01Key Takeaways
- Denmark imported $120.21 billion worth of goods in 2023, down 4.50% from $125.87 billion in 2022, the sharpest annual drop across five years of data.
- Machinery and mechanical appliances were the top import category, worth $13.56 billion, or 11.28% of total import value.
- Germany alone supplied 20.38% of Denmark's imports, worth $24.49 billion, more than the next two suppliers combined.
- Denmark's top three suppliers, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands, accounted for 42.26% of total import value in 2023.
025-Year Trend
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | $97.0B | $95.8B | $123.0B | $125.9B | $120.2B |
03Top Import Markets (2023)
| Rank | Partner | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Germany | $24.5B | 20.4% |
| 2 | Sweden | $15.0B | 12.5% |
| 3 | Netherlands | $11.3B | 9.4% |
| 4 | China | $7.9B | 6.5% |
| 5 | Poland | $5.8B | 4.8% |
| 6 | United States | $5.6B | 4.6% |
| 7 | Norway | $5.4B | 4.5% |
| 8 | Italy | $4.1B | 3.4% |
| 9 | Belgium | $4.0B | 3.3% |
| 10 | France | $3.5B | 2.9% |
04Top Import Categories (2023)
| Rank | Category | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nuclear Reactors, Boilers, Machinery and Mechanical Appliances; Parts thereof | $13.6B | 11.3% |
| 2 | Electrical Machinery and Equipment and parts thereof; Sound Recorders and Reproducers, Television Image and Sound Recorders and Reproducers, and Parts and Accessories of such Articles | $12.7B | 10.5% |
| 3 | Vehicles other than Railway or Tramway Rolling-Stock, and parts and accessories thereof | $11.7B | 9.7% |
| 4 | Mineral Fuels, Mineral Oils and Products of their Distillation; Bituminous Substances; Mineral Waxes | $9.5B | 7.9% |
| 5 | Pharmaceutical Products | $5.5B | 4.6% |
| 6 | Plastics and Articles thereof | $4.5B | 3.7% |
| 7 | Optical, Photographic, Cinematographic, Measuring, Checking, Precision, Medical or Surgical Instruments and Apparatus; Parts and Accessories thereof | $3.7B | 3.1% |
| 8 | Articles of Iron or Steel | $3.4B | 2.9% |
| 9 | Fish and Crustaceans, Molluscs and other Aquatic Invertebrates | $3.0B | 2.5% |
| 10 | Articles of Apparel and Clothing Accessories, not Knitted or Crocheted | $3.0B | 2.5% |
05Trade Partner Map
06Analysis
Machinery and Vehicles Lead an Import Bill That Shrank 4.5%
Denmark imported $120.21 billion worth of goods in 2023. That was down 4.50% from $125.87 billion the year before. It was the sharpest annual drop across the five years of data available here. Machinery and mechanical appliances topped the list, worth $13.56 billion, or 11.28% of total import value. Electrical machinery followed closely at 10.53% ($12.66 billion). Vehicles ranked third at 9.71% ($11.67 billion).
The vehicle figure isn't surprising. Denmark has no meaningful car assembly plants of its own, aside from a handful of niche hypercar makers, so nearly every car on Danish roads arrives from a foreign factory. Mineral fuels added 7.94% ($9.55 billion). Pharmaceutical products, the same category that dominates Denmark's export list, still showed up here too, worth $5.49 billion, or 4.57% of total import value. Some of that reflects raw materials and intermediate ingredients used in domestic drug production, alongside specialty medicines manufactured elsewhere in Europe and sold into the Danish market.
Plastics added 3.72% ($4.48 billion), and optical, medical, and measuring instruments contributed 3.09% ($3.72 billion). Iron and steel articles took 2.86% ($3.44 billion). Fish and crustaceans appeared again here, at 2.51% ($3.02 billion). That's not a contradiction with Denmark's fish export numbers. Denmark is a major importer of raw fish and seafood that gets further processed and re-exported, with Norway supplying more than a third of those raw imports in 2024. Apparel and clothing accessories closed out the top ten at 2.46% ($2.96 billion).
Germany Alone Supplies a Fifth of Everything Denmark Imports
Germany supplied 20.38% of Denmark's imports in 2023, worth $24.49 billion. That's more than the next two suppliers combined. Sweden ranked second at 12.47% ($14.99 billion). Netherlands followed at 9.42% ($11.32 billion). Combined, those top three suppliers accounted for 42.26% of total import value in 2023, an even tighter concentration than what showed up on Denmark's export side.
China ranked fourth at 6.54% ($7.87 billion). Poland followed at 4.80% ($5.77 billion). The United States took sixth place at 4.63% ($5.57 billion). Norway added 4.49% ($5.40 billion), just behind. Italy contributed 3.42% ($4.11 billion). Belgium added 3.30% ($3.97 billion). France rounded out the top ten at 2.92% ($3.51 billion). Unlike Denmark's export partner list, no undisclosed customs code appears among the top ten import sources. Every one of them is a named country.
A Sharp Rebound That Reversed Course in 2023
Denmark's imports followed roughly the same five-year arc as its exports, but the 2023 ending diverged. The total stood at $97.01 billion in 2019. It slipped further to $95.78 billion in 2020, as the pandemic disrupted global trade. Imports then rebounded sharply, climbing to $122.96 billion in 2021 and again to $125.87 billion in 2022, two years of fast recovery. That climb reversed in 2023. The total fell to $120.21 billion, a 4.50% year-over-year decline, the only drop anywhere in this five-year window.
That reversal stands in contrast to Denmark's export side over the same year, where the total barely moved. A shrinking import bill alongside a nearly flat export bill would, on its own, tend to widen a trade surplus rather than narrow it. Machinery, vehicles, and fuel are also some of the import categories most sensitive to shifts in domestic demand and construction activity, and late 2023 gave that theory real support. Newly started housing construction in Denmark fell 15% from the third to the fourth quarter of 2023 alone, dropping to 5,922 units, with total initiated construction area down 3% over the same quarter. Fewer housing starts mean less demand for imported machinery, structural steel, and the equipment that goes into a building site. That pullback lines up closely with the drop visible across several of Denmark's top import categories that year.
None of this shows up as a single line in the fact sheet. The trade data here tracks goods by category and partner, not by end use, so no single field ties a construction slowdown directly to an import total. But the timing is hard to miss. Construction activity was still contracting quarter over quarter as 2023 closed, the same year Denmark's overall import bill posted its only decline in five years. That points toward domestic demand, not any single foreign supplier, as the more likely explanation. Whether imports recover alongside a housing market rebound, or Denmark's total keeps drifting down as interest rates stay elevated, is the question the next year or two of data will answer.