Denmark

Summary

Denmark has allowed the bow since an executive order of 11 April 1999, in force on 1 May 1999 and issued under the 1993 act; before it, bowhunters hunted on individual permits. Everything about it is written at national level: which game, what energy the arrow must carry, what broadhead, which exam, and how a non-resident gets in. Since 1 January 2024 the bow is also allowed on red, fallow and sika deer, with heavier arrows and a reporting duty for every shot.

The route for a visiting hunter is a Danish hunting licence issued on your home licence, with a bow endorsement issued on proof that your own national authority allows you to hunt with a bow. Where that proof does not exist, the Danish bow course and exam remain.

What the law says

• Hunting act, § 23: game may be killed only with a shooting weapon, and the minister lists the permitted weapons. The bow is on that list through the weapons order. § 39–40: hunting needs a jagttegn, the Danish hunting licence, issued from age 16 with police consent; a bow endorsement on it requires a bow exam. Under 18, you hunt accompanied by an adult licence holder (§ 22 (2)).
• Weapons order, § 4: whoever has passed the bow exam or an equivalent test, may use the bow type they were tested with. All huntable mammals and birds may be hunted with the bow, except mouflon and wild boar. Only bows and arrows meeting § 5 may be used, and devices that work by pre-tensioning the string, are banned, which rules out the crossbow.
• Weapons order, § 5, thresholds by game class: red, fallow and sika deer need 80 J of arrow energy, a 33 g arrow and a fixed three-blade broadhead of at least 25 mm cut. Roe deer, fox, hare and goose need 40 J, a 25 g arrow and a three-blade 25 mm broadhead; a mechanical broadhead is allowed there with 70 J. Everything else needs 40 J, a 20 g arrow and a two-blade 20 mm broadhead or a 16 mm blunt (blunt with 70 J). Stabiliser at most 35 cm, steel heads without barbs, flu-flu arrows for game in flight.
• Weapons order, § 6: every shot with a bow at red, fallow or sika deer, hit or miss, is reported digitally to the agency by 31 March of the next hunting year.
• Licence order, § 33: bowhunting only with the passed exam and the endorsement. The exam (§§ 38–41) is twenty written questions with at most two wrong, then one arrow at each of six life-size game figures with at least five in the heart-lung zone, shot with a roe-deer-legal bow. It follows a mandatory course under an approved instructor (§ 44) and is valid for the current plus five hunting years, after which only the practical part is repeated (§ 43).
• Hunting rights belong to the landowner (§ 14); there is no guide requirement in the act. Liability insurance is compulsory (act § 44) and is sold with the licence for 30 kr a year, or replaced by proof of your own policy (licence order § 52).

Foreign hunters

• Licence order, § 2: a person resident abroad who holds a valid hunting licence or the like, giving access to hunting abroad, can apply online for a Danish licence, valid for that hunting year. The police must consent, and may ask for a criminal-record certificate; the agency quotes up to four weeks plus police time. The fee is 650 kr a year.
• Licence order, § 33 (3): the same person can, on request, get the bow endorsement if they can document an authorisation from the relevant national authority to hunt with a bow abroad. The agency may make the endorsement conditional on passing the Danish bow exam. So the text asks for a state authorisation, not a club certificate, and keeps the exam as a condition it may impose. In both paragraphs the text says “abroad”, not “in the country of residence”; how the agency reads that we did not find out.
• A hunter from a country where the bow is not a legal hunting weapon has no such authorisation to show. The Danish bowhunters’ association wrote in April 2019 that in that case the route had been the Danish course and exam, and that it would invite a few bowhunters from European countries to test whether an IBEP certificate could be accepted. We found no published outcome; it was an association initiative, not a rule. No text we read says that a non-resident can take the course and the exam: the agency’s bow exam page asks for the Danish hunting exam to be passed first, and the licence order opens that exam to people living in Denmark (§ 8).

Seasons

General seasons are in the seasons order; red deer, fallow deer, roe deer, hare, partridge and pheasant also have local seasons by district, with maps in the same order. Hunting runs from sunrise to sunset; ducks and geese from an hour and a half before sunrise to an hour and a half after sunset.

Before you go

This page describes the Danish texts as they stood on the date below. The seasons order is revised every few years and local seasons differ by district; the agency’s guest-licence page and the FADB are the places to confirm the current fee, the processing time and how the bow endorsement is handled for your country. Ask for the paragraph. The final check is yours.