Denmark’s government says it wants to make the price of food shopping cheaper and is therefore planning to scrap a tax on sweets, chocolate and coffee.
After announcements earlier this week that taxes on books and electricity will be cut in next year’s budget, it’s now the turn of luxury items like sweets, chocolate and coffee, broadcaster DR reports.
The taxes are being reduced as a response to higher living costs related in particular to rising food prices, the government says.
“This should give Danes more money in their pockets and they can prioritise it as they wish at a time when food prices have gone up,” Minister for Economic Affairs Stephanie Lose said to DR.
READ ALSO: Which food items have gone up most in price in Denmark?
The confectionary tax is also considered to be administratively demanding for businesses because the rules for which products are taxed vary considerably, Lose said.
“The chocolate tax is the oldest in Denmark and it is highly difficult and inconvenient and also makes little sense,” the minister said.
The decision, which is expected to be part of the 2026 budget, will cost the state 2.4 billion kroner annually. An existing budgetary surplus will be used to fund it, DR writes.
The minister said she was not concerned about a potential health impact of reducing tax – and therefore the price – for chocolate and sweets.
Advertisement
“The government is generally concerned about Danes’ health and we also have a prevention plan aimed at consumption of alcohol and nicotine and cigarettes in young people,” she told DR.
“But we should keep in mind that Denmark is the country with the highest VAT on foods and we already have very high price levels,” she said.
Lose also said she was confident that market forces and competition would mean the benefit from scrapping the taxes would go to customers, and not to businesses, which could theoretically leave their prices unchanged and pocket the difference.
“This is an area that has competition, so you will see that there will be competing price adjustments. And this gives the opportunity to actually lower prices,” she said.
Statistics Denmark figures show that coffee was 32 percent more expensive in July compared with July 2024, while the price of chocolate has increased by 20 percent.
Once the existing tax on the items has been removed, 500-gram bag of coffee would cost 5 kroner less at current prices, according to DR’s calculations. A 200-gram bar of chocolate would be reduced in price by 6.5 kroner.
“We are sending money [from the taxes] back to Danes, and you will notice the difference,” Lose said.
“But what is also obvious is that items are now more expensive because global markets have changed, for example because of climate change, so this can’t just cancel out price changes completely.”