Denmark does nothing to reduce statelessness

Denmark has committed itself to reducing statelessness through a number of international agreements, and the Danish state has stressed the importance of the problem and pledged to actively participate in identifying and limiting statelessness. This has not happened, despite repeated criticism from, among others, the Council of Europe and the UN. 

Refugees who are recognized as stateless in Denmark have far too much difficulty obtaining Danish citizenship. And far too many refugees are not recognized as stateless, even though they are in practice.

What is the problem, and how big is it?

Being stateless can be compared to being homeless – here it is not housing and municipality that you lack, but country and nationality. There are approximately 8,500 recognized stateless people living in Denmark, of which approximately 500 are stateless children born here, and approximately 100 stateless children are born in the country every year. However, the number of inhabitants who are in practice stateless is much higher. The Danish authorities have no clear criteria for assessing whether a person is stateless.

The problem is particularly serious among refugees, because they have left their home country and often cannot contact the authorities of their home country. See our 4 case stories at the end of the article.

At the same time, the general requirements for obtaining Danish citizenship have been tightened, which has meant a tripling over the past 30 years of children born in Denmark without Danish citizenship. Today, this applies to every tenth child.

Definition of statelessness

The formal definition of a stateless person is found in the UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954). This describes a ‘stateless person’ as “a person whom no State considers to be its national under the operation of its law”. People who are deemed to fall under this description by the State in which they reside are called de jure stateless. However, in practice, only certain groups from selected countries obtain this official registration, and the burden of proof may be impossible for the individual applicant to meet.

There is also a group who are de facto stateless, that is, they are in practice stateless but may fall outside the protection of the 1954 Convention. Many refugees experience being de facto stateless, since they cannot be granted a nationality passport from their country of origin and cannot always provide documentation of their ancestry. Refugees are usually unable to travel to their home country and cannot visit the embassies of their home country. De facto statelessness can also arise for young people born in Denmark to parents with refugee status, who are automatically registered by Danish authorities with their parents' nationality, but in reality have no country that can provide them with protection or effective citizenship.

Why is it important to be recognized as stateless?

Being recognized as stateless can in some cases make it easier to obtain asylum because the authorities cannot refer you to reside in your home country. If you are granted asylum, you should be granted convention status rather than a weaker asylum status. 

Convention status can be decisive in cases of expulsion, revocation and cessation – i.e. in cases where a refugee may risk losing their residence permit. 

For refugees with legal residence, the most important thing in practice is that it can facilitate access to a passport for both themselves and their children. A travel document issued by the Immigration Service is better than nothing, but has many limitations. You can only get a real Danish passport if you obtain citizenship, and thus – either again or for the first time – become a citizen of a country with full rights, including the right to vote.

It is equally important that you feel recognized as a person who has been subjected to unfair treatment – ​​often a form of exclusion from the country you or your parents were born in. See the cases described further down in the article.

The assessment from the Danish authorities

Denmark has not incorporated the 1954 Convention’s binding definition of a stateless person into Danish law. The UN criticizes the lack of a centralized procedure for determining statelessness in Denmark. Through our work at Refugees Welcome, we have not encountered any actual procedure for determining statelessness, and we have seen many refugees “change nationality” along the way. 

Due to the lack of transparency about the process, we requested access to the guidelines and practice notes that the Danish Immigration Service uses when making decisions regarding statelessness. The limited documents we were given access to do not include a description of the Danish Immigration Service’s internal guidelines, the actual procedure for assessing a person as stateless, or how the Danish Immigration Service applies the 1954 Convention in practice.

However, it appears that a person cannot be considered “stateless” within the meaning of the Convention if citizenship can be acquired or reacquired by application. Denmark is only obliged to recognize a person as stateless if 1) the country of origin sets conditions for (re)acquisition of citizenship that “according to Danish legal traditions must be considered unreasonable and disproportionate”, and 2) the country of origin, after submitting an application for (re)acquisition and fulfilling reasonable conditions, nevertheless refuses to grant citizenship. 

The requirement to document a refusal to (re)acquire original citizenship may seem both reasonable and logical, but in practice it is difficult to fulfill. The problem is that embassies very rarely send a written refusal to an application for citizenship, since they are not obliged to do so. At Refugees Welcome, we have seen many examples of this over the years, and we have also contacted various embassies many times in vain.

The Danish Immigration Service recognizes the following groups as stateless:
• Palestinians
• Rohingya refugees from Myanmar
• ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan
• Bidoons from Kuwait
• stateless Kurds from Syria (were wrongly registered as Syrians until the civil war broke out).

In addition, there is “special attention” to children born in Denmark to single women from countries where the mothers cannot transfer citizenship to their children according to the country’s legislation. This applies to 24 countries, including Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Burundi, Sudan, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia and Nepal. Afghanistan is not on the list, although the same applies there.

There is also a problem with states that cease to exist (e.g. the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) and areas that pass from one state to another (e.g. Crimea), thereby making the original citizenship useless. Here, the Danish authorities usually refer to the fact that it has been possible for a period to reapply or convert one's citizenship.

The Refugee Appeals Board also has the authority to determine statelessness. We were denied access to their internal guidelines. The denial states that there is no practice note on statelessness. It is Refugees Welcome's experience that the board rarely changes the Danish Immigration Service's assessment regarding identity and nationality. However, in 2018, the board changed the status of a group of Palestinians who had mistakenly not been granted convention status, which they should have had. The board writes that under the Refugee Convention, asylum cases (including for stateless persons) are assessed in relation to "the country where he previously had permanent residence", and that this may involve several countries.

In some cases, it has not been possible to determine which country an asylum seeker comes from. This was the case, for example, for Petro, which we described in 2011 and later on the website under Cases. He entered in 1998 and did not receive a residence permit until 2025 – and this did not happen because the authorities managed to determine his origin. For all 27 years he maintained that he was from South Sudan, but the authorities did not believe him. Language tests concluded contradictory, and he was presented at five different embassies and airports – no country would recognize him. Today, his residence card says “nationality: Sudan”, but in practice he is stateless.

Access to Danish citizenship (naturalization) for stateless persons

• Stateless children born in Denmark have special access. As a result of Denmark's accession to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, they have the right to naturalization if they apply before reaching the age of 18 and are resident in Denmark. 

• Stateless persons born in Denmark who are between 18 and 21 years of age are no longer considered to be covered by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but can still obtain Danish citizenship without fulfilling all the general conditions, including the requirements for passing the naturalization test, employment and knowledge of Danish.

• Stateless young people between the ages of 18 and 21 who were not born in Denmark can obtain Danish citizenship without fulfilling the general requirements if they have permanent residence in Denmark, have lived in the country for 5 years prior to the application or 8 years in total, and have not committed a crime that has resulted in a prison sentence of 5 years or more.

• Stateless adults over the age of 21 do not have easier access to Danish citizenship. There is only one of the general conditions that is relaxed for this group, namely the requirement of 9 years of continuous residence in Denmark, which is reduced to 8 years for stateless persons, just as it is for refugees. 

What these groups have in common is that the Danish authorities do not inform them of the possibility and that they must submit an application themselves. This typically requires the help of a lawyer or legal advisor. As a result, many miss their opportunity.

Denmark is failing to meet its international obligations

Despite the fact that Denmark has joined a number of conventions and agreements to limit statelessness, successive Danish governments have done very little to live up to their obligations, and have repeatedly ignored criticism. 

In 2020, UNHCR (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) together with the Danish Institute for Human Rights published a report that described statelessness in Denmark. Three years later, the problems had not been resolved, and UNHCR sent 10 recommendations to the Danish state – and updated them again in 2026. Among other things, Denmark was urged to develop a regular and rapid procedure for determining statelessness, significantly facilitate access to Danish citizenship for stateless people born outside Denmark, and grant Danish citizenship automatically at birth to stateless children born in Denmark. The criticism has not led to any changes. 

On the contrary, the bar for becoming a Danish citizen has been raised considerably over the years, and several new requirements are on the way. In 2025, a discussion began on whether Denmark should withdraw from the Council of Europe Convention on Nationality (1997), which could prevent individuals from being deprived of their Danish citizenship for various reasons.

Refugees Welcome is a co-signatory to a joint statement from UNHCR’s Global Alliance to End Statelessness, 2026.

Stories of statelessness

Nissa says:
My parents were born in Myanmar (Burma), where as Rohingya they were denied citizenship, education, health and security. They fled for their lives – first to Thailand and later on to Malaysia. There they lived for 20 years without rights, hunted by the authorities as illegal aliens. In Malaysia they had nine children who were never allowed to go to school or work legally. They had to beg or help their parents with odd jobs in secret so that the family could survive. 

Finally, UNHCR gave them a chance: the family was selected as quota refugees to Denmark – a country they had never heard of. The parents came to Denmark with chronic illnesses and deep psychological scars after decades of flight and pain. They never managed to go to school or work – the language was difficult, and their bodies were destroyed.

My father applied for permanent residence, but was rejected – because he was not allowed to go to school as a child. Today, eight of the nine children live in Denmark, but none have Danish citizenship. Some don't even have permanent residency yet. They work hard. They try to adapt, get an education, learn the language and become part of society. But it's not easy to build your life when your foundation is built on fear, flight and trauma.

Bhupas says:
I was born stateless to stateless parents in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal. There was no prospect of ever returning us to my parents’ homeland of Bhutan. My family was selected to come to Denmark as quota refugees. When I came to Denmark in 2011, I was 11 years old – eager to start a new school, and looking forward to learning a strange language and making new friends.

It went well for me. Today I am Danish, and nothing else. I speak and dream in Danish; I feel proud of Danish history and democratic values. Yet my lack of certain papers makes my life very different from that of my friends – I am still stateless. I chose to educate myself, and therefore have to wait a long time to obtain Danish citizenship.

Only a very few of the 874 refugees from Bhutan who were brought to Denmark between 2008 and 2015 have been able to obtain Danish citizenship so far. Most of those in the Danish quota were selected as particularly vulnerable because they were over 50 years old, had mental and physical problems, and had never been to school. Disabilities that paradoxically prevent them from becoming citizens of the host country that had promised them residence "with a view to permanent residence."

Farid says:
My parents are refugees from Afghanistan, and I was born in Denmark. The authorities consider me an Afghan citizen, but I am de facto stateless. According to Afghan law/practice, you must prove your nationality by having a national identity card ‘tazkera’. However, those who fled Afghanistan a long time ago do not have a tazkera. In that situation, you can “just” show a tazkera of a MALE family member from the father’s side (father/grandfather/uncle/cousin/cousin’s son). Not everyone has such a family member, or contact with that person.

In 2021, my younger siblings tried to be registered as stateless in order to gain access to Danish citizenship as children. They explained that it was impossible for our family to obtain the necessary tazkera. The Immigration Service refused us. We had not proven that we were not Afghan citizens or could not become that. We had however forwarded copies of the many emails we had sent to the embassy in Norway, where we asked for an official rejection letter. The few times we got a reply at all, it was a few lines where they just referred to the website – where it is stated that you can only obtain tazkera by showing proof of your nationality. 

In my opinion, the legislation should be changed to a presumption rule. When citizens have documented their attempts to obtain evidence, and cannot do anything further, the Danish authorities must accept this.

Dim Dim and her children:
She and her husband originally came to Denmark via family reunification with their parents from Myanmar, and both have foreign passports. They have three children together, all of whom were born in Denmark and should have been granted Danish citizenship after birth, but the family did not know about this option. When they applied for foreign passports for the children, who were 5 and 7 years old at the time, they were refused due to lack of documentation that Myanmar will not issue nationality passports to the children.

However, the instructions on the Myanmar embassy website in Berlin state that the child’s parents must themselves have a Myanmar passport in order for the child to obtain one. The parents have had their Myanmar citizenship removed, as they have left Myanmar permanently and have also acquired a Danish foreign passport. 

An advisor from Refugees Welcome called the embassy several times and recorded the conversations. We couldn't get a clear answer on whether it was possible for the children to get a Myanmar passport, even though it was obvious from the official requirements, and conversely the Danish authorities demanded proof that they couldn't get one, so it all went round and round in circles. Instead, we helped apply for Danish citizenship for the children, which they should have been granted long ago.

Recommendations:

Refugees Welcome recommends, in line with the Danish Institute for Human Rights, that all stateless children born in Denmark automatically receive Danish citizenship at birth, and that young people who have grown up in Denmark receive Danish citizenship by declaration, as was previously possible. Furthermore, we recommend, in line with UNHCR, that a clear procedure for identifying statelessness be established and access to Danish citizenship be significantly facilitated for stateless people born outside Denmark. We also call for the Danish state to recognize de facto statelessness, and that access to foreign passports be facilitated.