Reception program in municipalities

Placement in a municipality

When an asylum-seeker is granted residency (either asylum, a humanitarian residence permit or residency on the basis of extraordinary circumstances), the Immigration Service chooses a municipality in which the person must reside.

Municipalities are chosen according to a plan of distribution, which takes a number of factors into account. The choice of which municipality a refugee will live in is normally not up for discussion, but if you want to appeal the choice of municipality, it must be done immediately after the decision has been taken and there has to be a good reason as to why you don’t wish to live in the municipality you have been allotted to.

For people arriving after family reunification, it is expected that they will move in with the person they have been reunited with. However, this does not result in the right to a larger place of residence.

Refugees and their families are covered by the integration program, which lasts between 1 and 5 years. This means that the local municipality must provide accommodation, access to language school, job centre and activation. During the first few years, refugees can therefore not move from the municipality, unless another municipality takes on the responsibility or you are able to provide for yourself.

Newly-arrived refugees must sign a contract (formerly known as the integration contract) and a plan is laid out for their near future – typically with the aim of gaining employment within a year, but it can also include education plans. In addition, they must also sign a declaration on active participation in society, which is required if they apply for permanent residence at a later point.

Unfortunately, the efforts taken on the part of the various municipalities in terms of integration differ widely. Some municipalities are ambitious and experimental, others use as few resources as possible. One common feature of them all is that they do not have sufficient numbers employed to be able to help refugees make a start on their new lives – this in turn results in it taking a longer period of time before refugees are ready to start learning Danish, starting job training, taking education or finding a job.

The "Paradigm Shift" in 2019 consisted of a number of amendments, which moved the focus from integration of refugees to them returning home. Even the name ‘integration program’ has actually been changed to ‘self-sufficiency and repatriation program’. This means that municipalities’ endeavours are now aimed in opposite directions.

Accommodation

In theory, a contact person from the local municipality should visit refugees while they are still living in asylum centres, in order to make plans about when they move out and other practical things, but this happens rarely in practice. The municipality must assist in acquiring basic furniture, kitchen utensils and so on, for the new accommodation, but there are no guidelines for how much money to spend. An investigation carried out by LG Insight has demonstrated that the amount offered for establishing a home for a family varies from 3,000 to 85,000 DKK and the municipalities have called for a set of guidelines.

Many municipalities have problems finding affordable housing, and new refugees often therefore end up living in temporary, low-quality accommodation for long periods of time. The price for renting temporary accommodation is capped and municipalities must pay the rest of the amount in the event of a shortfall. After 2019, refugees no longer have the right to permanent accommodation, which they had until this point.

Finances

Read more in our chapter 'Benefits'.

Refugees and their spouses are only entitled to self-sufficiency and repatriation benefit (formerly known as integration benefit), which equates to roughly half of social security payment, so long as they don’t find a job. They can apply for subsidies for rent and the municipality can also choose to subsidise transport, dental care and other special expenses. However, these subsidies are affected by the cap on social security.

As a newly arrived resident, you have many expenses and it typically takes at least two years before a refugee starts working full-time. Refugees are therefore often among the poorest residents in the country.

Providers (singles or couples) will face a cut of 2,000 DKK per household after 3 years legal residency. At this point, they will have earned 50% of children’s allowance, which in the case of refugees, has an accrual period of 6 years.

The right to social security is first acquired after 9 years legal residency out of the last 10 years, as well as 2.5 years full-time employment.

One particular outlay, which can be beyond the means of many, is the amount required to cover flight tickets and visas for spouses and children, if they are lucky to be granted family reunification. The state no longer covers this cost and refugees have no possibility to borrow money. It can cost around 20-30,000 DKK if there are several children and they are travelling from a long distance. Refugees Welcome offers a subsidy per child for this.

Employment or education

The municipality is obliged to make a plan of action and there will always be a focus on making the newly-arrived refugee self-sufficient as quickly as possible. There are many different options and they also depend on what type of residence permit you have. Read more in the following chapters.