Danish Citizenship Test Pass Mark: 36 of 45 and the 4-of-5 Values Rule

Indfødsretsprøven is a 45-minute multiple-choice test of 45 questions, and you pass with at least 36 correct answers, of which at least 4 must be among the 5 questions on Danish values. That second condition is what makes the Danish test unusual: a candidate with 43 of 45 right fails if both wrong answers are values questions. This guide explains how the paper is built, quotes the pass rule as the law states it, works through the edge cases, and shows — from the ministry’s own statistics — which of the two conditions actually decides most results.

BEK nr. 453 af 13/05/2024 §9 and §35(3); SIRI, Om Indfødsretsprøven.

For questions 36–45 the executive order (BEK 453/2024 §9(1)) says the answer does not appear in the learning material, and SIRI’s preparation page says the same. So the 246-page book covers 35 questions at most, and the remaining ten are “unprepared” questions you meet for the first time in the hall. In practice that means two separate preparations: the book and the past papers for questions 1–35, and the news plus basic knowledge of Danish law and values for questions 36–45.

Because questions have only two or three options, a blind guess is right a third to a half of the time, and there is no negative marking — a wrong answer simply scores nothing. So never leave a question blank. In the 13 official papers from June 2020 to June 2026, 110 of the 570 questions had two options and 460 had three (our count), and the correct answers are spread almost evenly across A, B and C (200, 187 and 183). There is no “always C” pattern to exploit.

The executive order says the test is passed if at least 36 of the 45 questions are answered correctly, and that of these, 4 of the 5 questions on Danish values must be answered correctly (our translation of BEK 453/2024 §35(3)). SIRI’s answer key for June 2026 restates it: at least 36 of 45 correct, including at least 4 of 5 of questions 41–45. SIRI cannot give a dispensation from the pass rule or from the rules on the test’s form and content (§52).

The values rule gets the headlines, but the ministry’s own statistics show that the 36-correct rule decides far more results. In every sitting since the values questions arrived, between three-quarters and nine-tenths of candidates met the values rule, while only four to six in ten reached 36 correct.

The ministry’s November 2023 analysis breaks the failures down: of those who failed, about 62% missed only the 36-correct rule, 6% only the values rule and 33% both (rounded, so they sum to about 100%). In May 2023 the split was 84%, 1% and 16%. The practical lesson is simple. The values questions matter, and the rule is strict, but the candidate who fails usually fails because the learning-material questions were not known well enough. In SIRI’s random samples of answer sheets, questions were answered correctly 72.8–80% of the time on average across the sittings with published annexes (78.3% in June 2026, sample of 432), against the 80% (36 of 45) needed — so the typical candidate sits just below the line, and a few more known facts from the book move them over it.

The present test dates from the November 2021 sitting. Before it, the test had 40 questions — 35 from the learning material and 5 on current affairs — and 32 correct answers passed. The April 2021 citizenship agreement added five values questions and raised the bar to 36 with the 4-of-5 condition. The effect was immediate: the pass rate fell from 66.5% in June 2021, the last 40-question sitting, to 40.7% in November 2021. A pass of the old test taken between June 2016 and June 2021 still counts for citizenship; no expiry date is stated for a pass of the current test.

Forty-five questions in forty-five minutes is a minute each, and many are a single line — a year, a name, a yes or no. The trap is the handful of long stems about the political system or the welfare state. A sound approach is one fast pass through all 45, answering everything you know and marking a best guess on the rest, then a second pass on the marked ones. Because there is no penalty for a wrong answer, a question left blank is the only certain loss.