How to rent an apartment in Copenhagen as a foreigner

How does renting in Copenhagen actually work?

Copenhagen runs two rental markets side by side. The private market is fast, expensive and competitive. The public, non-profit sector (almen bolig) is cheap but allocates by waiting list, often measured in years. Most newcomers start in the private market and join a waiting list in the background.

The word you will see everywhere is lejebolig, which just means a rented home. An apartment you buy outright is an ejerbolig. A cooperative share is an andelsbolig.

What is the difference between a lejebolig and an andelsbolig?

A lejebolig is a rental. You pay rent and a deposit, and you own nothing. An andelsbolig is a cooperative: you buy a share in the housing association, then pay a monthly fee that covers the association’s loan and maintenance, as the City of Copenhagen explains.

Andelsboliger often cost less per month than private rentals, but the share price can be high, the association’s finances matter, and banks are cautious about lending for them. For a first landing in Denmark, a rental is usually the practical choice.

How do you find a place to rent?

1. Private rentals. Most are advertised on portals and through estate agents. The biggest name is BoligPortal, a rental listing site that describes itself as Denmark’s largest online portal for rental homes, connecting landlords and tenants since 1999. Set up alerts and reply within minutes, not hours, for anything central.
2. Public housing. Search non-profit housing on danmarkbolig.dk, then register on each housing organisation’s own waiting list, such as KAB. Most lists charge a sign-up fee and an annual fee, and KAB states that your waiting-list number is deleted if the annual fee is not paid on time.
3. Student and youth housing. Cheaper, and you can often join the list before you are admitted to a course.
4. Network and noticeboards. Supermarket boards, colleagues and Facebook groups still fill a real share of rooms.

Rooms (værelse) in a shared flat are the cheapest and most common way into the city centre. A room without your own kitchen usually does not qualify for boligstøtte, so do not count on that benefit when you budget. For long-term rentals it is often easier to find a three or four-room flat in newer areas such as Sydhavn, Nordhavn or Ørestad than a one or two-room flat in the old city.

How do you move fast and secure the place?

In the private market, speed matters. Copenhagen’s rental vacancy rate fell to 1.9% in mid-2025, from 3% a year earlier, according to EjendomDanmark figures quoted by BoligPortal. Few empty homes means a good listing is often gone before you have finished thinking about it.

• Reply within minutes, not days. Turn on alerts for your areas and price range, and answer from your phone as soon as one arrives.
• Have a standard application ready to paste. Five or six lines: who you are, your job and income, how many people will live there, when you can move in, and that you can provide references. Add one sentence about the specific flat so it does not read as a template.
• Take the earliest viewing slot you are offered, even if it is inconvenient.
• Bring your papers to the viewing: photo ID, your employment contract or recent payslips, a reference from a previous landlord and, if you have it, your CPR letter. If you are still waiting for a CPR number, say so and give a date.
• Say you can pay the deposit and prepaid rent as soon as the contract is signed, and make sure the money is actually available, not waiting on a transfer from abroad.
• Never pay before you have a signed contract and have confirmed that the landlord or agency is real. Moving fast is exactly what scammers count on — see how to avoid rental scams below.

What do landlords check before they rent to you?

Private landlords can pick and choose, and they usually want proof you can pay. Expect to show photo ID, an employment contract or payslips, and often a reference from a previous landlord. They may ask for reasonable proof that you can pay, but they must handle your personal data lawfully under the GDPR and must not reject you because of your ethnic origin. The deposit and prepaid rent, by contrast, are capped by law.

Housing associations work differently. They allocate “first in line” by waiting list. Some use flexible renting (fleksibel udlejning), which can give priority if you have a stable job (usually 25-30 hours a week), are a student on an SU-eligible course, or are newly separated. The criteria vary by municipality. A few neighbourhoods apply stricter criteria, including criminal-record checks, according to the City of Copenhagen.

What does it cost to move in?

By law a landlord may charge a deposit of up to three months’ rent and up to three months’ rent in advance. On top come a conto heating, water and other prepayments. The Ministry of Children, the Elderly and Housing sets out the rule and a worked example.

Take a flat at 12,000 kr a month. The maximum deposit is 36,000 kr and the maximum prepaid rent is 36,000 kr, and you still owe the first month’s rent on top: about 84,000 kr — seven months’ rent — before you get the keys, plus utilities. That is the single biggest cash shock of moving to Copenhagen, and it is normal rather than a scam.

Do you need a CPR number to rent?

Not to view a flat, but you need a CPR number and MitID for almost everything that follows: a Danish bank account, a NemKonto, Digital Post and signing documents digitally. To get a CPR number you must first have a residential address and legal residence — an EU residence document from SIRI (EU/EEA citizens) or a residence permit (non-EU citizens) — and you must plan to stay more than three months. In Copenhagen, internationals usually register at International House Copenhagen or a local borgerservice (citizen service centre), and you must register your address within five days of moving in, as borger.dk explains.

Landlords often ask for your CPR as part of the contract. If you are still waiting for yours, say so and give a timeline.

How do you get housing benefit (boligstøtte)?

If you rent a home with its own kitchen and live there permanently, you can apply for boligstøtte, a monthly housing benefit. What you get depends on household income, assets, the number of adults and children, the rent and the size of the home. A room where you do not have your own kitchen usually does not qualify, so check before you rely on it.

As of 2026 the maximum for a non-pensioner household renting is 1,194 kr a month with no children, 4,201 kr with one to three children and 5,251 kr with four or more. You can run a calculation before you apply, and you apply through borger.dk.

How do you avoid rental scams?

Rental fraud in Denmark follows a predictable script: an attractive flat, a landlord who is “abroad” or “too busy” to show it, pressure to transfer a deposit today to hold it, and no contract.

Rules that protect you:

• Never transfer money before you have seen the flat and signed a contract.
• Pay to a Danish bank account in the landlord’s name, never to a foreign account or a payment app.
• Ask to see ID and, for an andelsbolig, the association’s written approval.
• If you are defrauded, report it to the police. You can report online with MitID, or by calling 114 or visiting a police station.

What are your rights under the lejeloven?

The rent act (lejeloven), as revised from 1 July 2022, sets the ground rules for private rentals, including how deposits work and how they are settled when you leave. A landlord must return your deposit after you move out, minus any documented unpaid rent or damage. Landlords do not have to pay interest on a deposit.

If your landlord rents out more than one home, the law requires move-in and move-out inspections (indflytningssyn and fraflytningssyn) with a written report (lejeloven §§ 90 and 187). You must be called to the move-out inspection in writing with at least one week’s notice, it must be held within two weeks of you moving out, and if the landlord skips it or the report, they usually lose the right to charge you for restoration. The landlord also cannot raise a restoration claim more than two weeks after the move-out inspection, and costs left out of the move-out report are not yours to pay (lejeloven § 187). Attend the inspection, photograph everything, and keep the report.

At the start, report any defects to the landlord no later than two weeks after the tenancy begins. If you do not, you lose the right to rely on defects you could have spotted, for example to have them repaired or to claim a rent reduction (lejeloven § 91). Do it in writing, with photos, so you have proof when you move out.

Tenants’ organisations such as LLO give members legal help with disputes over deposits, rent increases and repairs. Non-members can take a deposit, rent or repair dispute to the Huslejenævnet in the municipality where you live for a small fee (367 kr in Copenhagen in 2026). Copenhagen applies rent regulation, so an agreed rent can be challenged, but you must act within the legal deadlines — generally within one year. This does not cover every home: rent can be agreed freely (fri leje) in, among others, flats in buildings taken into use after 31 December 1991 (lejeloven § 54), so ask the landlord which rules apply before you sign.

What does it cost to move out?

Budget for leaving as well as arriving. The deposit is not a savings account: the law holds it as security for what you owe when you move out (lejeloven § 59), and the landlord deducts the cost of restoring the flat before you see any of it. The tenants’ organisation LLO says it is not unusual for a restoration claim to use up the whole deposit and still leave an extra bill, even in newer flats with high deposits.

What the landlord can charge for:

• Wear and the standard you hand back. You return the flat in the condition you received it, apart from normal wear and tear that is not your maintenance responsibility, and you cannot be required to leave it better than you found it (lejeloven § 187). For contracts signed after 1 July 2015, a clause requiring the flat to be handed back newly redecorated is no longer allowed; older contracts can still contain one, LLO notes. Repainting, wallpapering and sanding or lacquering floors can only be charged where they are actually needed (see what a landlord can charge for).
• Cleaning. Handing the flat back clean and ready for the next tenant is part of moving out, and LLO’s move-out guide gives a room-by-room cleaning checklist. Check your contract for what it says about cleaning.
• Do-it-yourself work. You may paint and repair yourself, but LLO warns that a landlord may reject DIY work as not done to a professional standard; the yardstick is the finish a careful, skilled painter would deliver. Get quotes for painting, sanding and lacquering before the inspection, so you have prices to argue with.

How the moving-out inspection (flyttesyn) and the settlement work:

• If your landlord rents out more than one home, they must inspect the flat within two weeks of learning you have moved out and call you in writing with at least one week’s notice (lejeloven § 187, stk. 3). Go, take photos, and sign only to confirm that you received the report — LLO advises never to sign that you accept liability for the work listed.
• The landlord cannot raise a restoration claim more than two weeks after the inspection, or, where no inspection is required, more than two weeks after the day you move out. Costs not in the move-out report are not yours to pay (lejeloven § 187, stk. 2). The exceptions are defects that ordinary care could not have spotted, and fraud.
• Your best protection was set up when you moved in: report defects in writing within two weeks of the start of the tenancy (lejeloven § 91), or you cannot later prove they were not yours.
• There is no fixed legal deadline for repaying the deposit. It must be settled without undue delay once the landlord knows the real cost of the work, so ask for the expected timeline in writing. LLO says it can easily take three months to get a settlement, and more than a year if the case goes to the Huslejenævnet.
• Prepaid rent works differently: once you have given notice, it covers the last part of your tenancy (lejeloven § 59, stk. 3). So you are not paying the final months twice — but do not count on your old deposit to pay for your next one.

The step-by-step version, with a move-out checklist and how to dispute a withheld deposit, is in our guide to getting your deposit back.

What it costs & how long it takes

Timing: private rentals move in days to weeks. Public housing waiting lists commonly run for years. KAB says (as of 2026) its most popular and central addresses exceed 20 years, though some housing departments offer within four years.

Common mistakes

• Underestimating the move-in cost. Budget for deposit, prepaid rent and utilities together.
• Replying late. On portals, being second is being nowhere.
• Skipping the waiting list because it is slow. Join it anyway; seniority only builds if you are registered.
• Paying a deposit before seeing the contract or the flat.
• Assuming a “no CPR” landlord is being helpful. It usually means no contract and no protection.

If something goes wrong

If a landlord keeps your deposit without cause, put your complaint in writing and contact your local tenants’ association such as LLO, or take the case to the Huslejenævnet, which decides deposit, rent and repair disputes for a small fee. If you paid money for a flat you cannot use, that is fraud. Report it to the police online with MitID, by phone on 114, or at a station, and keep every message and receipt.