Denmark’s Ukraine special law could soon apply to fewer displaced Ukrainians, after the government said it wants to exclude people arriving from parts of Ukraine it considers less affected by the war and those covered by Ukraine’s mobilisation rules. The proposal is expected to be tabled in April 2026 and would not affect people who have already received residence permits in Denmark.
Which Ukrainians Denmark wants to exclude from the special law
The Danish government said the planned change would limit access to residence permits under the special law for displaced people from Ukraine for two groups. The first is people coming from specific regions that Copenhagen now considers less exposed to direct war damage. The second is people covered by Ukrainian mobilisation rules.
According to the Ministry of Immigration and Integration, the regions classified as less war-affected are Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zakarpattia, Zhytomyr and the Kyiv region, though not the city of Kyiv itself.
Immigration and Integration Minister Rasmus Stoklund said the adjustment is meant both to respond to repeated calls from the Ukrainian government regarding men who may be subject to military service and to reduce pressure on Danish municipalities that are struggling to house and receive new arrivals.
Why the government says Danish municipalities need relief
The political message from Copenhagen is not only about Ukraine. It is also about local capacity inside Denmark. Under the current system, displaced Ukrainians are distributed across municipalities as they arrive and obtain residence permits.
The government says some local authorities are now under severe strain. Copenhagen municipality is among those backing the proposal. Andreas Keil, the city’s Employment, Integration and Business Mayor, said the measure was a necessary step because the capital is close to running out of accommodation options for newly arrived Ukrainians.
That argument reflects a broader pressure point in Danish migration policy: even when political support for Ukrainians remains stronger than for many other refugee groups, access to housing, schools and local welfare services still shapes the national debate.
Denmark has nearly 48,600 Ukrainians under the scheme
According to the Ministry of Employment, around 48,600 displaced people from Ukraine were living in Denmark under the special law in February 2026. Of those, nearly 17,800 were in work.
That means the government is proposing a tightening at a time when a significant share of Ukrainians in Denmark are already participating in the labour market. At the same time, the reform is framed as a measure for future arrivals. The government has said clearly that people who already hold a residence permit under the special law will not be affected.
This distinction is politically important. It allows the government to present the proposal as a targeted adjustment rather than a reversal of Denmark’s protection policy since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Denmark’s Ukraine policy sits alongside, not inside, the EU scheme
Denmark’s legal framework is slightly different from that of most EU countries. Because of Denmark’s opt-out in justice and home affairs, the country does not apply the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive in the same way as other member states. Instead, the Danish parliament adopted its own special act in March 2022 to provide temporary residence permits for people displaced by Russia’s invasion.
Across the EU, more than 4.3 million people fleeing Ukraine were under temporary protection at the end of January 2026, according to Eurostat. Denmark therefore remains part of the wider European protection landscape, but through a national legal track.
The proposed change suggests that Denmark is entering a new phase of its Ukraine policy. The immediate emergency response of 2022 is giving way to a more selective approach shaped by housing constraints, labour market considerations and the evolving needs of the Ukrainian state itself.
If parliament approves the bill later this spring, the debate is likely to focus not only on capacity and legal criteria, but also on how far European countries should go in aligning refugee protection with Ukraine’s wartime mobilisation needs.
