How do people in Denmark pay online?
Danes shop online more than most Europeans. Eurostat puts the share of people who bought something online in the previous 12 months at 91.18% in 2025, against an EU average of 73.56%. Danmarks Nationalbank reports that online trade made up 30% of total card turnover in Denmark in 2025, up from 22% in 2019. In 2024, online card payments with Danish cards came to around DKK 278 billion, double the 2016 level, and about 71% of that went to Danish companies.
The phone has overtaken the card. Dansk Erhverv’s E-handelsanalysen 2025 found that mobile payments made up 44% of online payments in 2025 and payment cards 40%, down from 71% in 2019. The Nationalbank’s own survey had found physical cards and mobile payments used about equally online in 2023, against cards for 75% of online purchases in 2017.
MobilePay leads mobile payments online. Vipps MobilePay reported 4.74 million Danish MobilePay users at the end of 2025 and 29% growth in its Danish e-commerce revenue that year. The Nationalbank explains that online MobilePay mainly starts and approves the payment, while the payment itself is usually completed as a card payment. Apple Pay and Google Pay are used less for online purchases.
Dankort is the national debit card. Many Danish cards are co-badged, combining Dankort with Visa or Mastercard. Since 2016, transactions with international cards have nearly quadrupled to about 1.5 billion a year, while Dankort transactions fell 36% to just over 0.8 billion. Dankort can be added to Apple Pay, which the three Danish bank data centres completed in 2025, and a political agreement from 2025 adjusts Dankort’s price regulation so it can gain features such as Google Pay support.
What rules shape online payments in Denmark?
Card surcharges are banned for private cards. Under section 121(3) of the Payments Act (betalingsloven), a store may not add a fee when a customer pays with a private payment card issued in the EU, and the ban also covers card-based mobile payments such as MobilePay and Apple Pay. In January 2026 Dansk Erhverv reported that the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority was acting against stores that still charged card fees.
Payment before delivery needs agreement. The Consumer Ombudsman’s guidelines on payments in distance selling say a store can require payment before delivery only with an express agreement and a fair reason, and that any amount reserved on a card must be released when the payment is completed or the purchase is cancelled.
Shoppers have 14 days to withdraw. The period for online purchases starts when the shopper receives the goods, or later if the store did not give the required information. The store must refund no later than 14 days after being told of the withdrawal, using the same payment method the shopper used.
VAT is 25% of the price excluding VAT. A seller established in another EU country whose cross-border sales to consumers across the EU pass EUR 10,000 a year charges Danish VAT on sales to Danish customers, and can declare it through the One Stop Shop.
Card payments need strong customer authentication. Since 14 September 2019, payment service providers across the EU have had to confirm the shopper with two of three factors: something they know, something they own or something they are. The European Commission describes the rule as applying to online payments above EUR 30, with a number of exemptions.
How would Omno route payments in Denmark?
A merchant would connect once and set routing rules per method, currency and customer group. In Denmark:
- MobilePay pay-ins would go to a provider connected to Vipps MobilePay, with the hosted checkout sending the request to the shopper’s app and the amount reserved until the merchant captures it.
- Card pay-ins would follow the merchant’s rules by card brand, so Dankort, co-badged and international cards can each go to the provider set for them, with cascading to the next provider in the rule when a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, until one accepts.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay would follow the same card rules, since the payment underneath is a card payment.
- Saved cards would let returning customers pay without a new card form each time.
Webhooks would report the final status of every payment, the record a back office should trust before shipping an order, and the routing-decision log would show which provider handled each payment and why.
What should merchants plan for?
Plan for MobilePay and cards together. Mobile payments and cards each carry around four in ten online payments, and a checkout without MobilePay misses the most common method.
Plan for reserve and capture. Taking payment before delivery needs the shopper’s express agreement and a fair reason, so the checkout should reserve the amount and complete the payment at delivery unless the shopper has agreed to pay earlier.
Plan for no card fees. Prices must cover card costs, because private cards issued in the EU, and the mobile payments built on them, cannot carry a surcharge.
Plan for Dankort. Many shoppers carry co-badged cards, so the checkout and acquirer setup should accept Dankort as well as Visa and Mastercard.