The Danish Immigration Service has paused work on certain permanent residence and family reunification applications after errors were discovered in the Central Criminal Register.
The pause covers pending cases where crime committed in Denmark can affect whether an applicant meets the conditions for a residence permit. That is according to DR, which reported the decision on September 8.
The agency behind the pause is Udlændingestyrelsen, the Danish Immigration Service. It has not stated how many applications are affected. Two other authorities, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration and the Danish Return Agency, have said they do not need to suspend cases.
The register error
The problem concerns Det Centrale Kriminalregister, the central criminal record system used across Danish law enforcement. Some entries were deleted incorrectly. National Police Commissioner Lasse Boje briefed politicians at Christiansborg about the error last week.
Rigspolitiet discovered the error in June 2026 and then worked to establish its cause and extent. In a press release, Boje described errors in the Criminal Register as very serious. He noted that the register is central to how offenses and criminal cases are handled in Denmark.
As of last week, errors relating to deletion of information had been found in 48 cases. Some records had been deleted too early, others too late. According to material from Rigspolitiet, the 48 decisions date back to 2021, stem from an automatic deletion error, and have now been re-registered.
Other case types already on hold
The immigration pause is not the first consequence of the error. Last week, the authorities suspended the issuing of children’s certificates and weapons permits. Both processes rely on criminal record checks.
On Monday, certain citizenship cases were also put on hold. The Ministry of Immigration and Integration stated that it had asked the immigration authorities to stop processing cases where the error may have significance. The pause on permanent residence and family reunification applications followed.
Criminal records carry legal weight in several Danish application processes, including permanent residence, where a clean record is part of the conditions. Similar questions about how criminal charges are registered have arisen in other Danish institutions this year.
Neither Udlændingestyrelsen nor the ministry has given a timeline for when the paused cases will resume. Rigspolitiet has said it is continuing to examine the consequences of the error across a range of case types.
