Denmark Collective Agreement Scheme 2027: employer timeline

An employer planning a January 2027 start under Denmark's Collective Agreement Scheme must file for company certification when SIRI opens it, expected at the beginning of December 2026. Without certification the worker cannot apply. The job must sit under a collective agreement and pay at least DKK 322,000 a year, and the worker must hold one of 16 named citizenships.

The failure mode: no certification in December

The scheme is built in two stages. The company is certified first, and only then can the employee lodge an application for a residence and work permit. SIRI states this order in its announcement of 13 October 2026. An employer that waits for the scheme's start on 1 January 2027 before filing for certification has no certified status on that date, so the worker has nothing to apply against.

The cost is calendar time. The planned start slips by the processing time of the certification, and then by the processing time of the permit itself. SIRI has not published processing times for either stage, so an employer cannot plan around a fixed figure. The only controllable step is filing the certification as soon as the application page opens.

Step timeline from now to the first permit

SIRI will launch separate application pages for certification and for the residence and work permit on its website. The December date is an expectation in the announcement, not a fixed date, so an employer should prepare the certification file in November and monitor the SIRI news page for the opening.

The three conditions on the job and the worker

The scheme lets an employer hire foreign staff at a minimum salary lower than other Danish routes, on condition that a collective agreement covers the job. Three conditions follow from the announcement.

First, the position must be covered by a collective agreement. An employer outside the collective bargaining system, or with a job outside the scope of its agreement, cannot use the route.

Second, the salary must be at least DKK 322,000 a year. SIRI gives this figure at its 2026 level, so the amount applying in 2027 may differ when SIRI updates it. Payroll should budget against the figure SIRI publishes when the application pages open.

Third, the employee must hold citizenship of one of 16 countries named in the scheme. SIRI does not list them in its announcement, and the passed bill is available only in Danish. An employer recruiting from a specific sourcing country should confirm that the country is on the list before investing in recruitment.

How the route compares with other options

The salary floor is the main difference from routes that set a higher threshold, such as the EU Blue Card, covered in our note on the EU Blue Card Directive 2021/1883. Processing across member states is summarised in the EU work permit timeline by country.

Documents to prepare before December

The employer's file should hold the collective agreement and the clause that covers the position, an employment contract stating the annual salary, and confirmation of the worker's citizenship. The legal text is the bill as passed by the Folketing, and the operational source is the SIRI announcement. Candidates for Danish roles appear on the Werklist job board.