Any company hiring from outside the EU runs into the same condition early on: the salary offered has to be customary by Danish standards.
That test is applied by SIRI, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, and it sits at the centre of every application under the Pay Limit Scheme and the other employment-based routes.
As of 1 April 2026, SIRI assesses that question against a newer set of pay statistics from the Confederation of Danish Employers (DA), a change that lands directly on applications filed from that date onwards.
The detail is where employers get caught out, which is why the salary package is worth reviewing before anything reaches SIRI rather than after a refusal.
What “customary salary” actually means
SIRI is not simply checking that a number clears a threshold. It is asking whether the salary matches what someone in that role, in that industry, is normally paid in Denmark.
Clearing the Pay Limit Scheme floor, DKK 37,300 a month, is therefore necessary but not sufficient. The figure also has to look market-conform against the sector data.
Small drafting choices in the contract can move an application from approvable to refused, which is the main reason employers seek advice at the contract stage.
Which parts of the package count
SIRI counts a narrow list of components towards the salary:
- Cash salary
- Fixed supplements and allowances
- Labour market pension contributions
- Holiday pay
- The fixed holiday allowance for monthly salaried employees
Benefits in kind, as a rule, do not count at all.
That excludes:
- a company car
- a free phone
- internet
- housing
- meal arrangements
- and other fringe benefits.
Employers are regularly surprised by this, because a package that feels generous in total can fall short on the components SIRI is willing to count.
Checking the structure of the package against SIRI’s practice before filing avoids the most expensive category of mistake.
Monthly salary versus hourly pay
The distinction between salaried and hourly staff matters more than most employers expect.
Monthly salaried employees
For monthly salaried staff, SIRI counts the fixed 1% holiday supplement as part of the salary.
Hourly paid employees
For hourly paid staff, the 12.5% holiday pay is not counted towards the customary salary assessment.
That single difference causes recurring problems in:
- restaurants
- cleaning
- warehousing
- transport
- construction
- and hospitality.
In these sectors a refusal is often nothing to do with the merits of the hire, it is arithmetic.
What changed in April 2026
SIRI gave notice on 18 March 2026 that from 1 April 2026 it would apply an updated set of DA pay statistics.
Those figures are drawn from:
- Q4 2025.
Which set applies depends on the filing date:
- applications filed between 1 January and 31 March 2026 are measured against the Q3 2025 data
- applications filed on or after 1 April 2026 are measured against the Q4 2025 data.
For a company recruiting under the Pay Limit Scheme, that can move the goalposts between one quarter and the next.
Why the statistics matter so much
The data is not background reading, SIRI uses it actively when deciding whether a salary is customary.
Where pay in a sector has risen, the consequences follow quickly:
- the effective minimum expectation rises
- the refusal rate goes up
- existing contracts need revisiting
- and thin documentation stretches out processing times.
That bites hardest in the sectors that recruit internationally at volume:
- IT
- engineering
- healthcare
- hospitality
- manufacturing
- and construction.
Where applications usually go wrong
Most refusals we see were avoidable at the drafting stage.
The recurring faults:
- counting benefits in kind towards the salary figure
- pension arrangements that are not clearly stated
- working hours left vague
- a salary sitting below the statistical benchmark for the role
- or a contract that simply does not answer what SIRI asks of it.
Where advice helps
The rules move, and SIRI’s practice keeps getting more granular. The work that pays for itself is usually done before submission:
- testing the salary against the customary standard
- drafting the employment contract
- preparing the residence and work permit application
- advising on the Pay Limit Scheme
- extensions
- compliance across an international recruitment programme
- and handling the correspondence with SIRI.
Where to read the rules
The official material on the Pay Limit Scheme and the customary salary requirement is published by SIRI under the Supplementary Pay Limit Scheme.
SIRI has also indicated that the next statistical update is expected to take effect on 1 July 2026.
In short
The customary salary requirement decides more Danish work permit applications than any other single condition. With the April 2026 change and the revised DA figures, the margin for a loosely drafted package has narrowed again.
Getting the contract and the documentation right before filing is the difference between an approval and a three-month detour.
