Denmark's work permit rules for esports players, coaches and staff

A player who flies in for a tournament, a coach who joins a club for a season and a broadcast technician who works a weekend event all face the same question when the work happens in Denmark: does it need a work permit? The answer is set by the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, known by its Danish initials as SIRI, the government body that decides residence and work permits for people from outside the European Union.

Denmark's rules for sport have two sides. One is a short exemption: for a limited period, a professional athlete, a coach and the people who support them can work at a sporting event without a permit. The other is a residence and work permit for athletes and coaches who are hired by a Danish club for longer. In September 2024 SIRI changed how it reads the first of the two, and it named esports events as one of the reasons.

This guide sets out what SIRI's own pages say: the legal basis of the exemption, what changed in 2024, who counts as support staff, the limits of the exemption, the long-stay permit for athletes and coaches with its conditions and its rights, the salary-based scheme that sits beside it, and the visa that still applies at the border. The pages describe the general rule. How it applies to a given player, game or event is decided by SIRI case by case.

SIRI news of September 10, 2024; SIRI pages on exemptions from the work permit requirement, updated September 17, 2026, and on athlete and coach permits, updated June 26, 2026.

Who decides and where the rule is written

SIRI publishes its rules and its practice on New to Denmark, the official portal it runs for applicants and employers. Each permit and each exemption has its own page there, with its conditions, its fees and the date of its last update.

The sporting exemption has a precise legal home. SIRI cites section 24(2)(8) of the Executive Order on Aliens' Access to Denmark. Under that provision, professional athletes, coaches and associated personnel can be exempt from the work permit requirement for 90 days counted from the day they enter the country. SIRI adds that the exemption covers the practice and training of sport, including test training, the trial a club may run before it offers a contract.

The same provision sits in a longer list. SIRI's page on exemptions from the work permit requirement, updated September 17, 2026, groups the sporting rule with other short work assignments that can be carried out for up to 90 days from the date of entry: researchers and lecturers invited to teach, representatives of foreign companies on business trips to negotiate the sale or purchase of goods or services, and fitters or instructors sent by a manufacturer to install or repair equipment.

What changed in September 2024

On September 10, 2024, SIRI published a notice titled Adjustment of SIRI's practice regarding work permit requirements for professional athletes and coaches. The change had already taken effect on September 1, 2024.

The notice starts from how the agency had read the rule until then. Associated personnel meant the staff who accompany athletes and coaches during their stay, and SIRI gave masseurs, team leaders and chefs as examples. That reading fit a traditional touring team: the players, the coach and the few people who travel with them.

From September 2024, SIRI said, it would give more weight to the particular needs of each sporting event when it assesses who counts as associated personnel, so that its practice keeps pace with how professional sport develops in Denmark. It named new types of sporting events as a main consideration, with esports events as its example, and said such events should be able to take place on the same terms as other sporting events in Denmark.

The practical change concerns the people around the competitors. SIRI said it would read associated personnel more broadly, to include staff who carry out tasks at a specialized level of knowledge in support of the sporting event as a whole. Those staff are exempt from the work permit requirement in the same way as the athletes and coaches.

The notice does not define an esports player as a professional athlete, does not name a game, a league or an organizer, and gives no figure. It sets out a change of practice for events, and it says which considerations guided it.

Who counts as associated personnel

Before 2024 the test was proximity: a person was associated personnel because they traveled with the athletes. After 2024 the test is function: a person can be associated personnel because their specialized work supports the event itself. SIRI's current exemptions page carries that wording forward. It describes associated personnel as people who perform specialized tasks supporting the event as a whole.

For an esports event, the roles that sit around the competitors are many: coaches and analysts on the team side, and on the event side the people who run the competitive and technical operation. The SIRI pages do not list those roles one by one, and none of them names a caster, a referee, an observer or a production technician. Whether a given person's work is specialized support for the event as a whole is what SIRI assesses.

The exemptions page shows how the agency draws a similar line elsewhere. For artists, musicians and performers, it exempts the support staff who usually travel with the artist, such as managers, make-up artists, dressers, sound and light crew and tour bus drivers. It does not exempt staff that the organizer would normally provide, such as security, wardrobe, bar and admissions staff, and stagehands. That rule belongs to cultural events, not to sport, and SIRI does not apply it to sporting events on its pages. It shows the kind of distinction the agency makes between a performer's own specialists and an event's local workforce.

The limits of the 90-day exemption

The exemption is wide in one way and narrow in others. SIRI's exemptions page ties it to a single major sporting event: athletes, coaches and associated personnel can be exempt to take part in that event, for up to 90 days from entry.

The page sets one point out plainly for players on trial. An athlete can take part in trial training at a Danish club without a work permit until an employment contract is signed. Once a contract is signed, a residence and work permit is required before any work begins, and training counts as work for that purpose.

Other short-stay exemptions on the same page show where the sporting one stands. Performing artists are covered for short events that normally last under 14 days and must be open to the public. Staff of international congresses, trade fairs and company events are covered for 10 working days at closed, indoor events with room for at least 400 registered participants, and open or public events are outside that rule. Board members can work up to 40 days in a calendar year on board duties. Each exemption has its own conditions, and SIRI does not carry one over to another.

The agency also offers a way to settle doubt in advance. SIRI says it assesses whether a person falls under an exemption only on a written request sent through its contact form, and not over the phone.

When a club hires: the athlete and coach permit

A player or coach who signs with a Danish club for longer than an event moves to a different rule: the residence and work permit for professional athletes and coaches. Its page, updated June 26, 2026, sets out the conditions.

The applicant must have been offered work as a professional athlete, or as a coach who trains individuals or a team. The club must generally belong to a specialized sports association that is itself a member of DIF, the National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of Denmark. The application also needs an advance statement, in which that association checks the salary, the terms of employment and the qualifications; the employer obtains it on SIRI's form.

The page does not mention esports. It sets the condition through the club's affiliation, so whether an esports club can use this permit depends on that affiliation in the case at hand, and SIRI's page gives no answer for esports in either direction.

The job itself has to meet Danish terms. Pay, holiday entitlement and notice periods must not fall below the standards that apply in Denmark for that field. The employment contract or written job offer is filed with the application and must state all the terms, including how holiday pay is handled. The job may not be covered by a lawful labor dispute.

Hours, pay and the bank account

SIRI sets a working pattern for the permit. The job must be the applicant's main occupation, normally 37 hours a week. The agency can accept as little as 20 hours a week when that is customary in the sport, provided the hours are with the same employer. Clubs cannot combine to share one person's wage costs under the permit.

The page also says which pay counts. Cash salary, including fixed allowances that are guaranteed, counts, as do employer and employee contributions to a labor market pension and holiday allowance paid by the current employer. Benefits in kind do not count, and SIRI names free accommodation, a free car and clothing.

There is a floor below which the pay cannot fall: the Danish cash benefit rate. At 2026 levels, SIRI gives DKK 7,095 a month before tax for a person without family, and DKK 14,190 a month for a person with a spouse or partner. That floor applies in addition to the condition of Danish standards for the field, not in place of it.

Salary must be paid into a Danish bank account in the athlete's or coach's own name. The account must be opened within 180 days of the permit being granted, or of entry into Denmark when the person arrives after the grant, and salary may go to a foreign account during those first 180 days. A person who already holds a Danish permit valid for at least 180 days must be paid into a Danish account from the first payment.

What the permit allows and how long it lasts

The permit is tied to the job, with some room around it. SIRI lists the work it allows beside the main contract: sideline work naturally connected to the sport, such as teaching it at a school; work for the main employer's sponsors, but not for its other partners; loans to other Danish clubs, part-time or full-time; and unpaid voluntary work. A new job, including a new position with the same employer, needs a new application. The permit gives no right to work in the other countries of the Schengen area, the European zone of shared visa rules, although it allows stays there of up to 90 days in any 180-day period.

The length of the permit grows with time in Denmark, and it never runs past the contract.

A permit granted to someone applying from abroad can start up to one month before work begins, or 14 days before if the applicant does not declare that they can support themselves. It cannot run beyond three months before the passport expires. It lapses if the holder gives up their Danish address or stays abroad for more than six consecutive months, although the holder can apply for a dispensation.

The holder must be able to support themselves and their family, and receiving benefits under the Active Social Policy Act can lead to the permit being revoked. A spouse, a registered or cohabiting partner and children under 18 living at home can be granted permits as family members. Danish lessons are free for holders aged 18 or over with a registered Danish address, against a deposit that can be lost if modules are not passed on time.

A holder who loses or changes a job must tell SIRI, and once the application for the new job is submitted, may start it while SIRI decides. An extension is applied for before the permit expires; a holder who applies in time may keep working while SIRI decides.

Applying, step by step

SIRI's page sets the fee at DKK 6,810 and the normal processing time at two months, which can stretch to three when the agency needs more information. The application is made on form AR1, which the applicant and the employer each complete in part, or on form AR6, which the employer completes alone under a power of attorney. SIRI says it takes about 30 minutes.

SIRI says an applicant can follow the case online for 30 days after the last login. Documentation of any salary component the contract does not state, such as paid rent or salary paid abroad, is filed with the rest.

The salary-based route beside it

Denmark also has a work permit that does not depend on the field at all: the Pay Limit Scheme, for a person offered a job with a high salary. SIRI's page on it, updated September 22, 2026, sets the minimum at DKK 552,000 a year at the 2026 level, adjusted every year on January 1.

The scheme counts pay in a similar way to the athlete permit: guaranteed cash salary with fixed supplements, labor market pension contributions from employer and employee, and holiday allowance from the current employer. Canteen meals, a free car, a paid phone or internet line and paid housing do not count. The job must be at least 30 hours a week, the salary goes into a Danish bank account in the holder's name, and terms must meet Danish standards. The employer is generally a company registered in Denmark.

The processing fee is the same DKK 6,810, and the normal processing time is one month, up to three when more information is needed. A contract of four years or more normally brings a four-year permit; a shorter one brings a permit for the period of employment plus an automatic six-month permit to look for work, during which the holder may not work. The page does not mention athletes or sport, and it does not say how it relates to the athlete permit. Which of the two routes fits a given contract depends on the case.

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