How the Mortgage Registration Fee Reduction Works in Denmark

Most expats buying in Denmark focus on the headline mortgage registration fee numbers: DKK 1,825 fixed fee plus 1.25% of the loan amount. What almost nobody explains — at least not in English — is that the variable 1.25% doesn’t always apply to the full loan.

If the seller has an existing registered mortgage on the property, you may only owe the variable fee on the increase. On a DKK 2,400,000 mortgage where the seller’s existing loan is DKK 1,800,000, that’s a saving of roughly DKK 22,500 before the calculation is even complete.

This mechanic is called afgiftsfritagelse (fee exemption) or, in older usage, stempelrefusion (stamp duty refund). It’s the biggest variable in the registration fee calculation for a standard purchase, and it’s almost entirely absent from English-language guides to buying property in Denmark.

What the Standard Fee Looks Like Without a Reduction

First, the baseline. When you take out a mortgage on a Danish property, the standard tinglysningsafgift for the pantebrev (mortgage registration document) has two parts:

The variable amount is rounded up to the nearest DKK 100, then the fixed fee is added on top.

So a DKK 2,400,000 mortgage without any reduction: 1.25% of DKK 2,400,000 = DKK 30,000, plus DKK 1,825 fixed = DKK 31,825 total.

This is what you pay if the property has no existing registered debt, or if the seller’s mortgage type doesn’t qualify.

How the Reduction Works

The logic is simple: the variable registration fee is tied to the property, not the owner. When a seller took out their original mortgage and registered it at the land registry (tinglysningsretten), the state collected a 1.25% fee on that amount. That fee-bearing capacity stays with the property when it’s sold.

When you buy and register your own mortgage, the state only needs to collect the variable fee on the new amount being added to the register — the portion that exceeds what was already there.

Here’s how the law frames it (tinglysningsafgiftslovens § 5a, stk. 1): the variable fee applies only to the increase in the registered principal. If your new mortgage is smaller than or equal to the existing one, the variable fee is zero. If it’s larger, you pay 1.25% on the difference only.

The fixed DKK 1,825 fee always applies regardless — you can’t reduce that part.

The Three Conditions

The reduction isn’t automatic. Three conditions must be met (tinglysningsafgiftslovens § 5a, stk. 2):

1. Your new mortgage must be submitted for registration before the seller’s existing mortgage is cancelled from the register.
2. You must declare, at the time of filing, that the new registration is conditional on the old mortgage being cancelled.
3. The old mortgage must actually be cancelled within one year of your new registration being filed.

In practice, condition 3 is nearly always met — the seller’s mortgage is discharged as part of the settlement. Your lawyer or the mortgage institution handles conditions 1 and 2 as standard procedure in a berigtigelse (legal completion). You don’t have to do anything special; you just need to know it’s happening (or confirm with whoever is handling your completion that they’re aware of it).

What Qualifies and What Doesn’t

The reduction applies to most types of registered mortgages, but not all. The key exclusion is the skadesløsbrev — an instrument used to secure open credit facilities like overdrafts. These are excluded from the reduction mechanic by law.

Qualifying mortgage types:

• Realkreditlån (standard mortgage-institution loans) — the most common type
• Ejerpantebreve (owner’s mortgage deeds)
• Afgiftspantebreve (fee mortgage deeds — these exist specifically to preserve the reduction entitlement)
• Anden hæftelse (other registered charges with security in real property)

If the seller’s existing mortgage is a skadesløsbrev, no reduction is available. This is unusual in residential property — most home loans are realkreditlån — but worth checking if you’re buying something with an unusual financing structure.

How to Check Whether a Property Has an Existing Pantebrev

Every registered mortgage in Denmark is publicly visible in the Tingbog (land register). You can look up any property for free at tinglysning.dk — no account needed.

Search by address or property number (ejendomsnummer). Look under the Hæftelser section, which lists all registered charges on the property. You’ll see the principal amount of each pantebrev, when it was registered, and the creditor.

What you’re looking for:

• The type of instrument (pantebrev, ejerpantebrev, or afgiftspantebrev — any qualifies)
• The registered principal (the number your reduction is based on)
• Whether it’s a skadesløsbrev (it won’t qualify)

The registered principal matters, not the remaining balance. If a seller originally registered a DKK 2,000,000 mortgage and the current outstanding balance is DKK 1,400,000, the reduction is still calculated against DKK 2,000,000. This is the “main principal” (hovedstolsprincippet) — the basis for the reduction is the amount that was originally registered, not what’s left owing.

A Worked Example

The scenario: you’re buying a property in Copenhagen for DKK 3,000,000. You need a mortgage of DKK 2,400,000 (80% LTV). The seller has an existing realkreditlån registered at DKK 1,800,000.

That’s a meaningful number. It’s roughly equivalent to six months of mortgage-related costs for many buyers, and it comes from a mechanic that’s already baked into Danish property law — you just have to be aware of it, and confirm your completion agent is applying it.

What If Your Mortgage Is Smaller Than the Existing One?

In this case, the variable fee is zero. You pay only the fixed DKK 1,825.

This happens when you’re buying with a larger downpayment than the seller had, or when you’re buying a property where the seller’s remaining mortgage principal is high relative to the purchase price. It’s less common in a standard purchase, but it does occur — particularly with downsizing sellers or properties bought many years ago.

What If There’s No Existing Pantebrev?

Then there’s no reduction available, and you pay the standard fee on the full loan amount. This applies to new-build purchases (where no mortgage has existed before), properties owned outright by the seller, and properties where the seller’s mortgage was a skadesløsbrev.

New-builds are worth noting specifically: because there’s no registered prior mortgage, the tinglysningsafgift on a new-build purchase is typically higher on a like-for-like basis than buying an equivalent resale property with an existing loan in place.

The Afgiftspantebrev: Preserving the Reduction for Future Buyers

There’s a related concept worth knowing if you’re thinking about how this affects future resales.

When a seller pays off their mortgage (for instance, if they’re downsizing and selling without buying again), they don’t have to simply cancel the registration. They can convert the discharged mortgage into an afgiftspantebrev — a “fee mortgage deed” that exists solely to preserve the reduction entitlement for whoever buys the property next.

An afgiftspantebrev carries no debt. It just sits in the Tingbog, preserving the right for a future buyer to claim the reduction against that amount. This has been available for all mortgage types since July 2019 — before that, it applied only to certain instruments.

If you see an afgiftspantebrev in the Tingbog for a property you’re looking at, it works exactly like a standard pantebrev for reduction purposes. The registered principal is the number you use.

How This Fits Into the Overall Purchase Costs

The mortgage registration fee reduction is one part of the broader tinglysningsafgift picture. You’ll also pay the deed registration fee (tinglysning af skøde) on the purchase itself:

The deed fee has no equivalent reduction mechanic — you pay the variable rate on the full purchase price regardless. The reduction applies only to the mortgage (pantebrev) registration, not to the title transfer (skøde).

On a DKK 3,000,000 purchase: deed fee = 0.60% of DKK 3,000,000 = DKK 18,000, rounded up, plus DKK 1,850 = approximately DKK 19,850. That’s fixed regardless of the seller’s mortgage situation. The mortgage fee is where the saving lives.

Professional advice matters here, not because the mechanic is complicated, but because the numbers are large and the window for correctly sequencing the filings is short. Your lawyer needs to confirm the new pantebrev is filed before the old one is cancelled — if that order gets reversed, you lose the reduction entirely. Worth having someone who’s done this before in the room.