Over 13,000 foreign-owned companies in Denmark can be traced to countries across the world and have a record for international recruitment, according to national statistics.
There were 13,800 foreign-owned companies in Denmark in 2023, figures from Statistics Denmark show. That represents some 3 percent of all commercial enterprises in the country.
The country with the largest number of companies operating in Denmark is Sweden, with 20 percent of the total or 2,700 firms.
Norway and Germany, Denmark’s other two neighbours, are also major contributors with 1,400 and 1,350 of their firms having a presence in Denmark, respectively. That is around 10 percent each of all the foreign companies in the country.
The United States and United Kingdom each controlled around 1,000 companies in Denmark in 2023, according to the national statistics.
In terms of employee numbers, it is again the Swedish-owned companies which are responsible for the majority of jobs provided by international firms in Denmark. Some 21 percent of people who work in Denmark for a foreign-owned firm do so for a Swedish company.
In second place in this regard is Germany with 13 percent, while the US and UK both have 10 percent.
Norwegian companies – the second-most common by number of companies – hire a smaller proportion of workers at 6.7 percent.
Some 60 percent of all employees at foreign-owned companies work for companies controlled by another EU country.
Advertisement
Information and communication
The sectors in which foreign companies figure most frequently in Denmark include information and communication (37 percent of companies) and industry and mining (31 percent). The lowest figure here is construction with 10 percent.
Some 23 percent of all people working for Danish commercial companies are employed by internationally-owned companies.
The share of employees working in foreign-owned companies in the Danish private sector was higher than the EU average in 2022. Denmark’s share stood at 20 percent, compared with 15 percent across the EU.
Luxembourg had the highest share in the EU at 44 percent, while Greece’s 7 percent share was the lowest.
The EU’s four most populous countries, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, all had a lower share of employees in foreign-owned companies than the EU average.
What do they contribute to the economy?
Turnover in foreign-owned companies amounted to 1,393 billion kroner in 2023, equal to 25 percent of total turnover in Denmark’s commercial or ‘market-oriented’ sector, which excludes financial firms.
Because 23 percent of all full-time employees in Denmark worked for foreign-owned companies, this means turnover per full-time employee was higher on average at foreign-owned firms than at Danish-owned ones.
Danish-owned companies accounted for 77 percent of full-time employees but only 75 percent of turnover.
This might be reflected in the fact that foreign-owned companies are generally larger. These companies had an average of 27 full-time employees per firm in 2023, compared with just 3 full-time employees on average in Danish-owned firms.