The Government of Denmark is planning to amend the Special Act on residence permits for displaced persons from Ukraine to restrict eligibility to individuals originating from areas significantly affected by hostilities and to exclude men subject to Ukrainian mobilization regulations unless they are formally exempt from military service.
Existing residence permits will remain valid and unaffected by these changes.
The draft legislation is expected to be presented in the Parliament of Denmark in April 2026. According to the announcement published by the Ministry of Immigration and Integration the draft bill further introduces a work obligation for displaced persons receiving cash benefits, aligned with national social welfare requirements, and repeals special education provisions that allowed learning in Ukrainian or English or distance learning from Ukraine. A transitional implementation period for municipalities will run until 1 October 2026.
More specifically, the following changes are proposed (extract from the Press Release):
- Displaced persons from specific areas in Ukraine that are less affected by hostilities are denied access to residence under the special law. These currently include the regions of Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Kyiv (region/oblast and not Kyiv city), Lviv, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zakarpattia and Zhytomyr.
- Men covered by the Ukrainian mobilization regulations (currently men aged 23-60) are denied access to residence under the special law. However, if the men in question are exempt from military service, they will still be able to obtain a residence permit under the special law.
- Male applicants under the age of 23 will in future only be able to obtain a residence permit until they turn 23 and will not be able to have their residence permit extended unless they can document that they are exempt from military service.
- Displaced persons from Ukraine who receive cash benefits are currently not covered by the work obligation. The government wants to change the rules so that in future they are covered by the work obligation on an equal footing with other people on cash benefits.
- A transitional arrangement for the phasing in of the work obligation is being introduced, so that municipalities will have until 1 October 2026 to implement the work obligation for the new group. It is estimated that around 12,000 people from Ukraine will be covered by the work obligation if the bill is passed.
- The bill will also include changes in the area of the Ministry of Children and Education, where special rules currently apply to displaced persons from Ukraine, so that displaced persons can receive education in English or Ukrainian and also receive distance learning from Ukraine. The bill proposes to repeal these special rules.