Working Part-time

To receive supplementary unemployment benefits, you must:

1. Fill out form ’AK037 Redegørelse om arbejde på nedsat tid’ (statement on part-time work), which you can find on Mit AKA. If your salary is fee-based (honorarlønnet), you must submit the form ’AK046 Skema om freelancearbejde’ (freelance work form).

Redegørelse om arbejde på nedsat tid (AK037) (form in Danish) 

Skema om freelancearbejde (AK046) (form in Danish)

2. Submit the AR230 Frigørelsesattest (release certificate) to us if your job has a notice period. We must receive the completed form within the first five weeks of your employment. If you already had the part-time job when you became unemployed, the five-week period counts from the day you became eligible for unemployment benefits. If you aren’t sure whether you have a notice period, you can send us your employment contract.

Frigørelsesattest (AR230) (form in Danish) 

If you work part-time, you must provide documentation that you can resign without notice. This is necessary so that you can accept another full-time job and thus be available to the job market. 

The documentation can be your employment contract, which states that you can resign without notice. It can also be a written permission from your employer. 

You receive the permission by having your employer sign a so-called Frigørelsesattest (release certificate), which you then forward to us. 

Fill out the release certificate 

We must receive it within the first five weeks of your part-time employment. 

If you already have a part-time job when you apply for benefits, the five-week period counts from the day you become eligible for unemployment benefits. Should we receive your release certificate after the deadline, you will not begin receiving supplementary unemployment benefits until the day we receive it, at the earliest. 

Read about unemployment benefits, benefit cards and being available on the job market 

If your employer refuses to sign a release certificate 

Under certain conditions, you may resign from your job without incurring a quarantine (karantæne) for self-inflicted unemployment if your employer refuses to issue a release certificate. 

Always contact us for further guidance before resigning from your job. 

We deduct your work from your unemployment benefits. Each month you must inform us of how many hours you have worked. You do this by filling out your benefit card in our self-service portal. 

The month after you filled out your benefit card, we compare your information with the details your employer provided to SKAT. If there are any discrepancies in the reported working hours, you will receive a letter from us and we will adjust the unemployment benefits payment accordingly. 

Controllable work 

If your employer reports your hours and salary to SKAT, we consider your work controllable (kontrollabelt arbejde).  In such cases, we deduct your hours one-to-one and do not take your salary into account. 

For example, if your employer reports that you have worked 50 hours in a given month, you will receive benefits for 110.33 hours so that the total amount of hours reaches 160.33. If you are part-time insured, you will be paid for 80 hours, bringing the total to 130 hours.  

Uncontrollable work  

Some employers do not report the number of hours you work, only your gross salary (bruttoløn). In that case, we consider the working time to be uncontrollable. 

This also applies if you are not paid for a set number of working hours but are instead paid per task completed. 

If your work is uncontrollable, we convert your gross salary into hours when calculating your supplementary unemployment benefits. 

If you work fixed reduced hours (nedsat tid) each week and receive the same number of paid hours every month, we will pre-fill the hours on your benefit card. 

We do this by distributing the hours evenly across all weekdays of the month. The distribution will be visible on your benefit card. This ensures the correct number of hours is deducted monthly and corresponds with your employer’s reports to SKAT.  

If you receive extra overtime pay (overarbejde) in one month, you must enter the extra hours on your benefit card yourself. 

When you work as a part-time teacher, your supplementary unemployment benefits are calculated based on the number of teaching hours and the preparation time for which you are paid. 

Payment for preparation time varies depending on the educational institution you teach for and whether a collective agreement covers the teaching. 

As a freelancer, you may be classified as either self-employed or an employee. It depends on how you register your various work engagements. It can vary from task to task. 

For us to assess your freelance work, you must complete and submit  ’AK046 Skema om freelancearbejde’ (freelance work form). 

Skema om freelancearbejde (AK046) (form in Danish) 

You can receive supplementary benefits for up to 30 weeks within your 104-week unemployment benefit period. You utilise your right to receive supplementary unemployment benefits in the weeks when you receive both a salary from your employer and unemployment benefits from the unemployment insurance fund (a-kasse). 

Weeks when you don’t work or work more than 37 hours won’t reduce your 30-week entitlement to supplementary benefits. 

When your right to receive supplementary benefits expires, you must decide whether to continue or to terminate your employment. If you keep your part-time job, you will no longer receive unemployment benefits from us. 

However, if you choose to resign from your part-time job, you can continue to receive unemployment benefits without incurring a quarantine (karantine) for self-inflicted unemployment (selvforskyldt ledighed). 

However, you must remember to resign with the required notice period (usually one month). 

You must meet at least one of the following conditions to requalify for supplementary unemployment benefits: 

• Within a consecutive 12-month period, you must have worked more than 146 monthly hours for six months. Your work must have been reported to SKAT.
• Within one tax year, you must have a total income (including A and B income and profit from self-employment) amounting to a minimum of DKK 273,504 (2025) and not receive unemployment benefits that year. 

Extending your right to receive supplementary benefits 

Under the new rules, you can extend your unemployment benefit period if you have not obtained a requalification for a new period. 

After you have exhausted the 30 weeks of supplementary unemployment benefits, you can extend the period by four weeks if you have met one of the following conditions within the past 12 months:  

• You have worked more than 146 hours in one month. 
• You have worked more than 34 hours a week for four weeks. 
• You have worked more than 68 hours over two separate 14-day periods.  
• You have been self-employed in your own business for an entire month without receiving unemployment benefits, and your business has been registered in the Danish Business Register (CVR) for at least six months when your 30-week entitlement expires. 

You can extend your right to supplementary unemployment benefits by four, eight or 12 weeks. 

When you leave a job, your employer must pay for your first days of unemployment. This payment is an unemployment benefit compensation called G-days (dagpengegodtgørelse). 

If you work on a shift schedule or fixed reduced hours, your employer is not required to pay you G-days until your employment has ended. If, however, you do not have fixed working hours – for example, if you are a temporary or casual worker – you are considered unemployed as soon as your workday ends. 

Your employer must continuously pay you G-days for your unemployed days in that situation. An employer can pay you a maximum of 16 G-days per calendar year. 

You can extend your unemployment benefit period based on your part-time work. Every hour you work can be converted into two hours of unemployment benefits. We can extend your unemployment benefit period for a maximum of one year. 

Example: If you have worked 148 hours (equivalent to four weeks) while registered as unemployed, you can extend your unemployment benefit period by 296 hours (equivalent to eight weeks). 

You must have worked 1,924 hours from when you last became entitled to unemployment benefits to earn the right to a new two-year period of unemployment benefits. When you re-earn the right to unemployment benefits, we will calculate a new benefit rate for you. 

Rates are calculated based on your work salary. The rate will always be calculated based on the 12 months within the past 24 months in which your salary was highest. Please note that there is no minimum rate. 

Therefore, you may risk receiving a very low unemployment benefit rate if you’ve had a very low salary. 

Read about unemployment benefit rates 

When you work as a part-time firefighter, your hours will generally be deducted from your unemployment benefits. 

If you are subject to a notice period, you must also submit a release certificate within five weeks from the start of your employment or from the time you register as unemployed on jobnet.dk. 

You must therefore inform us if you are working as a firefighter and forward your agreement/employment contract to us.