Your household goods to Denmark: no declaration, but limits on drink, medicines and fireworks

No, for your household goods you make no customs declaration when moving from the Netherlands to Denmark, and you pay no VAT, import duty or excise duty on belongings for your own use. The Danish customs, Toldstyrelsen, writes it for everyone entering from another EU country: goods for personal use may come in without those levies. The form and the conditions on Toldstyrelsen's moving page apply to those coming from outside the EU. The finding is in the exceptions: quantities apply to alcohol and tobacco, some medicines you may only bring for thirty days, and fireworks may not enter the country at all for private individuals.

What counts as personal use?

Toldstyrelsen describes it like this: personal use means that only you, the people in your household or your guests use the goods. If you sell something on, for example at work or in the sports club, or bring goods for someone who is not travelling with you, you pay excise duty and sometimes a deposit. For an ordinary household of furniture, clothes, kitchenware and bicycles that does not apply.

For plants and food from another EU country there are, according to Toldstyrelsen, generally no restrictions, except during an outbreak of an animal disease; that advice is then on the site of the Danish food authority. Your ordinary houseplants can therefore simply go in the removal van.

How much alcohol and tobacco may come?

These are the quantities Toldstyrelsen gives for an adult entering from another EU country:

Product	Quantity for personal use
Spirits (above 22 per cent)	10 litres
Fortified wine (up to 22 per cent, such as port and sherry)	20 litres
Wine, of which at most 60 litres sparkling	90 litres
Beer	110 litres
Cigarettes	800 pieces
Cigarillos (at most 3 grams each)	400 pieces
Cigars	200 pieces
Smoking tobacco	1 kilo

Those aged 16 or 17 may bring no tobacco, and only beer and wine up to and including 16.4 per cent. If you stay within these quantities, you pay nothing. If you arrive by plane, at some airports you go through the green or the red exit; if in doubt, take the red one.

What is not allowed, or only with a permit?

Fireworks are forbidden for private individuals, even with CE marking. Toldstyrelsen is unusually firm about it: you may not bring fireworks bought abroad into Denmark. If customs finds them, the case goes to the safety authority or the police, and that can mean a fine or imprisonment. Take them out of the removal boxes before you leave.

In addition Toldstyrelsen names:

• weapons and explosives: without a Danish weapons licence a large part may not come; borger.dk has an indicative list of what requires a licence;
• pesticides and poisons, such as rat poison and insecticide, and refrigerant in disposable containers: you may not bring these from abroad;
• doping agents and narcotic drugs: as a rule not, with the exceptions for medicines below;
• protected animals and plants, also as a souvenir or stuffed.

What medicines may I bring?

Since 1 January 2026 new Danish rules apply. The main rule of Lægemiddelstyrelsen: you may bring medicines for personal use if you bought them legally in the country where you bought them, and you must be able to show that they are for you (or your pet), with a prescription or a receipt. Three groups have rules of their own:

• medicines with a narcotic active substance (on the Danish lists B to E): on entry at most 30 days of treatment, with a prescription as proof, and never by post; if you need more, you apply for an exemption from Lægemiddelstyrelsen before leaving;
• antibiotics: allowed from an EU or EEA country;
• doping agents: from an EU or EEA country only with a doctor's prescription.

If you need longer medication, a Danish pharmacy can since 2014 dispense a prescription from a Dutch doctor, if it contains the details the EU rules require, such as the doctor's name, profession, contact details with country code and signature. How the Danish medicines system works after that is in the article on healthcare.

And the car?

Toldstyrelsen counts a private car among your personal belongings, but for Danish tax it is a separate, big matter, with its own deadline. What the registration tax costs and why you do that sum before leaving is in your car to Denmark. Separate rules apply to a pet, see your pet to Denmark. How the move fits into the rest of the journey is in the step-by-step plan for Denmark.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey, step 3.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Denmark or go straight to step 3.1 in the open plan.