Everything You Need to Know About Airbnb Tax in Denmark 2026

The tax-free allowance (bundfradrag) is the amount you can earn from renting out your property before you owe any tax. Everything below the allowance is yours to keep. How much you can earn tax-free depends on two things: whether you rent out a primary residence or a holiday home, and whether you rent privately or through a platform like Airbnb that reports automatically.

In 2026, the allowance for a primary residence is DKK 35,100 when you rent through a digital platform that automatically reports your rental income to SKAT. Airbnb is one of these platforms. If you rent your Copenhagen flat via Airbnb and your total rental income (including payment for electricity, water and heating) is DKK 30,000 in a year, you pay zero tax. Read more at SKAT's official guidance on rental properties.

For holiday homes, the allowance is even more attractive: up to DKK 50,200 tax-free in 2026 when renting via a reporting platform as described on skat.dk about holiday home rental. Also read our guide to holiday home tax for a detailed walkthrough.

If you choose to rent privately — for example via Facebook, classified ads or your own network — the allowance drops significantly. In 2026, the private rental allowance is only DKK 13,800 regardless of property type. The difference is the government's way of encouraging property owners to use platforms that ensure transparency and automatic tax reporting.

What happens with the money you earn above the tax-free allowance? Another favourable rule kicks in: the 40% deduction. You don't pay tax on the full excess amount — only on 60% of it. The remaining 40% is tax-free and is meant to cover wear and maintenance on your property.

The taxable amount is classified as capital income. The exact rate depends on your overall finances but typically falls between 25% and 42%. This means you keep a large portion of your rental income — even at relatively high earnings.

Danish tax rules draw a sharp distinction between primary residences (where you are registered and live daily) and holiday homes. In 2024, Danish tourism set a record with 65.2 million commercial overnight stays according to VisitDenmark's knowledge centre, and a large share of this growth is driven by holiday rentals. It is important to understand the rules for your specific property type.

The difference lies primarily in the size of the tax-free allowance. For a primary residence it is DKK 35,100 tax-free, while a holiday home gives you DKK 50,200 tax-free. The higher allowance for holiday homes is a political decision to promote tourism in coastal and rural areas by making it more attractive for Danes to offer their empty holiday homes to tourists.

Considering renting out your holiday home? Read our complete guide to holiday home rental for practical tips beyond the tax rules.

Beyond the tax rules, you also need to be aware of the regulations on how long you may rent out your property. As a starting point, you may rent out your primary residence for a maximum of 70 days per year when renting via a platform. This is set out in the Danish Housing Regulation Act.

Some municipalities have raised this limit to 100 days. This applies, for example, in the Municipality of Copenhagen. This time limit only applies to primary residences, not holiday homes. Exceeding the limit can result in sanctions and fines from the municipality.

At Doorstep, we automatically monitor and comply with these day limits for our clients, so you don't have to worry about counting days. Read our in-depth guide to the 70-day rule for more details.

When you rent out your property, you can choose between two different methods for calculating your taxable amount.

With the standard deduction method, which we have described so far, everything is simple. It requires no documentation of your expenses and is the obvious choice for most property owners. You receive a fixed deduction, and SKAT does not scrutinise what you spend on electricity, water, heating and cleaning.

If you choose the itemised expense method, you receive no standard deduction. Instead, you only pay tax on your actual profit — you deduct your documented expenses (electricity, water, heating, advertising, proportional rent and property tax) from your rental income.

As a rule of thumb, the itemised method only pays off if your actual, documented expenses exceed the standard deduction you would otherwise receive. For most people renting out a city flat occasionally, the standard deduction is more advantageous and significantly easier to manage.

Previously, it was up to individual property owners to remember to report their Airbnb income. An EU directive called DAC7 changed that from the 2023 tax year onwards. The directive obliges digital platforms like Airbnb to automatically report users' income to local tax authorities.

In practice, this means SKAT already knows what you have earned through Airbnb. The information lands automatically in your tax file. You must still verify that the amount on your annual tax return is correct and fix any errors. This provides great peace of mind, as the risk of forgetting to report is minimised.

For the 2023, 2024 and 2025 tax years, a special rule applies: you are entitled to the higher tax-free allowance as long as you used a reporting-obliged platform — regardless of whether the platform actually managed to report the data correctly.

Even though the platform reports data to SKAT, you are responsible for checking that the figures on your annual tax return are correct.

If you rent privately and forget to report your income, it is considered tax evasion. Since Airbnb and similar platforms now automatically share data with SKAT via the DAC7 directive, it is easy for the authorities to discover missing reports. The consequence is typically that you must pay the missing tax plus a penalty surcharge and interest.

Many property owners consider whether to handle the rental themselves or use a property manager like Doorstep. From a tax perspective, there is a significant advantage to using professional platforms.

Because Doorstep markets your property on reporting-obliged platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo, we ensure you get access to the higher tax-free allowance of DKK 35,100 for your flat. If you try to rent privately through your own network to save platform fees, your allowance drops to DKK 13,800. You start paying tax much sooner, which often eats up the saving you thought you were getting.

As part of our services, we handle everything from photography and dynamic pricing to cleaning and guest communication at fixed prices. We also ensure you receive a detailed monthly statement that makes it easy to track your earnings for tax purposes.