Denmark

Impact date: 1 July 2025 A new Bill (L 190) amending the Working Environment Act is currently under consideration in the Danish Parliament.

It proposes that complainants to the Danish Working Environment Authority (Arbejdstilsynet) can waive the agency’s confidentiality rule so that submitted photos, videos or other evidence may be used formally in enforcement proceedings.

The Authority may disclose such material to the employer when it forms part of the legal basis for a decision, improving transparency while preserving the complainant’s right to remain anonymous.

The reform is intended to accelerate case handling by giving inspectors immediate, admissible evidence of serious health and safety breaches.

Impact date: 1 July 2025 The Act introduces certain minimum requirements for the accommodation employers provide to their employees. It includes provisions for the Danish Working Environment Authority’s oversight to ensure that employers comply with the requirements.

There are five basic accommodation requirements that must be met:

• There must be satisfactory access to toilets, adequate and sufficient drinking water, and proper wastewater drainage
• No more than two people may be accommodated per living room. However, this does not apply if the increase in the number of residents during the accommodation period is due to the accommodated person’s children, spouse, or cohabitant or their children. The total number of people living in the residence may also exceed two per living room if the residence’s area is 20 square meters or more per person
• Living and recreational rooms must provide satisfactory protection against humidity, cold, heat, and noise
• Living and recreational rooms must have adequate access to daylight and a proper means of ventilation through one or more openable windows directly to the outdoors
• Living and recreational rooms must have the capability for adequate heating and maintain a satisfactory indoor climate

Impact date: 1 October 2025 Subject to its anticipated approval, a Bill on the extension of unemployment benefits and parental-benefit flexibility for entrepreneurs, will enter into force on 1 October 2025. It improves social-security coverage for start-ups and self-employed parents.

The Bill permits new entrepreneurs to qualify for unemployment benefits (dagpenge) based on the preceding 12 months’ salary history, even if their current business has not yet generated income, replacing the former income-test that disqualified many start-ups.

The Bill also introduces a de minimis 3½-hour weekly work allowance for self-employed parents on parental leave with full maternity pay, allowing them to maintain essential business activity without forfeiting benefits.

Impact date: Awaited The EU Directive on adequate minimum wages in the EU is now in force and Member States had until 15 November 2024 to implement it. The Danish Government has taken legal action against the European Parliament to have the Directive or parts of it annulled. This is due to the Government considering the requirements of the Directive to be inconsistent with the Danish labour model in which employment terms, such as wages, are to be negotiated between employers and employees and their organizations regarding collective agreements.

The Ministry of Employment’s Implementation Committee’s report indicates that Denmark currently complies with the provisions of the Directive. However, certain formal requirements entail that the Ministry of Employment will, moving forward, have to submit a range of data and information to the EU Commission every two years, including details on collective agreement coverage and the lowest wage/salary rates. The Implementation Committee has assumed that the Directive remains valid unless the European Court of Justice determines otherwise in connection with the pending annulment action.

As an important step in the annulment proceedings, an opinion has been issued by the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, proposing that the directive be annulled in its entirety because it is incompatible with the EU Treaty basis. The Advocate General’s Opinion is not binding on the CJEU. The question of whether the directive is incompatible with the EU’s Treaty-based competence to adopt directives regarding labour market issues, and should therefore be annulled, will not be finally settled until the CJEU makes its ruling in the case.