Scholarships to Study in Denmark: The Honest Guide

Log in to the student portal at the University of Copenhagen, DTU or Aarhus as an EU, EEA or Swiss student and the tuition line on your account reads 0 DKK — for the whole degree, bachelor’s and master’s, on exactly the same terms as the Dane sitting next to you, because the state pays it (studyindenmark.dk). That is the most valuable scholarship in Denmark, and no committee awards it, no portal lists it and most rankings of “Danish scholarships” never mention it. That single zero splits the funding question in two. If you carry an EU passport, Denmark has already done the heavy lifting and your real money question is the SU state grant. If you do not, and you are looking at DKK 45,000–120,000 a year in tuition, funding becomes a genuine hunt — and Denmark hands out fewer full rides than its tuition-free reputation leads people to expect.

Here is the bottom line. EU/EEA students pay 0 DKK and rarely need a fee scholarship at all; what they should chase instead is the SU grant of about DKK 7,426 a month, claimable with worker status (su.dk). Non-EU students pay DKK 45,000–120,000 a year, and that gap is what any award has to close. The realistic routes are the Danish Government Scholarships — administered by each university as a full or partial tuition waiver, sometimes with a monthly living grant — the EU-funded Erasmus Mundus master’s awards (full tuition plus roughly €1,400 a month), and a scatter of university talent schemes. The fact most “best scholarships” lists quietly skip: there is effectively no national full scholarship for a bachelor’s degree, and the awards that do exist sit almost entirely at master’s level and are decided on merit.

This guide is the focused funding companion to our complete guide to studying in Denmark, which covers the eight universities, the optagelse.dk application, grade conversion and the study residence permit in full. Here we go deep on money: why free tuition changes the question for EU students, how the SU grant actually works, what the Danish Government Scholarships pay at each university, where Erasmus Mundus fits, and the rules on working while you study. If you are comparing routes across the region, see our companion guide to scholarships in the Netherlands and our overview of free-tuition study across Scandinavia.

Scholarships and Funding in Denmark, Key Numbers 2026/2027

Source: studyindenmark.dk and su.dk (tuition, SU rate); European Commission (Erasmus Mundus); individual Danish university scholarship pages (Danish Government Scholarships). Terms change yearly — confirm before applying.

The biggest saving is built into the system — for Europeans

Before you open a single scholarship page, work out which side of the fee line your passport puts you on, because it changes the entire strategy.

For EU, EEA and Swiss students, the structural saving dwarfs almost every scholarship on this page. Danish public universities charge 0 DKK in tuition to EU nationals at every level, on exactly the same terms as Danes (studyindenmark.dk). There is no application, no committee and no annual renewal; free tuition is simply the default. Against UK international tuition of £24,000–£40,000 or US private fees of $40,000–$70,000, an EU student in Denmark has effectively already won a five-figure scholarship without filling in a form. So if you are European, the named scholarships further down this guide are largely closed to you and beside the point. The funding instrument that matters is the SU grant, covered in the next section.

For non-EU/EEA students, the picture inverts. Tuition runs DKK 45,000–120,000 a year (about EUR 6,000–16,000), set per programme and rising most years — Copenhagen Business School, for instance, charges €16,000 a year (DKK 120,000) for its MSc programmes, while Aarhus runs about DKK 97,000–129,000 (EUR 13,000–17,300) depending on faculty. That is the bill the awards on this page have to chip at, and chip is the right word: Denmark leans on merit-based, master’s-level tuition waivers, not the need-based full rides that Germany’s DAAD or the endowment-funded American aid system are built around. So treat the hunt as essential but not as a guarantee. A full waiver paired with a living grant is the line between a degree you can afford and one you cannot, which is exactly why you apply to every scheme on your shortlist that you qualify for and bet on none of them individually.

The SU grant — the real “scholarship” for EU students

If you are European, this is the section that matters, and most applicants miss it entirely because the SU is not labelled a scholarship. The SU (Statens Uddannelsesstøtte) is the Danish state education grant — the same money Danish students live on — and EU/EEA citizens can claim it under one condition: worker status.

What it pays. About DKK 7,426 a month before tax in 2026 for a student living independently (su.dk) — a grant, not a loan, paid every month for the duration of your studies and stacked on top of free tuition. Over a one-year master’s that is roughly DKK 89,000; over a three-year bachelor’s, well over DKK 260,000 you never repay.

Who can get it. EU, EEA and Swiss citizens who establish worker status in Denmark — generally by holding a part-time job of at least 10–12 hours a week and meeting the case-by-case conditions the SU office applies. You are not entitled to SU simply for being an EU student; you earn eligibility by working, which is why so many EU students line up a job from their first weeks. Danish part-time wages are high by European standards (often DKK 120–150 an hour), so even modest hours both fund living costs directly and unlock the grant.

The honest framing. Free tuition plus SU plus a part-time job is what turns a Danish degree from merely tuition-free into genuinely affordable — outside Copenhagen, the three together can cover the whole cost of living. For an EU student, this stack matters far more than any named scholarship, and it is unique to the Nordic free-tuition model. EU students can also layer a home-country national scholarship and Erasmus+ mobility funding on top, neither of which conflicts with SU.

The Danish Government Scholarships — the main non-EU route

For non-EU/EEA students, the central scheme is the Danish Government Scholarship. It is funded by the Danish state but, crucially, administered by each university, which is why there is no single national portal and why the terms differ from one school to the next. Understand the structure before you treat it as a list.

What it pays. The scholarship comes in two parts that universities mix and match: a tuition fee waiver (full or partial) and, in some cases, a monthly grant toward living costs. The most generous tier — a full waiver plus a living grant — is what makes a non-EU degree genuinely viable. At Copenhagen Business School, for example, the government scholarship pairs a full tuition waiver with a stipend of around DKK 8,000 a month for up to 22 months; at the University of Southern Denmark it is a full tuition fee waiver (covering the standard two years of an MSc), with any living grant program-dependent rather than fixed.

Who can get it. Highly qualified non-EU/EEA citizens, overwhelmingly at master’s level. The number of awards is limited per university (CBS grants roughly 20–25 a year, for instance), so it is competitive and decided on academic record. Bachelor’s-level government scholarships exist at a few universities but are rarer still.

How to apply. This varies by school and is the detail that trips applicants up. At some universities — Aarhus among them — every eligible non-EU master’s applicant is considered automatically when they apply for admission, with no separate scholarship form. At others, there is a distinct scholarship application and deadline. Either way the timing tracks the master’s admission round (typically a 15 January or 1 March international deadline), not the bachelor’s cycle, so applying for admission on time is half the battle.

Separately, Denmark maintains cultural agreements with a defined set of countries — including China, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Russia and South Korea — under which it offers scholarships, mostly for exchange and guest students rather than full degrees, through the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science. If you are a citizen of one of those countries, check both the Cultural Agreement route and your target university’s own Danish Government Scholarship for full-degree study.

Scholarships by university — where the money actually is

Because the Danish Government Scholarship is run by each institution, the university is the awarding body, and what you can win depends on which one you apply to. The table below maps the leading funding routes to the universities that administer them. Each university links to our full guide where one exists, or to its profile in the College Council Atlas.

Read that table against three patterns. First, almost every award is master’s-level and non-EU only: at bachelor’s level your realistic options are thin, and for Europeans the tuition-free default makes these waivers beside the point. Second, the full-tuition-plus-living-grant tier — CBS and the strongest Aarhus and Copenhagen awards — is the actual prize: few of them, decided on academic record, so a strong transcript and a sharp, programme-specific motivation letter do the heavy lifting. Name the exact programme, the research group, the specific reason it is Denmark and not the Netherlands; a generic letter loses to a focused one every single time. Third, the mechanism differs by school — Aarhus considers you automatically, CBS runs a fixed annual allocation, others demand a separate form — so read the international-scholarships page of every university on your shortlist and file each application by its own deadline, all of which track the early master’s round.

Erasmus Mundus — the fully funded master’s route

If you want a fully funded Danish master’s and you are open to studying across more than one country, the most reliable route is not a Danish scheme at all — it is the EU’s Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s degrees (Erasmus+).

How it works. An Erasmus Mundus master’s is a two-year programme delivered jointly by a consortium of universities in several European countries, sometimes including a Danish partner — Aalborg, Aarhus, DTU and the University of Copenhagen take part in programmes across energy, environmental science, data science, design and the humanities. You study at two or more of the consortium’s universities and receive a joint or multiple degree.

What it pays. The scholarship is genuinely full: full tuition, a monthly living allowance of about €1,400 (roughly €33,600 over the two years), travel and installation costs, visa and insurance, with no nationality or income restriction. Among the funding packages an international student can realistically win, it is one of the very few that covers everything — and EU and non-EU applicants compete for it on equal footing.

The trade-offs. Two of them. First, competition is fierce — acceptance rates run around 10%, and selection is by the consortium on academic merit and fit. Second, by design you spend only part of the degree in Denmark, moving between partner countries, so it is not the route for someone set on a single Danish campus. You apply directly to the specific Erasmus Mundus programme, usually with a deadline a full year ahead (autumn to winter for the following September). For students who can win one, it is among the best-value master’s degrees in Europe.

Working while you study — the funding most students forget

Scholarships are not the only way to fund a Danish degree; for many students, part-time work is the larger and more reliable line in the budget, and the rules split by passport.

EU/EEA students can work with no cap on hours, and as covered above this is the gateway to the SU grant. Most take 10–15 hours a week, which both funds living costs and unlocks the ~DKK 7,426 monthly grant — a combination that is unique to the EU-student position in Denmark.

Non-EU students on a study residence permit may work up to 90 hours a month during the academic year (roughly 20 hours a week) and full time in June, July and August (nyidanmark.dk). At Danish wage levels, term-time work makes a real dent in living costs even at the 90-hour cap.

Here is the part universities rarely put on their scholarship pages. In my experience advising families, the students who finish a Danish degree in the strongest position almost never treat the part-time job as an afterthought — they line it up in the first weeks. EU students do it to unlock SU; non-EU students do it to build a Danish CV and the local network that later converts into a graduate job, and into the three-year Establishment Card that lets a non-EU graduate stay and look for skilled work after the degree. In Denmark the funding plan and the career plan are the same plan.

How to build a funding plan that works

The honest sequence depends, like everything in Denmark, on your passport.

If you are an EU/EEA/Swiss student, the plan is short and the leverage is high. Tuition is 0 DKK, so do not burn weeks on scholarship pages that exclude you. Instead: budget for living costs (DKK 6,000–9,000 a month outside Copenhagen, DKK 10,000–12,000 in the capital), line up a part-time job of at least 10–12 hours a week to establish worker status, and apply for SU through su.dk once you arrive and start working. Stack Erasmus+ mobility and any home-country grant on top. For most EU students that combination covers the whole cost of studying in Denmark.

If you are a non-EU/EEA student, your plan is a competitive hunt that you must run in parallel with admissions. Apply for your master’s admission early (the international round closes around 15 January), because at several universities that admission application is your scholarship application for the Danish Government Scholarship. File any separate scholarship form by its own deadline. In parallel, search Erasmus Mundus programmes in your field a full year ahead. Then — and this is the part most applicants resist — budget assuming you win nothing, treat any award as an offset, and plan the proof-of-funds for your study residence permit (about DKK 7,426 a month, capped near DKK 89,112 for a year) accordingly. Apply to every scheme you are eligible for; rely on none.

Frequently Asked Questions

How College Council helps

We built College Council to remove the two things that most often derail a funded application to Denmark: weak test preparation and a vague, late-running scholarship search. Denmark does not ask for the SAT, but the competitive Danish Government Scholarships and Erasmus Mundus awards are won on academic record, and most English-taught master’s programmes demand a strong TOEFL or IELTS score before any scholarship committee will look at you. Many international students also run a parallel US application where the SAT is central and where scholarship money is far larger. Our SAT app runs the full digital SAT with adaptive practice and analytics, and our TOEFL app delivers full TOEFL iBT practice tests with AI-graded speaking and writing feedback — the closest thing to a mock exam you can do from home.

Beyond the apps, the harder part is judgement: whether your profile is competitive for a full tuition waiver or only a partial one, how to sequence a master’s admission and the scholarship it auto-triggers without missing the 15 January window, and — for EU students — how to set up worker status so the SU grant actually lands. Those are the questions we work through with families, drawing on the same university data that powers this guide. Register on College Council at app.college-council.com/register or run your numbers in our chances tool — we map each university to its admission requirements and the realistic path to a funded place. And if you just want to see the eight Danish universities and their funding side by side, browse them in our university Atlas.

Read Also

• Study in Denmark: complete guide for international students — the parent hub: universities, optagelse.dk, costs and the study permit
• Copenhagen Business School: complete study guide — the university with Denmark’s clearest non-EU scholarship offer
• Scholarships to study in the Netherlands — the EU-rate funding comparison next door
• Study in Scandinavia: free-tuition universities guide — how Denmark’s funding compares across the Nordics
• Is the SAT worth it for international students — when a parallel US application unlocks bigger scholarship money

Sources and Methodology

Funding figures are verified against official Danish government and university sources for the 2026/27 cycle. The single most important caveat: the Danish Government Scholarship is administered per university, so amounts, the number of awards, eligibility and deadlines vary by school and by faculty and change every year — always confirm the exact terms on the relevant university’s international-scholarships page for your intake year before applying. Non-EU tuition is set per programme and rises most years.

1. Study in Denmark — Official guide for international students (EU/EEA tuition-free; non-EU tuition DKK 45,000–120,000; Danish Government Scholarships overview)
2. SU (Danish state grant) — su.dk (~DKK 7,426/month 2026; EU worker-status conditions)
3. European Commission / Erasmus+ — Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s (full tuition + ~€1,400/month allowance + travel + insurance)
4. Danish Immigration Service — Study residence permit (90 hrs/month work cap; proof of funds ~DKK 7,426/month; Establishment Card)
5. Copenhagen Business School — Scholarships for non-EU/EEA students (~20–25 Danish Government Scholarships/year, full waiver + ~DKK 8,000/month for up to 22 months; CBS Scholarship up to 40% of tuition)
6. Aarhus University — Danish State Scholarships (automatic consideration on admission; full/partial waiver, monthly living grant in some faculties; non-EU master’s)
7. University of Southern Denmark — Danish Government Scholarship (full tuition fee waiver for the standard MSc/BSc duration; living grant program-dependent)
8. Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science — Cultural Agreement scholarships (exchange/guest students from China, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Russia, South Korea)
9. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (Danish HEI identity, location and programme data) and internal advising experience with international applicant families