The money · in the tax authority's own wordsUpdated 24.09.2026
Tax on winnings: the four conditions that decide everything
The most expensive thing about a casino without a Danish licence is rarely the bonus. It is the tax. The Danish Tax Agency sets four conditions, and if even one of them is not met, the winnings are taxable as personal income.
This is the page most often missing when new casinos are written about in Danish — and the one that can cost the most. Everything below is on skat.dk under winnings, prizes and rewards.
The four conditions
For an online gambling operator without a Danish licence, the Tax Agency writes that the winnings are tax free if:
- the operator is based in an EU/EEA country,
- the operator holds a licence to offer gambling,
- the game is approved and supervised by a public authority,
- the equivalent game can lawfully be offered in Denmark.
And further: if the operator and the game do not meet all of these requirements, tax is payable on the winnings. Four out of four, not three.
What that means for the licences you actually meet
| The licence behind the site | In the EU/EEA? | The winnings |
|---|---|---|
| Danish licence from the Gambling Authority | Yes | Tax free — the operator pays the duty |
| Malta Gaming Authority | Yes | Tax free, if the other conditions are also met |
| Curaçao Gaming Authority | No | Taxable as personal income |
| Anjouan Offshore Finance Authority | No | Taxable as personal income |
The bottom two rows are the whole point. Curaçao and Anjouan are the ordinary permissions at new casinos without a Danish licence, and they sit outside the EU and the EEA, so condition one fails immediately. Which of the three issuers stands behind a given site is something you look up in the register — the procedure is on check the licence, and this is one more reason to make that lookup before the first deposit rather than after the first win.
With a Danish licence the winnings are tax free for you, because the operator pays a duty of 28% on its profit from the gambling. The duty is already paid, just not by you.
The net gain, not the turnover
Only the net gain is taxable: the full win minus the costs you had in winning it. Skat.dk's own example is a win of 1,000 kr. on a bet that cost 100 kr. to enter — 900 kr. is taxed.
Two things follow from that wording, and both are worth understanding before you add up your own evening:
- The cost has to be documentable. You have no bookkeeping obligation, but
you have to be able to show it. Skat.dk directly recommends keeping all receipts for online gambling and downloading transaction lists of withdrawals and deposits. In a crypto cashier that means the cashier's history plus your own transfers — see payments.
- It is not the same as deducting the year's losses. The rule ties the cost
to the win it belongs to, not to everything you gambled over a year.
Where it is entered
- Annual tax return: box 20, Other personal income.
- Preliminary income assessment: field 250, Other personal income, under
the Income category. The amount then carries over to the following annual return.
The duty to know the rules and to declare the winnings lies with you, not with the casino. A site without a Danish licence reports nothing to the Tax Agency on your behalf.
When the balance is in crypto
The gain is stated in kroner. If the balance is in USDT or bitcoin, its value in kroner is something you have to be able to document yourself — one more argument for keeping the cashier's history and for a stable coin rather than one that moves, as described on payments. What happens to the coin itself afterwards is a different question from the tax on the winnings, and this page does not go into it.
The order that makes it simple
- Look up the licence before you deposit — EU/EEA or not.
- If it sits outside the EU/EEA, expect tax on the net gain.
- Save the transaction lists as you go, not in March.
- Enter the amount in box 20.
Point 1 is also point 1 on the checklist, and that is no coincidence: the same piece of information decides the complaints route, the blocking risk on is it legal and the tax.
Source: skat.dk, «Gevinster, præmier og dusører», the sections on foreign online gambling, net gain and declaring winnings, read 23.09.2026.