Get an overview of when and how you apply for admission to a master's degree programme at the University of Copenhagen.
In order to apply for admission to a master's degree programme, you must have a qualifying bachelor's degree or a corresponding Danish or international degree which we assess as relevant.
Application deadlines for the individual master's degree programmes may vary. Some programmes admit students twice a year, while others only in September.
Most of the programmes taught in Danish has no special deadline for applicants from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland. For those programmes, the 1 March/15 October deadline applies to all applicants.
There are two application deadlines for applicants from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland.
The application portal opens on 15 November. You will receive a reply by 1 May.
All programmes have study start in September
The list of master’s degree programmes with study start in February 2027 will be available no later than 1 July 2026.
There are two application deadlines for Danish applicants and applicants from within the EU, EEA and Switzerland.
The application portal opens on 16 January. You will receive a reply by 10 June.
All programmes have study start in September
The list of master’s degree programmes with study start in February 2027 will be available no later than 1 July 2026.
Vacant places on master's degree programmes will be published from May through July. List of vacant places
If you are currently enrolled in a master's programme or have been previously, you must find out whether you are to apply for admission, readmission, re-enrolment, transfer, or change of programme.
To apply for admission to a master's degree programme at the University of Copenhagen, you must have a qualifying bachelor’s degree or a corresponding Danish or international degree which we assess as relevant.
All master's programmes have specific admission requirements which you must also fulfil.
You can find the admission requirements under the individual master's degree programme, where you can also see if the programme is subject to restricted admission. You can also read how UCPH allocates the places if the number of qualified applicants exceeds the number of places.
We have developed a tool that shows which master's degree programmes at UCPH you can apply for with your bachelor's degree.
See the programmes your bachelor's degree is pre-approved for
As a bachelor with a legal right of admission, you are entitled to admission at a master's degree programme, which has a natural continuation of your bachelor's degree programme's subject area.
You have legal right of admission for master's programmes at the University of Copenhagen if you fulfil the following criteria:
If you have legal right of admission you are guaranteed a place in the master's programme which is the continuation of the bachelor's degree.
You can wait up to three years before using your legal right of admission. Meaning, you must start your master's studies within three years (and a few months) of completing your bachelor's degree.
The calculation of the three years begins with the first summer admission after you have completed your bachelor's degree and ends immediately after the summer admission three years later. For example:
Unless you apply with a bachelor's degree which provide legal right of admission, you must document that you fulfil the language requirements.
When you apply for admission to a master's degree programme, you must document your English language proficiency, which means you must have passed English (level A or B) at upper-secondary school level.
If you cannot provide documentation for the language requirement, you can take a language test approved by UCPH, for example TOEFL or IELTS.
If you apply for admission to a master's degree programme taught in Danish, you must have acquired Danish language skills prior to admission equivalent to level A Danish at upper-secondary school level.
If you cannot provide documentation for the language requirement, you can take a language test approved by UCPH, for example the study test (studieprøven).
You apply for admission through the online application portal.
In order to apply for admission to a master's degree programme, you should read the admission- and documentation requirements for the specific study programmes. The requirements vary from programme to programme.
You can find a link to the application portal on the programme's website.
The application procedure can vary depending on your citizenship, bachelor's degree, and the study programme you you wish to apply for.
Before you apply for a master’s programme, please read the programme description.
Admission to a master’s degree programme requires specific documentation which must be submitted together with the application. Please read the programme description carefully before submitting your application.
If you have a bachelor's degree from a Danish university, you can automatically transfer your data by using the data exchange feature.
See the user guide to the application portal.
Please check that all data about your exams have been transferred. It is your responsibility to make sure that the University of Copenhagen receives the documentation. This means that you must upload the documentation manually if the data exchange is unsuccessful.
If you manually submit documentation for your bachelor’s degree (for example, transcript of grades or diploma), UCPH will contact the university at which you earned your degree and ask them to verify the documentation.
Please note that we do not accept documentation in Word format. We accept files in PDF, JPEG, JPG, PNG, and XLSX.
You will receive a reply to your application for admission to the master’s degree programme via the application portal. You will be notified by email when the answer is ready in the portal. Remember to check your spam folder as the email might be flagged as spam. Please use an email account that you always have access to, and not one that will be deactivated after you have completed your bachelor’s programme.
We recommend that you do not use your student e-mail account for your application as some universities close student accounts upon completion of the bachelor's degree.
You can login to the application portal continuously to check the application status and read messages from UCPH.
Applications are assessed on an ongoing basis, and you can receive an offer for admission at any time after the application deadline.
Please remember to accept the offer of admission if that is what you want. If the faculty approves your application, you will receive an offer of admission in the application portal. You must login to the portal and accept or reject the place by the deadline.
You find the deadline in your letter of admission.
Usually, it is not possible to submit an application or documentation after the application deadline. If it is a case of exceptional circumstances, such as sudden, serious illness, you can apply for dispensation. You must document the circumstances with a medical certificate or similar stating the time frame of the situation/circumstances that prevented you from meeting the deadline. The documentation must describe in what way the exceptional circumstances have prevented you from applying within the deadline.
Exceptional circumstances are matters of a grave nature. The following will therefore not give rise to a dispensation:
Please note: You must send your application for dispensation as soon as possible after the deadline for which you are applying for a dispensation.
According to Danish legislation, UCPH can only consider your bachelor’s degree when assessing whether you meet the admission requirements. That means that you cannot take supplementary courses between your bachelor's and master's degree programme in order to meet the admission requirements.
The only exceptions are courses/projects you have passed before completing your qualifying bachelor's degree. Such courses/projects can be included in the assessment, also if they are not part of the bachelor programme. However, a maximum of 30 ECTS credits can be included.
7-point-scale and the international European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) are used on all Danish state-regulated degree programmes.
An improved grade cannot be included in the assessment, as, in Denmark, it is not possible to improve a grade for courses already passed. However, grades that are changed following a complaint against the original grade will be considered. In such cases, it must be clear that the grade has been improved after a complaint.
All applicants from non-Danish universities must upload a complete transcript of grades showing all exam attempts, the dates of each exam attempt and exam results.
UCPH may do random checks of applicants’ basis for admission to the home university. Any fabricated documentation of grades may lead to disenrolment from the degree programme.
When applying for admission to a master's degree programme, you are obliged to provide information about passed elements on uncompleted master’s programmes and to apply for credit transfer. To apply for credit transfer means that you apply for previously passed exams to replace some of the exams on your new programme.
You must apply for credit transfer as it is a legal requirement according to Danish legislation. That means that, in your application, you are obliged to inform UCPH about passed courses on uncompleted programmes in accordance with section 37 of the Danish Admission Order.
You can also apply for credit transfer for completed elements on a higher education programme at another level. Immediately after the study start, contact the student counsellor on your new programme to ask about the procedure.
UCPH makes an academic assessment of your passed exams. If these exams are relevant to your new programme, we will approve the credit transfer.
If you already have a master's degree from Denmark or another country that corresponds to a Danish master's degree, you can, in principle, only be admitted to a new degree programme if there are places available on the programme for which you are applying for admission.
We can only grant exemptions from the Master's degree rule in exceptional circumstances.
We may grant a dispensation from the master’s degree admission rule if we consider that, due to exceptional circumstances, you are without working capacity in your profession and therefore can no longer use your master's degree in the labour market. For example, if you are a veterinarian and have been diagnosed with fur allergies, or if you are a surgeon and have lost the use of your limbs.
You must apply for a dispensation at the same time as you apply for admission on the digital application portal. You must write a short free text explaining why you cannot use your existing master's degree on the labour market and upload it together with your application for admission. In addition, you must upload documentation that confirms what you have written in your free text. This may, for example, be a medical certificate or a medical record that you received when your loss of working capacity was established.
If you have a non-Danish master's degree and are unsure if it corresponds to a Danish master's degree, you can contact the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education. They can assess whether your degree corresponds to a Danish master's degree.
If you have received an assessment of your master's degree from the Agency, you must upload it on the application portal together with your application for admission to the University of Copenhagen.
If your non-Danish master's degree corresponds to a Danish master's degree, you are subject to the master's degree admission rule. If you have a medical or dentistry degree, you must inform us if you are registered with the Danish Health and Medicines Authority.
If you have an education where you can work in other regulated professions (e.g. lawyer or psychologist), you can read more about the rules for this at the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education.
The following only applies to citizens from countries outside the EU/ EEA and Switzerland.
Citizens from countries outside the EU, EEA or Switzerland, you must pay an application deposit fee.
Learn more about the application deposit fee
Applicants who are citizens in countries outside the EU/ EEA and Switzerland must pay a tuition fee. Applicants with a permanent residence permit in Denmark – or a permit with the possibility of permanent residence in Denmark – are exempt from the rule. Read more:
When planning to study at the University of Copenhagen, you need to make a budget and assess whether you have sufficient funding for your studies.
Learn more about scholarship opportunities
If you are not a Danish citizen, you may need a residence permit. Read more:
See the instructions and videos in our user guides to the application portal.User guide to the application portal
If you cannot find the answer in the guides to the application portal, you can read our FAQ or contact the student guidance office who can answer your questions.
