Painted merchant houses and wooden boats along the Nyhavn canal in Copenhagen
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Denmark by campervan

Danish law never asks whether you are asleep in your vehicle, it asks whether the vehicle may stand where it is standing. Camping is a separate question with separate rules, and the state runs an unusually generous free network of shelters and primitive campsites that you reach on foot rather than in a van. Everything else you need before the border: kroner rather than euros, two bridges that charge by vehicle length, and a short summer.

Published 18 September 2026Last checked 19 September 2026

Basics

Basics

Denmark is in the European Union and has never adopted the euro, and that is the first thing to fix. The currency is the Danish krone, written kr and coded DKK, and a price quoted to you in euros is a conversion someone else has chosen. Everything else about the practical day here is easy. English is spoken almost everywhere, to a level that makes learning Danish a courtesy rather than a need.

An old bicycle leaning against a whitewashed cottage on a cobbled lane, roses in flower beside the door
Bicycles are everywhere here, parked and moving. That matters when you drive

The Danish day

  • Shops, roughly 10:00 to 20:00 on weekdays, shorter on Saturday, and open on ordinary Sundays.
  • Ten days a year retail closes by law. Every public holiday, Grundlovsdag on 5 June, Christmas Eve, and after 15:00 on New Year's Eve.

Power, water and getting online

  • 230V, 50Hz, and a Danish socket. Denmark has its own national standard, DS 60884-2-D1, rather than the continental round two-pin socket. Motorhomes and caravans sold in Denmark have had to be fitted to it since 1 July 2019.
  • Campsite hook-ups are the usual blue CEE connector, the same as the rest of Europe, so the socket difference mostly bites indoors and at older service points.

Two calendar details catch visitors out. Denmark has no 1 May public holiday, whatever the rest of Europe does, and store bededag stopped being a public holiday from 2024, so an older guide listing it in late April is out of date. 2026 also hands Denmark two long weekends in a row in May, around Ascension on the 14th and Whitsun on the 25th, and the roads to the coast show it on both Fridays.

Common questions about Denmark by campervan

Can you sleep in a campervan in Denmark?

Yes. Danish law does not regulate sleeping in a vehicle at all. Færdselsloven regulates where a vehicle may stop and stand, so wherever your vehicle may legally stand, you may legally sleep inside it. The limits are ordinary parking ones: you may not park on the carriageway of a main road outside a built-up area, and local signs on height, length and duration bind wherever they are posted. Camping is regulated separately and is a different question.

Is wild camping legal in Denmark?

Not on land generally, and not from a vehicle. Naturbeskyttelsesloven opens beaches, forests, dunes and uncultivated land to the public on foot, and the access order forbids putting up tents on all of them and forbids fires and cooking stoves in forests, on dunes and on uncultivated land. Camping on private land needs the owner's permission, and letting land for camping commercially or for more than six weeks a year needs the municipality's permission. What Denmark does instead is run a free state network of shelters and primitive campsites, which you reach on foot.

Can you stay at a Naturstyrelsen shelter in a motorhome?

No. The shelters and the roughly 500 primitive campsites are free and open to everyone, but they are a walking and paddling network. Naturstyrelsen states that motor traffic is not allowed in state forest and nature areas, and in English that vehicle access is only permitted where it is signposted or where you hold a special permit. You park in the marked car park at the edge, walk in with your sleeping bag, and leave the vehicle behind. A primitive campsite allows up to two consecutive nights, and selected shelters can be booked three months ahead.

What does the Storebælt bridge cost for a motorhome in 2026?

On the price list valid from 1 January 2026, a motorhome over 6 metres and up to 10 metres pays 645 kroner in cash or by card for one crossing, against 235 kroner for a car of 3 to 6 metres. Over 3,500 kg and over 10 metres it is 1,020 kroner. A motorhome of at most 3,500 kg and over 6 metres can apply for a Storebælt autocamperaftale, which brings the crossing to 314 kroner, but only with a bizz or number-plate payment and not at the booth. The gantry measures your total length and height as you cross, including a bike rack or roof box.