30 April 2002.
It sounds more complicated than it is, you just need to look at the platform to put on holidays and be careful which and when are you using paid holidays.
When you are employed in Denmark, you pay taxes automatically. To understand how they work, you pay a small employee contribution, then you pay a flat tax of 8% called AM-Bidrag, translating roughly to Worker contribution. See here for more informations in Danish. The flat tax is applied on your monthly salary AND your holiday pay, but not your pension. Then, you pay taxes called A-skat on the rest of your salary, between 36% and 38%, being first the National tax on your salary minus AM-Bidrag, then on the remaining the Municipality tax (so if you live in Frederiksberg or another commune than Copenhagen, you will pay a different amount of taxes !). If you choose to take the International Pension Scheme (see [[How to settle in#Pension scheme|below]]), you also pay this taxation rate of around 37% on the amount going into your pension fund.
One important thing to note when you are a foreigner is that you have to choose a pension scheme. They are 3 options for you:
- Get the regular pension scheme, the same one as the Danish people. As a PhD Fellow, 16.8% (with potentially 0.3% that can either go to your salary or your pension, amounting to 17.1%) of 85% your salary will go into a pension fund without being taxed. This pension fund will be handled by some company that will invest your money. No taxes are payed on the money going into your pension fund, and the gains you make from your pension fund will be taxed at a low rate. If you wish to withdraw the money from your pension fund before retiring you can, but you will pay 60% of taxes on it.
- Get the International Pension Scheme S53A. 17% of your salary will go into a pension fund and you will pay taxes on it, thus reducing your net salary. Since you have payed taxes on it, the gains you make with your pension fund will be taxed at a higher rate. But if you wish to withdraw the money, you will not pay additional taxes.
- Don't participate in the pension scheme and get the money directly as salary. You will gain the additional 17% every month, but it will be taxed like the rest of your salary, around 38%. This can only be done for a total of 5 years working in Denmark. Afterwards, you need to take one of the pension schemes.
Another thing to consider is that pension funds typically buys apartments with your money to invest it. If you are a member of such fund, you can get priority for renting apartments at usually a lower rate than the market. This will not be possible for your first accomodation as you need to get your first salary within the Danish system to be part of the pension fund, but good to keep in mind for your choice.
When you are legally a resident in Denmark, you are automatically covered for most medical expenses. You will need your [[How to settle in#Get your health card|yellow card]] and always check more specifically, but here are the following main points:
The national, publicly financed health care system fully covers the following services:
- primary and preventive care
- specialist care
- hospital care, including inpatient prescription drugs
- mental health care
- long-term care
- dental services for children under age 18.
Outpatient prescription drugs, adult dental care, physiotherapy, and optometry services are partially covered through subsidies.
[Source](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/denmark)
The most common case in which you might pay things are either from buying prescription drugs, getting adult dental care (outside of 2 annual dental cleaning visits), and seeing a specialist without your General Practicioner referral.
You can get an additional, private insurance to get access to private hospitals, or paying for prescription drugs or adult dental care. Know that most Danes have no additional coverage, so you don't necessarily need one. Some companies can give as a benefit an additional health coverage for employees, but that's not the case for ITU.
This is the hardest part and there is no easy way around it. If you are a student, as in you are taking courses in a Danish university, you can take a student apartment, which will be cheaper than other options on the market. You can look at KKIK for a list of student housing. The Housing Foundation is for all members of university, students AND staff. So you can also try to find an accomodation if you are not a student here.
The best option to find a cheap place to stay is to find a shared apartment. For a room in Copenhagen, you can expect between 4000 dkk and 6000 dkk and above (or 540 euros and 800 euros). The best place to find a room is on Facebook groups, such as this one. But there are loads of them and a lot of people searching, sometimes an offer can have dozens of answers in a couple of minutes.
A lot of offers are also for a small, fixed amount of time (from a couple of weeks to multiple months), because some people are subletting their apartment or their room because they are going on vacation, or are working/studying somewhere else. This is a good way to find something quickly and cheaper than more permanent options. This can be done legally, or illegally, be aware of what is it in that case.
When finding a place, keep in mind that if you want to stay in Denmark, you need to register a [[How to settle in#Get a CPR Number|CPR-Number]] that will be tied to the adress, thus it cannot be done everywhere. Always ask if you're not sure !
A free website of offers is Boligportal and like for anything else that you might want to buy you can use DBA where individual can sell things, including renting a place. There are a lot of websites asking for a subscription that have supposedly a better search, scraping other websites and allowing to create agents to automatically notify you of new offers corresponding to your search, such as Bolighub or Lejebolig. Be it Facebook groups or makertplace like the ones above, there will always be scammers, so be careful !
Niddo Bryggen is an apartment complex targeted towards students and university members very close to ITU (500m) where there are usually accessible spot, either shared apartment or your own studio, but it gets expensive.
And of course, you can always ask to other NERDS member if they know of any opportunity ! When you live there you will hear a lot of offers, so they might be one for you out there that you're not aware of.
Finding a place to live is the first step as you will need to have a valid adress to make other administrative tasks.
Biking in Copenhagen is by far the most convenient (money and time-wise) transportation option and also the funniest. There are different ways to get a bike that might be more suitable for you depending on your needs:
- DBA is a website to sell and buy a lot of stuff where you can also find tons of second-hand bikes. This option might be best for you if you’re planning a long stay in Denmark and you can easily sell the bike before leaving the country. Keep in mind that you cannot rely on a reparation service if you opt for this. Something else to keep in mind is that if you’re buying the cheapest bike (less than 700-800 dkk) you’re embracing the risk of buying a really rusty and old bike that might need some extra care and reparations even before starting to use it. Our studies prove that one-third of the sample had to repair the rusty bike once in a while, one-third had to abandon the vehicle before the end of the stay, one one-third ended up buying more and more rusty bikes that were all unadjustable. Yes, this is based on the experience of 3 different people.
- Swapfiets offers a bike leasing service where you pay a fixed monthly fee. The good point is the reparation service is included and it is possible to change the bike for whatever reason. They offer different models, including e-bikes, for different prices and there are student discounts on the fees available. This might result more expensive in the long run so do your math.
- For a really short stay or a once-in-a-while ride you may also opt for a bike-sharing app. There are many out there options but the cheapest and most flexible could be Donkey Republic, which do not require a monthly subscription and allows you to pay as you go. Remember that we are not in the Netherlands 😉 and we follow rules here! To have a safe and enjoyable travel always signal with your arm your intention to turn, left or right, and stop, by raising up your hand.
If you are an EU Citizen, since Denmark is in the Shengen Space you don't need a visa to get into the country. You can come with a National ID Card or a Passport and stay legally for 3 month technically.
Once you have a place to stay, you can focus on administration. Most tasks cannot be done before being in the country, so don't worry too much ! If you are an EU Citizen and stay a couple of months, this is not necessary, as Denmark is part of the Shengen Space.
You first need to apply for a residence permit. If you are an EU Citizen, everything will be easier. If you are in an internship, you will likely be in ITU as "Visiting Researcher", meaning you will not be payed, so you will not be a worker, and you will not take courses, so you will not be a student. In that case, you need to apply as a person with sufficent funds where you need to prove that you have enough money in you bank account to provide for yourself. If you are a PhD Student, you need to apply as a worker. As a worker, you need to have your work contract signed for maximum 30 days before the appointement, or you will need another statement by your employer, so be careful !
You can book an appointement either at SIRI in Valby at the South-West, or at International House in the City Center if you are an EU Citizen. Take the appointement as soon as possible after your arrival (meaning that you should do the appointement in the month before), as other procedures all depends on having first this residence permit. It's also the only administrative procedure you really need if you are not payed in Denmark and that you don't stay for more than 3 to 6 months. If you are an EU Citizen, you can even potentially only rely on your National ID card for all your stay.
Once you got your Residence Permit, you can get a CPR Number. But before being able to make an appointement, you need to apply for a CPR Registration, which can take multiple weeks to be validated, and only then you can take an appointement. The CPR Number requires the Residence Permit, but you don't need it to ask for registration, and once you are validated you can take an appointement whenever you like. Since it can take up to 4 weeks, it's better to make the registration in the month before coming in Denmark.
Once you have your CPR Number, you will automatically receive by mail the yellow health insurance card called sundhedskort, assigning you to a general practicioner based on your address. This card expire whenever you change your adress !
You can keep your card in a smartphone application.
Having the CPR Number is not enough, you need to use MitIDto prove that you are the person behind that CPR Number. MitID is a system authentifying you that will be used for everything. Log in to your union, buy a mobile phone plan or objects... The easiest option is using the application on your phone. It can take between 24 hours to 10 days for the CPR number to work with the MitID app.
If for some reason it's not working even after 10 days and the support is of no help, you need to take an appointement where you will need to bring a "witness" to a Citizen Service with you to testify that you are indeed you, and that witness needs to be a resident in Denmark for at least 3 years. Ask to a Danish person or a permanent member in the lab !
Once you have MitID, a CPR Number and a Danish address, you can get a tax card. See here to understand more an create your tax card as a non-danish employee. The useful thing about having a tax card is that you are put in the right tax bracket immediately. Otherwise, you might be put first in the highest tax bracket which is 55%, and then get some money back later on. If you want to avoid such delays in your budget, you need to get a tax card as fast as possible. If you are a PhD Student, you will be around 37% of taxes.
For this, you need to connect with MitID and fill out some informations that can be hard to track before your first payment slip, as your exact salary, and holiday pay.
If you have a salary in Denmark and you live somewhere with its own kitchenette, you can have access to housing benefits. Apply here. There are a lot of conditions to determine the amount that you can get, but with a PhD salary, no other revenues or help, and an apartment costing between 8500 to 10000 dkk, you can expect around 1000 to 1200 dkk of monthly housing benefits. You can technically apply 2 month before moving in, but you need to connect with MitID and fill out some informations that can be hard to track before your first payment slip and your registration in the Danish system on skat. You can still compute by yourself the amount that you expect to receive, this will be checked in their database anyway to know the amount of benefits that you should get.
It takes up to 7 week to get an answer, but you will get benefits starting the month after you sent your application. If you wait to move here, have MitID, and wait for the payment slip of ITU, you will lose at least a month, maybe two to three, of housing benefits.
If you intend to stay more than a couple of months, you do some more additional steps to get fully installed.
Once you have a CPR-Number, you can access to your Digital Post . Digital Post is your public e-mail, where the government can reach you. You can access it by the link above, and you can install a smartphone application. e-boks is another mailbox owned by a private company that can receive emails from Digital Post but also your bank and your insurance if you gave them the permission to do so. There is also an application for it.
Getting a union as the first step might be surprising outside of Denmark, but outside of the support to the worker's rights, unions are huge and can offer benefits to their members, such as discounts on banking and insurance.
If you are at the NERDS team at ITU, there are three unions that can represent you: Djøf for people in social sciences, law, and business, DM for people in academia in general, and IDA for people in STEM (engineering, IT, natural sciences). Each one is targeted towards a different public, with different priorities, different costs, and different benefits.
A good thing to know is that the amount that you are paying for the union membership is deductible from your taxes up to 7000 dkk/year. For the unions mentioned above it is the total amount, meaning that in total you will pay a lesser amount.
A Danish bank is important for multiple things. It allows to get a credit card with the national debit card call Dankort, which can be the only payment way (or the cheapest one) is some places. It allows to use the popular app MobilePay, which is a convenient way (and sometimes the only way) to pay for things to friends or shops and only works with a Danish bank account. And it is more convenient to set up your NemKonto, a way to designate a bank account on which you can receive money from the public sector (note that you can still put your NemKonto on a foreign bank account).
The biggest bank in Denmark is Danske Bank. Arbejdernes Landsbank and Lån & Spar are at least partially owned by unions so you could get additional benefits, the latter being owned by unions [[How to settle in#Optional Get a union|mentioned above]].
When creating you Danish Bank Account, make sure that it is designated as your NemKonto, and that BetalingsService is activated (see [[#Connect your payment to BetalingsService|below]]).
There are 3 competing mobile phone networks in Denmark, TDC, 3, and one shared by Telia and Telenor. All mobile phone subscriptions are based on one of those networks and there is a large panel of options of other subscriptions, like Eesy or CBB on TDC, Oister on 3 or Lebara on Telia & Telenor.
Danish mobile subscription is very cheap compared to the overall cost of living, and having a Danish phone number is also important to use MobilePay.
There are a lot of insurance companies offering a wide range of services, and it's hard to make general statements as everything is very case-specific and obscure on purpose. The only thing that can be noted is that most unions have a partneship with one company to pay less, and the most important insurance to get is called "Indbo", a home content insurance that will cover damages to your belongings, but also damages that you do on others' belongings. We can mention Tryg, Alm Brand... Some unions have their own insurance, like IDA and Djøf.
BetalingsService is a system allowing automatic payment directly through multiple bank accounts. When creating your bank account, if you allow for the use of BetalingsService, you can then pay your rent with it.
By curiosity or if you wish to stay long term in the country, you can take Danish courses. There are free courses made by Speakspeak in the university if you are staff of ITU, or the commune in which you are residing (usually Copenhagen) also offer free courses. For those courses, while there are free you need to make a deposit.
Everything listed above is true and useful for everyone coming to Denmark for an arbitrary amount of time. If you are a new PhD Student, you should loot at the introduction email and the intranet PhD Guide. Here are highlighted informations.
The first thing you need to do when starting your PhD is to create your study plan in the first 2 months on planIT. See here for guide to help you make your study plan. Keep in mind that the first draft of your study plan is speculative. The objective is to show a credible plan, not an exact plan from which you cannot deviate. There are a lot of unknown factors, so put whatever you believe you will do, with as much information as possible. If you don't know the exact location or date of a specific course or event, it's okay !
You need to get a total of around 30 ECTS credits through courses, conferences, and summer/winter schools. The Introduction to Teaching and Learning and the Research Code of Conduct are two mandatory courses making up for 4 ECTS. If you take the PhD Symposium Course, you already have 6 ECTS credits filled out. As explained here on the intranet you can take up to 10 ECTS of Master's courses, 10 ECTS of courses without a clear number of ECTS such as Summer Schools (0.5 ECTS per day), and 8 ECTS from Conferences and Symposiums.
You need to get a total of 840 Hours of Duty Hours during your PhD, with 560H of teaching and 280H of other duties. Group meetings attendance (and organization) count as Duty Hours ! From 3 years with a 1H weekly meeting on 46 weeks per year (52 minus the 6 weeks of holidays) , you have 138H of non-teaching Duty Hours filled already. You need to find with your supervisor teaching hours as a TA, Lecturer, or through co-supervision of student projects. For Duty Hours of Teaching, you need to count the real number of hours spent to teach AND prepare the courses. Not only the hours teached, or the "expected" amount of time, but the real time. The amount noted above is the MAXIMUM number of Duty Hours. They can be used by the university, but you don't need to do that many. If you are not doing enough, they can require you to teach or TA something for them if they are in need. At ITU, since there are a lot of PhD Student in Computer Science, that's usually not the case, but still be aware.
You will need to do a Half-Yearly report every 1st of April and 1st of October. If you already well planned your Study Plan, it's not much, usually updating your Plan with the latest changes to your schedule.
The larger update is at half of the PhD, with the Midway Evaluation. TODO.
While you will sit with other PhD Students from NERDS, there are other PhD Students throughout the two buildings and it might be in your interest to get to know them.
The Introduction Course TODO
The PhD Club is an association organized by the PhD students themselves that have some funding from the PhD School to organize events.
The PhD Symposium is a 2 ECTS credits course available for all ITU PhD Students. On a general topic such as Time Management or Research Communication, you will stay for 2 days with other PhD Student somewhere in Denmark. This is a great occasion to meet other PhD Students and socialize, on top of getting informative courses and ECTS credits.
As a PhD Student at ITU, you will usually make a research stay abroad that will last between 3 and 6 months.
- ITU mails:
- [email protected] if you are having IT issues, it automatically send a support ticket to their system. Otherwise, you can see them in the Main Building in the wing 2C, Monday - Friday, 10.00 - 13.00
- [email protected] if you are having issues regarding your salary payments. They are located on the 3rd floor of the DR Building.
- [email protected] if you are having any question regarding your employment and contract. They are located on the 3rd floor of the DR Building.
- [email protected] if you want to contact your union representative at ITU.
- [email protected] if you have any question related to the PhD. They are here to help you, and support you, don't be afraid to contact them !
- ITU websites:
- IT Services for a list of all IT services you can access to as being part of ITU.
- Printer as a web service. You connect to your ITU account, upload a file, and then when accessing to the printer you can swap your access card and select the uploaded file to print it.
- ITU ABC for a link to every ressources on the intranet.
- Other:
- PhD Courses to get access to a list of PhD Courses that you can get in all of Denmark.
For everyone coming to Denmark, except if you are a EU Resident and you come for less than 3 month:
- Find a place to stay
- 1 month before arrival
- Apply for CPR
- Take appointement for a residence permit. For everyone staying in Denmark longer:
- After having the residence permit: Take CPR appointement
- In the 10 days following getting a CPR Number: Create MitID
- After having MitID:
- Apply for housing benefits
- Apply for a tax card
- (Optional) Get a union
- Get a bank
- Get an insurance
- Get a Danish phone number
- After having a Danish bank and a Danish phone number:
- Get MobilePay