Expenses during your stay
Utensils
When you rent housing, expenses for, for example, electricity and water consumption are most often not included in the rent. How much you will have to pay depends on how much you consume.
Your home is equipped with meters, which record your consumption. You can read the meters yourself and you must report the reading to the utility companies once a year and when moving in and moving out.
Media license
If you have access to information appliances, you must pay a Media license to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, DR. The Media license covers all TV sets, radios, video or DVD recorders, computers with Internet access, as well as mobile phones and similar electronic devices that also work as a television or radio receiver.
A license covers all appliances in the household.
You need to register, within 14 days of procurement, whether you own, lease or borrow your appliances; and regardless of whether you make use of DR ‘s services or not. And when you leave Denmark, you need to cancel your license fee registration. The cancellation takes effect from the day it is received by DR Licens and cannot be backdated. https://www.dr.dk/om-dr/licens/licens-english/
Bonus info: From 2019 to 2023 the media license fee will gradually be converted to tax financing.
Housing benefits
Housing benefit is a financial subsidy for people living in rental accommodation.
If you live in rental accommodation, you may be eligible for a rent subsidy. This is called housing benefit. To be eligible for rent subsidies, your home must have its own kitchen with proper drains
If you are eligible for housing benefit, the size of your benefit will, among other things, depend on:
* The size of your home
* The number of people in your household
* Your income
* Your rent
This means that if you live in a dorm room with shared kitchen facilities you cannot apply for housing benefits as you do not have access to your own kitchen.
This also means that if you live in a shared apartment you can only apply together with your roommates, as again there is only one kitchen, and therefore the apartment as a unity will have to apply.
Please be careful:
If you are a non-EU citizen receiving housing benefits it will have severe consequences as your residence permit can be revoked. Therefore, you must be very careful if you decide to share an apartment as some of the residents might have a right to housing benefit and apply without your knowledge.
You apply for housing benefits here (for this you will need your nemID): https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/living-in-denmark/your-residence
When you leave your leased residence
When your lease expires or when you have given your landlord notice it is preferable to move out without having to spend the full deposit. To reduce the costs of moving out you will have to make sure that you clean your residence very well. This means that all surfaces are spotless, that all cupboards are clean inside as well as outside, windows are shiny and especially bathroom and kitchen are sparkling. If you are not that good at cleaning it might be a good investment to pay someone to do a moving out cleaning.
Furthermore you will not get the full deposit back in most cases, as some of this deposit will be used to paint surfaces and plane of the floors.
