Child born abro­ad

If you enter Denmark with a child born abroad, it will be the municipality that will have to register the child in CPR, as well as registering the child’s parents and custodians.

If the municipality is in doubt about what to register, they will be able to refer the case to the Agency of Family Law..

The main requirement for registering parental status and custody is that it must be recognised under Danish law. Therefore, it is not possible to register a parental status in Denmark if the individual cannot be legally recognised as a parent under Danish law.

This means that a parent registration of a child obtained through a surrogacy agreement cannot be recognised if you are not the one who gave birth to the child, nor the one who donated sperm. This applies even if you have been registered as a parent in the country where the child was born and regardless of whether you paid for the surrogacy agreement or not. If your parental registration from another country is not officially recognised in Denmark, the only way to become a legal parent in Denmark is to adopt the child.

As a citizen, you cannot submit your documents and ask the Agency of Family Law to recognise the foreign decision. You should therefore contact your municipality and ask them to register the parental status of a child born abroad. If the municipality is in doubt about whether a parental status can be registered in Denmark, the municipality may refer to the Agency of Family Law.

If an adoption has taken place abroad according to the rules of the country concerned, the case must be recognised by the Appeals Board (Ankestyrelsen) in order to be eligible in Denmark. You can contact the Appeals Board directly to apply for this recognition.

Read more about recognition of a international adoption on the Ankestyrelsens website.