Developers Guide to Moving to Denmark | Hacker News Reader

Developers Guide to Moving to Denmark

matduggan.com

27 pointsdaco51 comments

I think it depends a lot from where one is moving from. I'd say moving from the Bay Area is actually a quality of life downgrade given the weather and tech salaries in general. The great thing about the US is opportunities. In Denmark, you'd be hard pressed to find your next move unless you live close to Copenhagen/Aarhus etc. I say this as someone who moved from India and was in a fairly high paid job in India - I find the cost of various things about 3 times the cost of the same thing in India and guess how much has my salary increased ? Exactly 3 times. Yes, the quality of life has changed, but I don't really save anymore than I used to back in India. And with the way the taxes are structured, it can be a stretch to live as a single income family. It's no surprise that Denmark has among the highest percentages of dual income households - it is simply difficult to live on a single income. Would I change anything ? Maybe, maybe not. It's a great country to raise kids, the quality of life is amazing, workplace stress in most workplaces is non existent, one has great autonomy and the society is built on trust - It's amazing how that can change your life - the US should try it :) But, if you're a high flying career oriented individual, Denmark isn't for you since the qualities needed for that kind of career, are actively frowned upon in Denmark compared to the US or even Germany.

if your income was tripled and your costs tripled, your savings are also tripled

1000 - 200 = 800

3000 - 600 = 2400

I'd double check your numbers, maybe your costs increased a lot more than 3x

I would never move to a nordic country personally. I did some years in the UK to build a network and now I'll stay in warm, sunny, low cost of living, low taxes, high quality of living for the rest of my life.

OTOH, I know somebody who moved away from Denmark and used to continuously bad mouth Danish taxes. But now that he is retired he regrets the decision, seeing how well the Danes take care of their retirees.

> I'll stay in warm, sunny, low cost of living, low taxes, high quality of living for the rest of my life.

Such as?

And how much is 2400 worth here ? Yes, its worth the same as 800 was back in India. Anyway, the numbers aren't important. The thing I was trying to point out was that if one wants a high flying career and get paid accordingly, Denmark isn't for them. The salaries are just not comparable to the US, yet.

It works if you stay in Demark you whole career and retire there (and the government doesn't end up changing and removing the benefits you earned over a life time).

Not exactly sure what taxes this guy is paying, but I’ve never heard of the 15 + 15%. Most everyone I know is on the 39% bracket, or higher if they’re high earners.

Electronics aren’t necessarily more expensive, Europe just has VAT included in the price. Amazon.be, .de, and .se all deliver to Denmark, often with free shipping (although Amazon.de recently increased the free shipping from 29€ to 59€)

Well I guess there is kommuneskat, which differs between kommuner. So you can pay anything between 37 to 39 depending on where you live. But the 15% base tax doesn't make sense to me either.

The guy is from the U.S evidently, when living abroad and an U.S citizen you pay U.S taxes and taxes abroad which is a hassle, however you can take off your taxes from one or the other from your income (can't remember if it is take off from U.S the other taxes, or take U.S taxes off the other) maybe you can do either one and so you choose which is more beneficial. It would obviously be more beneficial to deduct U.S tax from income before paying EU tax.

All that said I'm not sure about this guy's tax rate, just there are probably wrinkles here that will make things come out weird if not taken into account.

on edit: although his phrasing makes it sound like it is applying to all Danes, which anyway would be weird, why would you care what Danes pay if your concern is figuring out the cost/benefits of you (or someone like you) moving somewhere.

Does Denmark recognise freelancers - one-man companies? Or do they rob them same way as permanent staff?

If you incorporate as a "single person company", the taxation is for the most part identical to being employed, you can chose another taxation scheme that's sort of like an LLC, but not really. If you're serious as a freelancer, you need to create a LLC, which gives you the possibility to properly save up capital in the company, and eventually pay out dividends instead of a salary which is taxed at a flat 27% up to a threshold that changes each year (in 2023 it's $16.966,24 if married or $8.483,12 if not), above that it's taxed at a flat 42%. We still have corporate tax of any profits at 22%, which means that you still need to pay out a salary and maximize the effective personal tax rate before paying out a lot of dividends.

The only reason this is even a thing in tech, is because of the massive taxation of salaries above ~$100k. If i recall then whatever personal income in the upper bracket is effectively taxed at ~60%, which sucks. It makes it extremely expensive for the employer to give meaningful raises to top performers, and creates an artificial ceiling on salaries that is really hard to break through, unless you go freelance, but that comes with a lot of uncertainty and extra work. I prefer full control over my income and accept the uncertainty in exchange for that.

I generally agree, but it's very "larger city focused". Living outside of a larger city is ridiculously cheap, and your daily commute by private car will probably be about the same time, but cheaper, than public transportation.

What I mean is that you can buy a house for under $37.000 and live within 30 minutes from the 4th largest city, which leaves _plenty_ of cash for a car for each person in the house-hold, and you get the same salary as the city dwellers, so you just have more money overall. In addition to this, most places of work will provide you with parking for no additional cost.

Please tell me where you find houses for under $37.000 in Denmark right now? Even outside of Aalborg you will pay at least $70.000-100.000.

But yeah if you're a tech worker and can live with living outside of a bigger city, you will do fine.

Yeah, mine is for sale for under $100k, 20 minute drive from aalborg, we can say 500k dkk for a quick deal.

If you want a decent house, then expect at least $150k, $37k buys you basically nothing. But expectations may vary depending on your origin i guess.

120K people live in the city of Aalborg. And I refuse to believe that you can buy a house, at least one that doesn't require a significant amount of renovations for 260K DKK.

A very generous radius map search on Boligsiden reveal 4 andelsboliger at 250k kroner, so it’s obviously not possible to find a house at that price point.

https://www.boligsiden.dk/adresse/plesnervej-22-9460-brovst-...

25 minutes drive if there's a lot of traffic.

Apparently if you decide to leave Denmark after 7 years as a tax resident, you may need to pay an exit tax, 'fraflytterskat' in Danish. I was surprised to hear about this. Have you heard of an exit tax, and is it something to also keep in mind for relocation?

> Exit taxation applies for individuals who have been considered as resident and tax treaty resident in Denmark, who are leaving Denmark with assets, including but not limited to shares, options, bonds, certain pension plans, certain property investments, etc.

> The rules apply to both Danish and foreign assets, shares, investment funds, financial contracts, deposit accounts, etc.

> If comprised by the exit tax rules, the assets, etc. comprised will be considered as realised on the date of departure, and the individual will be liable to pay the Danish tax due on this unrealised gain.

I really don't agree with this > Eating out is a big part of your life; there are restaurants, but they're expensive and for the most part unimpressive. If someone who worked at Noma owns it, then it's probably great, but otherwise often meh.

You must have extremely high standards or have different expecations. I guess it depends where you moved from, but if you live in Copenhagen there are a lot of great restaurants.

If you compare it to Asia or NA people usually eat out because it's a lot of fun and you can try variety of foods. DK forces you to stay at home and cook because it's just too expensive to do it every day.

Even in Singapore I can eat out every day and dont really feel it.

Indeed, I live in Paris and my elder daughter studies in Taiwan... She discovers the possibility of street food affordable enough to her to be a normal meal. In Paris, eating out is luxury entertainment - cooking at home is the normal way.

It still depends where you are in Paris, there is areas where you can eat really cheap street food (the stands are illegal and aren't certified by health authorities, so it's at your own risks, and it's in areas some would consider 'unsafe').

Ten years ago you had more opportunities to eat different street food in Paris. Now it's kebab, and that's it. According to my father, 35 years ago it was great however. You had hot dogs, galettes, street pizza, barbecue, Chinese food and a lot of other stuff really cheap.

I spent more than a decade trying to find some place with Kung Pao chicken, impossible - it showed up in one of the street food places a couple years ago. It wasn't especially impressive.

Try to find a decent burrito, or anything to compare with any of the Mexican restaurants you can get in even the worst parts of the U.S. It's depressing!

And if you get some Mexican food in Denmark, or anything spicy really, it is an uphill fight to get it to be really spicy.

Barbecue sucks here.

This is just from U.S perspective, from the Italian perspectives I'm familiar with, almost all Italian restaurants here should be closed down.

I mean it is a lot better than it was 20 years ago, but on the other hand comparing with SF of 20 years ago - it still has a way to go.

And then as was remarked, it is super expensive even to eat something lousy.

Right ok, I see if you're looking for something non-European you'll likely not find anything as good as the good stuff in the US. But that seems like you're looking for the wrong thing. I understand the point in the article now though, it just seemed far more general than what you're saying here.

People just make their own food here.

Also, there are barely any Chinese people here or Mexican people, why do you expect there to be mexican food? Look for Vietnamese, Syrian, Turkish etc. and you'll find plenty of good stuff.

Evidently the article was written by somebody that had an American viewpoint about moving to Denmark, I deduced this by reading the article where they talked about being American and what the pros and cons were about moving to Denmark.

They then commented on how the food sucks in Denmark.

You didn't agree with that.

I then presented reasons why an American might think the food sucks in Denmark.

But it seems I am wrong too because Americans shouldn't expect the food in Denmark to be the kind of food they like.

I don't know how you intend to square the circle of "Americans can't get the food here they like but they are wrong to think that they can't get the food they like", but I can definitely see you trying your darndest to square it.

In short, for lots of Americans moving to Denmark the food selection and the high cost of dining out will be a drawback.

Bit late to reply to this, but my point was that it's strange to complain that specific types of food is unavailable, when the people that would make that food aren't here.

I can still appreciate that someone coming from the US might not find the food as good and affordable as back home.

Some good information there, but also some terrible misinformation.

"Rural Jutland" is not poor, nor does it have less access to public services. The "issue" with rural Jutland is that about 1/5 the danish population lives in Copenhagen, with another 2-3/5 living in Århus, Aalborg and Odense, and as jobs migrate to the major cities, the smaller villages have problems attracting people.

Of course, the social/public services should match the amount of people expected to use it, which is why it is often concentrated in the major cities.

Should you chose to live outside a major city (Sealand probably excluded), you can somewhat easily afford a car, as housing will cost you less than half of what "downtown" costs.

Also, as for taxes, i'm paying more than 50% income taxes, and i have no idea where the 15% + 15% rule comes from. IIRC the lowest income tax in denmark is 9% AM-bidrag as well as 26% income tax, landing you at 35%.

Foreign specialists only pay 32.84% tax for the first seven years in Denmark, provided the base salary exceeds dkk75k per month.

The Danish tax system is also very complicated, and it’s really not possible to boil it down to a percentage. You have to consider a lot of deductions, that is specific to your cicumstances, for instance if you have a mortgage, then you’ll get a deduction based on paid interest, then theres a deduction based on your total income. Then we have both federal and muncipality tax, and of course the “top tax”, which currently applies to all the income above a certain threshold. That means that the effective tax rate for your last earned kroners will be around what 60% i think.

60% is a myth. I pay around 44% income tax of a typical junior to mid level engineer salary (I am not junior but a startup founder). That covers everything including free school for my kid, free universities, healthcare, basic retirement plan, elder care, and so on. Employers only pay the raw salary, and do not have to pay for healthcare, unlike the US.

> If you or your spouse is a doctor or nurse, there's apparently nowhere in the EU who won't instantly give you a visa.

Of course NOT in Germany. They hate foreign specialists taking the job of germans. Friend of mine was a eye-doctor (ophthalmologist) from El Salvador, and only was allowed to work for EUR 500 a month, 5:30 am, caring for elderly people. They won't accept your foreign certificates. In El Salvador he makes 4.000 a month. They give you a visa, but you cannot work as doctor.

> food is painfully bland

You mean like... not invested with tons of sugar? What kind of bland are we talking about?

Good read, although the motivation to leave US rings false. I know there's lots of talk online of US collapsing, but I didn't think serious people believe it. I suspect OP had other concerns as well.

The refrigerator problem sounds like the drain hole could be clogged. Get a piece of wire from a coat hanger or a pipe (the smoking kind) cleaner (“piperenser” in Danish) and gently clean it out.

I lived there and the tax is much higher. Not worth it to live there for me imho, but if you have kids the education system is great.

The taxes don't sound right and only touches the state income tax, not the municipal tax which is the big part for most people.

There is a “foreign specialist” 32.84% tax bracket that most well paid foreigners will fall under for the first seven years in Denmark. After that you pay normal taxes.

I have a friend living in CPH on 100k/pa income and he is living a very modest life.

Unless you have a family with kids there is no point in going to DK. Your quality of life will be significantly worse.

If you insist on going to Western Europe then Germany, Austria or NL are much better places to be.

I don't think the article is arguing you should move to make significantly more money. The Nordics in general have a different look on work, family, freedom, and culture than the rest of Europe. That's what the article argues. If that doesn't fit your values, then obviously it's not the right fit.

I dont see those values and benefits being any different than rest of the Western Europe.

In Denmark, US$100k -- 700k DKK, will give you a pretty generous life. You can rent a large flat for yourself, and you can party every weekend. You can pretty much order in for every meal as well.

Try living in SF on US$100k.

Source: I supported myself + 2 others, and we lived very generously for a few years on pretty much that salary.

Living in the US is not the bar.

There are plenty of other places in EU with better tradeoffs.

If you can work remotely, small countries in the balkans / southern europe (just avoid the high tax behemoths doomed to decline: italy, spain, france, greece) will be way better.

When was that? Life was much cheaper back then. My experience is from 2022 onwards.

I still live in Denmark :)

You probably dont pay mortgage then or have built some wealth. My friend is 2-3y in Denmark paying 500k mortgage on 100k income and life is very expensive and definitely not pleasant there.

500k on 100k income? The rule of thumb for banks in Denmark is to take your yearly income (before tax) and multiply it by four, and that’s what you’re allowed to borrow. So your friend is over-indebted by Danish standards.

As a foreigner, banks would’ve been very reticent about giving him a bank loan, and he would’ve had to down-pay at least 20% of his mortgage.

In other words: I find your friend’s case extremely unlikely and probably made up.

FYI: most people’s expenses go _down_ by buying in Denmark. The interest rates are stupidly low, in some cases even negative, you can pause principal reimbursement for 10 years, and your tax rate goes down.

Never said he borrowed on a single income. My friend works at Visma as SWE. BTW 20% downpayment is the usual deal in most of the EU countries and it does not have to do anything with one being foreigner or not.

I find your remarks incredibly entitled and shortsighted most like coming from the need to defend your home country.

I’m not Danish :)

In France you can borrow with a 5-15% down payment. In Denmark, as a Dane, you can easily get a mortgage with a 5-10% down payment. As a foreigner, it’s almost impossible to get with less than 20%. I’m being asked for 30% by my bank (because of the fact I own my own company).

It’s one of the things I absolutely despise about Denmark.

I apologise if I’ve come across as entitled—not quite sure how, however you’re right that this is a topic I feel strongly about.

That's a very misguiding post.

While I agree the US is not a great place to live, you can get most of those benefits in a lot of other places and some more.

I've heard of people moving to Denmark for "giving great education" to their children but I've heard first-hand account and it's not that different or that great compared to other countries in EU.

I don't get the hype about this specific country.

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