If you’re visiting Denmark and plan on using your phone for directions, sharing travel photos, or reading up on the best attractions in town, then you’ll probably want to get a Danish sim card.
Travellers from other EU countries won’t need to worry about this now thanks to the ‘roam like home’ initiative, which lets you use a phone and surf from one EU country in any other EU member state without incurring extra roaming charges.
If you’re visiting from a non-EU country, though, you’ll probably want to switch over to a Danish sim card as soon as you arrive. Otherwise, you’ll be risking sky-high roaming fees or, even worse, a holiday with no connectivity.
The good news is that it’s fairly easy to switch over to a Danish sim when you arrive, and within a few minutes of buying and installing the sim in your phone you can be back online and connected with your friends.
Most mobile plans in Denmark are monthly, renew automatically, and require a Danish national identification number, so the vast majority of operators won’t have anything of interest to tourists. Fortunately, the country still has some decent pay-as-you-go options, so read on to find out which one is the best for you.
So, what are the options?
1) Get a sim card before you arrive
If you want to be able to catch up on emails as soon as the plane’s tyres hit the tarmac, you can order a sim online before you leave home.
While most Danish mobile providers will only send sim cards to addresses in Denmark, there are others, such as the New Europe Sim Card, which can send a Denmark-ready sim card anywhere in the world that’s either pre-loaded with credit or ready for you to top-up online ahead of your arrival.
2) Wait until you land
If you didn’t have a chance to get a sim card before departing, no problem! You can pick up a sim card right at Copenhagen Airport, where Lebara has its own sim card vending machine at baggage claim, or at convenience stores at the airport or in town. 7-Elevens are always sure to have pre-paid cards and sims available.
For pre-paid sims in Denmark, we recommend choosing either Lebara or Lycamobile. Both these companies piggyback off larger service providers which have excellent coverage throughout the country, so the choice really comes down to which packages and offers are the right fit for you.
Lebara offers a package for around 99 DKK which includes free texting in Denmark, 10 hours of calls with numbers in Denmark (and 50 other countries), and 3GB of data. The package is valid for 30 days from the time of purchase. If you think your data usage will be extra heavy while you’re travelling, then you can shell out around 200 DKK for the 60GB package.
Lebara also allows data tethering on their pre-paid packages, which means it won’t be a problem to use your phone as a hotspot for any other devices you might bring with you. There’s a handy guide to the different packages available on the Lebara website.
Lycamobile is another good option. Its plans and rates are similar to Lebara, but Lycamobile offers special deals from time to time, like free calls to certain countries or to other Lycamobile users around the world. If you’ll be using your Danish sim to chat with friends and family who use Lycamobile back home, then getting a sim with them in Denmark can potentially save you a lot of money. Check out their website for full details.
If you’re traveling onwards to Sweden or Norway, it may be worth your while to swap out a new sim card in each country. Check out our guides on getting local sim cards in Norway and Sweden to see what will work best for your trip.
Need a recommendation for a cheap and easy sim?
We use Mobal’s New Europe Sim, which comes with 1GB of data and lets you receive unlimited calls and texts for free. You have a whole month to use up your data, and you can also top up with more data at a rate of $10 per gigabyte. There’s no contract to worry about, and you can buy extra credit if you decide you want to text or call from Denmark.
The Mobal sim fits in any device, including Android phones and the iPhone, and can be used in 100 different countries worldwide (so you can always use up any leftover data later). Delivery is free within the USA and you can have the sim delivered to other countries for around $10. Order online and have it delivered to your door! There’s also a money-back guarantee.
Alternatives to getting a Danish sim
If you don’t want to worry about getting set up with a local sim, you can always turn off your mobile network and rely solely on wifi. There are plenty of wifi hotspots around major towns and cities like Copenhagen, including free wifi at the National Museum and also at the Copenhagen Visitor Centre just across from Tivoli.
Even with your mobile data turned off, you should still be able to see where you are on Google Maps without any internet connection. All you need to do is download the local maps before setting off (this guide explains how). You will always need an internet connection to get directions, though.
See also:
Getting a Swedish sim card
Getting a Norwegian sim card
