Buying an apartment to rent out in Copenhagen: rules, rent, loans and tax

You can buy an apartment in Copenhagen and rent it out, but the rules decide how you may use it and what the tenant may pay. As a general rule, the apartment must be lived in all year round, the rent is only free in certain cases, and mortgage credit (realkredit) can cover no more than 80 per cent of the value. So check the residence requirement, the articles, the rent rules, loans and tax before you make an offer.

The residence requirement also applies to an apartment you rent out

Most homes in Copenhagen Municipality must be used as permanent homes. This applies to homes that have been used as permanent homes within the last five years, for example with a resident registered at the address in the civil register (folkeregistret). It is the owner who must make sure the home is lived in (Copenhagen Municipality, sections 5 and 7 of the Housing Conditions Act (lov om boligforhold), both in Danish). As a landlord, you especially need to know three rules:

• An empty home must be reported. If the apartment stands empty, you must report it to the municipality no later than six weeks after the last person moved out. The municipality can then assign a tenant, whom you are obliged to rent to (section 5(2) and (3)). If you have a valid reason, such as a major conversion, a sale or a signed lease with a later move-in date, you can be given extra time.
• No extra home for yourself. A household may only use one home in the same municipality, and here the municipalities in the Capital Region (except Bornholm) plus Greve, Køge, Lejre, Roskilde, Solrød and Stevns count as one municipality (section 4(1)).
• No holiday rental without consent. The municipality describes the rules on short-term rental for 30 days a year, or 70 days through an intermediary such as Airbnb, as rules for your own permanent home. An apartment subject to the residence requirement that you do not live in yourself may not be used for summer residence or similar temporary use without the municipality’s consent (section 7(1)).

New builds can also be subject to the residence requirement. According to the municipality, it can apply six weeks after construction is completed, if the local plan (lokalplan) was adopted after 1 January 2021. You can check for yourself whether a home has been used as a permanent home with a homeowner certificate (husejerattest) from the civil register.

Breaches are punishable by a fine. A draft bill that the Ministry of Children, the Elderly and Housing (Børne-, Ældre- og Boligministeriet) sent to public consultation in September 2026 states that the fine is currently around DKK 10,000, and DKK 20,000 for repeat offences. The draft proposes up to DKK 100,000 for repeated breaches from 1 January 2027 (Høringsportalen, in Danish). Read more in our guide to the residence requirement in Copenhagen.

Read the owners’ association’s articles before you make an offer

When you buy, you become a member of the owners’ association (ejerforening), and its rules follow the apartment. If the association has not adopted anything else, the standard articles for owners’ associations (normalvedtægten) (in Danish) apply, and a departure from them must be registered on the apartments in the Land Register (tinglyst) to be valid against a buyer (section 5 of the Owner-Occupied Flats Act (ejerlejlighedsloven), in Danish). Get the articles, house rules, budget and the latest minutes, and look especially for four things:

• Renting out. If you rent out the whole apartment, the standard articles require you to tell the board, no later than when the tenancy begins, about the rental period and the tenant’s name and contact details (section 30(1)).
• Short-term rental. With a two-thirds majority, the association can ban rentals for periods of less than 31 days. You can still rent out up to four times and for no more than 30 days in total a year (section 4 and section 30(2)).
• Your tenant’s behaviour. If the tenant behaves unlawfully towards the association, the association can go directly to the tenant. If you do not put things right within three months, the association can take over your right to give notice on or terminate the tenancy (section 11 of the Owner-Occupied Flats Act).
• Maintenance. The standard articles require a maintenance plan that the general meeting approves every year (section 9 and section 16). Large planned works can mean higher common charges.

How much rent can you charge for an owner-occupied apartment?

It depends on the apartment and the history of the building, not on what you paid. The rules are in the Rent Act (lejeloven) (in Danish), and Copenhagen Municipality writes that the rent for a rented-out owner-occupied apartment depends on whether, on 1 January 1995, the apartment was part of a building with six or fewer apartments or with seven or more (Copenhagen Municipality, in Danish). Free rent only applies in certain cases:

The apartment	How the rent is set	Rent Act
Is in a building first occupied after 31 December 1991	Free rent by agreement	Section 54(1)(1)
Is fitted out in premises used only for business on 31 December 1991, in a roof storey that was not residential on 1 September 2002, or in a new storey with a building permit after 1 July 2004	Free rent, if the lease says so	Section 54(1)(2) and (3), and section 54(2)
Was part of a building with no more than six apartments on 1 January 1995	The value of the tenancy (det lejedes værdi), but not substantially above the rent for similar apartments with cost-based rent	Sections 7 and 32
Was part of a building with seven or more apartments on 1 January 1995	Cost-based rent (omkostningsbestemt leje), which may cover no more than the building’s necessary running costs and a return on its value	Section 19

In a building with no more than six apartments, the Rent Tribunal (huslejenævnet) compares with similar apartments with cost-based rent. According to Copenhagen Municipality (in Danish), the difference may not be substantial, meaning more than ten per cent, and you cannot calculate the rent from your own costs for loans and common charges. If you have charged too much, the tenant can demand that the rent be reduced and get back what was overpaid (section 40). Even with free rent, the Rent Tribunal can decide whether the agreement is reasonable (section 55).

It is the situation on 1 January 1995 that counts, so the history of the apartment can matter. Get it clarified which rule applies before you count on a particular rent. The rules are covered in our article on rent adjustment.

What can you borrow for an apartment you want to rent out?

The Mortgage Credit Act (realkreditloven) sets the loan limit at 80 per cent of the property’s value, both for owner-occupied homes for year-round use and for private residential properties for rent (section 5(1) of the Mortgage Credit Act, in Danish). It is a ceiling, not a right to a loan. The rest of the purchase price has to come from your own savings or a bank loan.

Copenhagen and the surrounding municipalities are growth areas in the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority’s (Finanstilsynet) guidance on prudence when lending against homes in growth areas (in Danish) from 2023. It describes what banks and mortgage credit institutions should, as a rule, do when a private customer buys:

• If you choose a variable interest rate, the lender should assess your disposable income based on a fixed rate that is 1 percentage point higher than the current one, but at least 4 per cent, and with repayments over no more than 30 years.
• If you have a lot of debt relative to your household income (a debt factor between 4 and 5), your net wealth should be positive even if the home falls 10 per cent in value. If the debt factor is above 5, it should withstand a fall of 25 per cent.
• If the purchase gives you more than two homes, you should be able to pay interest and repayments on all of them for at least 12 months, and your net wealth should, as a rule, be positive even if the homes fall 40 per cent in value.

The interest rate moves the numbers the most. In July 2026, the average effective interest rate including fees on new mortgage loans in Danish kroner to households was 3.98 per cent, and 4.78 per cent for loans with a fixed rate for more than ten years (Statistics Denmark, table DNRNURI, in Danish).

How the rental income is taxed

If you rent out an owner-occupied home that you do not live in yourself for at least 12 months, it counts as renting out on a commercial basis, according to the Danish Tax Agency (Skattestyrelsen) (in Danish). In broad terms, this means:

• The profit is personal income, on which you pay tax and the labour market contribution (am-bidrag). You can deduct a loss.
• You have to keep accounts. Among other things, you can deduct property taxes, maintenance, insurance of the property, administration and an accountant, and interest on loans for the apartment is a business interest expense.
• Improvements cannot be deducted. In practice, for the first three years of ownership, you can deduct refurbishment of no more than 25 per cent of the annual rental income for a rented-out owner-occupied apartment.
• You do not pay property value tax (ejendomsværdiskat) while the apartment is rented out on a commercial basis, and you can as a rule use the business tax scheme (virksomhedsordningen) or the capital return scheme (kapitalafkastordningen).
• If you sell, you are taxed under the Property Gains Tax Act (ejendomsavancebeskatningsloven). The sale can be tax-free if you have lived in the home yourself, but you typically have not when you bought it to rent out.

Read more about tax deductions when renting out, and have an accountant go through your own case.

Worked example with an investment apartment in Copenhagen

The figures are an example of an investment in an apartment to rent out, not a budget for a specific apartment. Only the price per square metre is an actual figure: the realised sale price for owner-occupied apartments in Copenhagen Municipality was DKK 75,120 per m² in the second quarter of 2026, and DKK 83,530 in Frederiksberg (Finance Denmark, table BM010, in Danish). The price also depends on the district, see our analysis of prices per square metre.

The assumptions: an apartment of 60 m² at DKK 75,120 per m² costs DKK 4,507,200. You borrow 80 per cent in mortgage credit, DKK 3,605,760, and pay DKK 901,440 from your own savings. Interest and fees are set at 4 per cent a year, close to the average for new loans in July 2026, and the rent at DKK 15,000 a month. Common charges, property tax and maintenance are estimates.

Example per month	DKK
Rental income	15,000
Interest and fees, 4 per cent of the loan	-12,019
Common charges to the owners’ association	-2,000
Property tax	-600
Maintenance and insurance	-750
Administration, 8.5 per cent of the rent incl. VAT	-1,275
Result before tax and repayments	-1,644

In the example, the rent does not cover the costs. The rent would have to go up to around DKK 16,800 a month before the numbers break even before tax, and whether that is a legal rent is decided by the rent rules above. Purchase costs, empty months, repayments and what your savings could otherwise have earned are not included. If you change the interest rate, the down payment or the rent, the result changes, so always work with your own figures. The administration matches our price for long-term rental.

Checklist before you buy an apartment to rent out

1. Find out when the building was first occupied, and whether the apartment is fitted out in a roof storey or in former business premises. That decides whether the rent can be free.
2. Order a homeowner certificate, so you know whether the apartment has been used as a permanent home.
3. Read the articles, house rules, minutes, budget and maintenance plan from the owners’ association.
4. Get an assessment of which rent rule applies and what rent the apartment can be let for.
5. Get a loan offer, and do the numbers with both the interest rate you are offered and a higher one.
6. Talk to an accountant about the tax, and about whether the business tax scheme suits you.

If you want a review of a specific apartment before you make an offer, you can read about our advisory service. This article is general information about property investment in Copenhagen and not investment advice.

Sources

• Rules for the residence requirement in Copenhagen (Copenhagen Municipality, in Danish)
• The Housing Conditions Act (lov om boligforhold), Act no. 342 of 22 March 2022, sections 4, 5 and 7 (retsinformation.dk, in Danish)
• Consultation on a draft act amending the Housing Conditions Act (maximum number of residents and the residence requirement), 18 September 2026 (Ministry of Children, the Elderly and Housing, in Danish)
• The Owner-Occupied Flats Act (lov om ejerlejligheder), Act no. 908 of 18 June 2020, sections 5 and 11 (retsinformation.dk, in Danish)
• Executive order on standard articles for owners’ associations, BEK no. 1738 of 29 November 2020, sections 4, 9, 16 and 30 (retsinformation.dk, in Danish)
• The Rent Act (lov om leje), Act no. 341 of 22 March 2022, sections 7, 19, 32, 40, 54 and 55 (retsinformation.dk, in Danish)
• Rented-out owner-occupied and co-operative apartments (Copenhagen Municipality, in Danish)
• Six or fewer residential apartments in one building (Copenhagen Municipality, in Danish)
• Consolidated act on mortgage loans and mortgage bonds etc., LBK no. 1541 of 18 November 2025, section 5 (retsinformation.dk, in Danish)
• Guidance on prudence in credit assessment when lending against homes in growth areas etc., VEJ no. 9299 of 20 April 2023 (Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, in Danish)
• DNRNURI: New domestic lending from mortgage credit institutions (Statistics Denmark, in Danish)
• BM010: Property prices in the housing market by area (Finance Denmark, in Danish)
• You rent out a home you do not live in yourself (Danish Tax Agency, in Danish)