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You are obliged to provide your financial institution with your identity information if you live in or outside Denmark and have e.g., deposit accounts, custodial accounts or loans, etc. in Denmark or abroad. The reason for this is that Danish financial institutions, such as banks, pension companies and mortgage credit institutions, are obliged to be able to document that they know who their customers are. 

If you have an address abroad, you can expect your financial institution regularly to request you to update the information they have about you. This includes your residential address and your tax identification number abroad.

The information will, for example, be used to report information about your financial accounts and custodial accounts to the Danish Tax Agency (Skattestyrelsen). 
If your financial institution does not have secure knowledge of your identity, the Tax Agency may ultimately seize deposits and assets in your deposit accounts and custodial accounts. You can read more about this in the section ‘If your financial institution does not have secure knowledge of your identity’.

The Tax Agency uses the reported information from your financial institution to pre-enter interest, dividends, gains on shares and pension payments, etc. in your tax assessment notice. The information is also used for audit purposes. We share the information with authorities and businesses that have a specific purpose and legal right to receive the information. Such purposes may be calculation of public benefits or banks’ credit rating.

If you are resident in another country than Denmark, or if you are a tax resident in a country with which Denmark has made an exchange agreement, we will send information about your deposit accounts and custodial accounts etc. to the tax authorities in the countries in question. Read more about this in the section ‘What agreements has Denmark entered into with non-Danish tax authorities?’.

On this page, you can, for example, read about the financial institutions’ obligations under the tax legislation. In addition, financial institutions must obtain identity information according to applicable acts and international agreements. If you want to know more about the ‘know-your-customer rules’ in the Danish Act on Measures to Prevent Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (the Anti-Money Laundering Act) (Lov om forebyggende foranstaltninger mod hvidvask og finansiering af terrorisme (Hvidvaskloven)), you can read about this at the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finanstilsynet).

Denmark has entered into international tax agreements on the exchange of information with more than 100 countries. The agreements are aimed at Danish financial institutions. The purpose of the agreements is to ensure global tax payment and combat international tax evasion.

The Tax Agency exchanges information about financial accounts to tax authorities abroad according to the following agreements:

In 2012, Denmark and the United States entered into an agreement on automatic exchange of financial information, the so-called FATCA agreement.
If you are resident for tax purposes in the United States and your financial institution cannot comply with the guidelines and does not collect adequate information about you as a customer, the US tax authorities (the IRS) may impose severe sanctions on your financial institution. You can find more information about the agreement on the IRS’s website.

In 2014, Denmark entered into a multilateral agreement on automatic exchange of financial information, the so-called CRS agreement. The CRS agreement forms the framework for the international standard for automatic exchange of financial information between Denmark and more than 100 other countries. List of countries that have acceded to the agreement.
You can find more information about the agreement on OECD’s home page on automatic exchange of tax information.

Under this convention, information is automatically exchanged about financial transactions in the Nordic region, for example. The convention covers Finland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark. The Nordic Mutual Assistance Convention helps ensure that additional information is exchanged between the Nordic countries. You can find more information about the convention in our Danish-language legal guide.

When you set up an account, custodial account or take out a loan with a financial institution, you are obliged to provide information about your identity. If there are any changes to the information provided, then you must notify your financial institution thereof no later than one month after the changes took place.

You must provide the following details to your financial institution:

  • name and address
  • country of residence if you have a non-Danish address
  • civil registration (CPR) no.
  • CVR no., if no civil registration no. (for example sole proprietorship)
  • SE no., if no CVR no.
  • date of birth, if no SE no.

If you are resident and/or resident for tax purposes abroad, you must also provide the following identity information:

  • Tax Identification Number (TIN)
  • date of birth
  • place of birth and state of birth

Tax Identification Numbers must be reported for all countries in which you are resident for tax purposes. 
The information is provided by your self-certification form. You can read more about this in the section ‘When you set up an account or create a custodial account, you must disclose where you are resident for tax purposes’.

Danish financial institutions have access to the Danish Central Office of Civil Registration (the CPR register) and will therefore automatically be notified if you live in Denmark or you move back to Denmark after having lived abroad. However, they will not receive the information until you have notified the CPR register of your new address. 
If you have a secret address, your financial institution will not receive information about your new address. In this situation, you must therefore yourself provide the information about your new address to your financial institution.

 

If you live abroad, or you move abroad, you must provide your Danish financial institution with information about your address abroad. This must be done no later than one month after you have changed your residential address.
Your tax identification number must also be disclosed for all countries in which you are resident for tax purposes. The information is provided by your self-certification form. You can read more about this in the section ‘When you set up an account or create a custody account, you must disclose where you are resident for tax purposes’.

As a customer with a financial institution, you may be asked to submit a so-called self-certification form when you set up an account or create a custodial account. If you move abroad or from one country to another, you must submit a new self-certification form.

What is a self-certification form?

A self-certification form is a declaration that you fill in regarding your identity information.
The Tax Agency requires that a self-certification form must have been filled in. As a customer with a financial institution, you can experience varying types of self-certification forms, as the individual financial institution prepares the self-certification form itself.
The self-certification form is used to obtain your tax identification number in the country or countries in which you are resident for tax purposes. If you are resident for tax purposes in Denmark, the tax identification number is your civil registration number.

Your Tax Identification Number  is used to identify you as a taxpayer. In Denmark, your civil registration no. is your Tax Identification Number. 

If you move abroad and/or are resident for tax purposes in one or more countries, you must provide your foreign Tax Identification Number to your financial institution. If the country in question does not issue a Tax Identification Number, you must instead state your date of birth, place of birth and country of birth.
If you need further information about Tax Identification Numbers, you can find it on the OECD’s website.

Do you have a tax affiliation to the United States?

If you are resident for tax purposes in the United States under American rules, you must disclose your American Tax Identification Number to your financial institution.
If you need further information about Tax Identification Numbers for the United States, you can read more on the IRS’s website.

In Denmark, your country of residence for tax purposes is determined according to rules on what your affiliation is in relation to your place of residence and/or domicile. In the United States, the tax system is based on both place of residence and/or domicile as well as citizenship. US citizens must pay taxes in the United States on the basis of their citizenship, regardless of where in the world they reside. Place of birth in the United States typically gives US citizenship and thus tax liability to the United States.

Financial institutions in Denmark must therefore register information about whether you as a customer are a US citizen. If your financial institution has information that could indicate that you may be a US citizen, you may be asked to confirm or deny this a self-certification form.

If you are born in the US, it will not be enough to refuse your US citizenship by means of a self-certification form. In this situation, your financial institution must obtain more types of identification, such as a passport or other identification issued by an authority proving that your citizenship is in another country than the US. 
You can read more about self certification in the section ‘When you set up an account or create a custodial account, you must disclose where you are liable to pay tax’.

If you have not informed your financial institution about a change of your identity information, for example a new address abroad, your financial institution cannot meet its reporting obligation to the Danish Tax Agency.
If your financial institution does not have secure knowledge of your identity, the Danish Tax Agency may order your financial institution to block your deposit accounts/custodial accounts for 24 months and subsequently seize deposits/assets in the deposit account/custodial account. The blocking of the deposit account/custodial account will be lifted when you submit identity information to your financial institution.