Work-related immigration doubles in Denmark

Over the past decade, the number of immigrants in Denmark on work permits has doubled, as detailed in ‘Immigrants in Denmark 2024’ by Denmark Statistics. In 2024, nearly 187,000 immigrants had work as their residency reason, compared to roughly 93,000 in 2014. This increase coincides with a 52 percent rise in the overall immigrant population across all residency reasons. Every fourth immigrant in 2024 came to Denmark for employment, primarily from Western countries, including 55 percent from Poland, 63 percent from Romania, and 60 percent from Lithuania. For the leading ten non-Western countries, 71 percent of 17,700 Indian immigrants are in Denmark for work. Work-permit changes over 20 years also show a decrease in family reunification from 31 percent to 3 percent and a surge in work-related immigration from 14 percent to 37 percent. Asylum-based residency dropped significantly until 2022, with 12 percent of immigrants granted asylum-based residency in 2023.