How to open a repair shop in Denmark — the operational guide.

Opening a phone, computer or electronics repair shop in Denmark is more administrative than it looks and less bureaucratic than you'd fear. This is the practical operator's guide — business form, CVR, moms, payment terminals, insurance, software, lease vs mobile, and the first 90 days of running the thing.

The 8 steps

1. Pick a business form

   The two realistic choices for a repair shop:

   Enkeltmandsvirksomhed (sole trader) — zero share capital, you are personally liable for the business, income taxed on your personal return. Fast to set up, cheap to run, and perfectly fine for the first year or two.

   ApS (private limited company) — 40,000 DKK minimum share capital, limited liability, separate corporate tax (22%), more administrative overhead. The right form once revenue hits 500,000-1,000,000 DKK or when you take on partners/employees whose claims you want insulated from your personal assets.

   Most Danish repair shops open as enkeltmand and convert to ApS in year 2 or 3. The conversion itself is paperwork, not a restart.

2. Register the CVR

   Go to Virk.dk, log in with MitID, pick "Opret virksomhed", select the business form, fill in the industry code (NACE 95.12 for phone/computer repair is the common one), and submit. Approval typically takes 1-2 business days. You'll receive a CVR number by email — this is the equivalent of a US EIN or a UK company number. Everything downstream (bank account, payment terminal, software, lease, insurance) needs it.

   Don't invoice before the CVR is active. Invoices issued without a valid CVR aren't legally valid and VAT on them can't be reclaimed by business customers.

3. Register for moms (VAT)

   VAT registration is mandatory once revenue exceeds 50,000 DKK per rolling 12-month period. In practice, every repair shop crosses this threshold inside the first few months, so register at the same time as the CVR to save paperwork later. The Virk.dk flow has a tick-box for simultaneous moms registration.

   Once registered, you charge 25% moms on standard-rate sales, keep brugtmoms separate for used-device margin VAT (see the brugtmoms guide), and file the moms rapport quarterly if annual turnover is under 5 million DKK.

4. Onboard a payment terminal

   Denmark expects Dankort. Over 70% of card transactions still run on it, and refusing it loses walk-in business. Three sensible paths:

   • SumUp Solo or Air — fastest onboarding (24-48h after you upload your CVR + ID), no monthly fee, 1.69% per transaction, Dankort + Visa + Mastercard + Apple Pay + Google Pay. Best for shops opening this month.
   • Nets or Clearhaus Dankort terminal — slower onboarding (1-2 weeks), monthly fee ~150-300 DKK, lower per-transaction cost. Best once monthly card volume crosses ~30,000 DKK.
   • Stripe terminal — slower approval, broader international card support. Best if you'll also run a webshop checkout alongside the physical POS.

   Most repair shops start with SumUp, then layer a Dankort-first terminal later. Both integrate with a1RepairFlow natively.

5. Secure a location (or decide you don't need one)

   Three realistic models:

   • Storefront — the obvious choice. 50-150 m² in a mixed retail street. Expect 10,000-25,000 DKK/month in rent plus utilities, 3-6 months deposit, and a 3-5 year lease commitment. Walk-in volume justifies the cost if the street has foot traffic.
   • Shop-in-shop — a repair desk inside an existing electronics retailer, mobile accessory shop, or kiosk. Rent capped at 2,000-5,000 DKK/month, shared foot traffic. The lightest-risk physical presence.
   • Mobile / mail-in — no storefront, visit customers for on-site repair or receive devices by shipping. Monthly costs under 2,000 DKK excluding software. Scales based on booking volume alone.

   If you can start shop-in-shop or mobile and convert to storefront in year 2, do that — it's cheaper, de-risks the lease commitment, and tests whether the location you'd pick actually has demand.

6. Buy the right insurance

   The three realistic policies for a repair shop:

   • Erhvervsansvarsforsikring (general business liability) — if a customer slips, if you break their device while handling it, if a repair you did fails and causes further damage. ~2,000-5,000 DKK/year.
   • Produktansvarsforsikring (product liability) — covers claims when a part you installed or sold fails. ~1,500-3,500 DKK/year. Required if you resell refurbished devices.
   • Indbo + kontantforsikring (contents + cash) — covers inventory, tools, cash on hand. Only needed if you have a storefront. ~2,000-6,000 DKK/year depending on contents value.

   Codan, Alka, Tryg and Topdanmark all offer bundled "repair-shop" policies. Expect 5,000-15,000 DKK/year total for a single-location shop.

7. Pick the software stack

   Minimum compliant stack for a Danish repair shop:

   • POS + ticket + invoicing system that enforces sequential invoice numbering (bogføringslov §§4-5), handles brugtmoms correctly, and produces compliant Z-reports. That's a1RepairFlow (€59/mo on Starter, €69/mo on Pro with webshop + booking widget + SMS).
   • Bookkeeping system from the Erhvervsstyrelsen approved list — e-conomic (300-900 DKK/mo), Dinero (free for small businesses, 149+ DKK/mo for VAT), Billy (229 DKK/mo), or Uniconta (300+ DKK/mo). All four integrate with a1RepairFlow for one-way daily posting.
   • Bank account that supports CVR + MitID business login. Lunar Business, Danske Bank, Nordea, Jyske Bank — pick whichever you already have a relationship with.

   Avoid the common first-year mistake of running the shop on a general-purpose retail POS (Shopify POS, Vend, Square) that doesn't understand brugtmoms or Danish invoice law. The gap surfaces at the first SKAT inspection and the cost of back-fixing a year of records is 10× the price of using the right system from day one.

8. Run the first 90 days

   The first 90 days are about volume, not optimisation. Three operational priorities:

   1. Get the first 50 customers through the door. Google Business Profile, local Facebook ads, flyers in the mailboxes within 500m of the shop. Measure cost-per-first-customer, not conversion rate.
   2. Log every ticket, close every day with a Z-report. Don't skip either, ever. Habits set in the first 30 days are the habits you'll have at year 3.
   3. File the first quarterly moms rapport cleanly. It's the first time your bookkeeping system meets SKAT. If the Z-reports reconcile and the brugtmoms line is correctly separated, you're in good shape for the next year.

   Don't worry yet about multi-branch, loyalty programs, webshop expansion, employee hiring, or advanced marketing. Those are year-two problems. Year one is: open the doors, don't lose a ticket, don't miss a Z-report, don't make SKAT ask questions.

Common first-year mistakes

• Invoicing before CVR activation. Those invoices aren't legally valid. Wait for the CVR email.
• Ignoring brugtmoms on a trade-in. Every used-phone trade-in you don't log in the brugtmoms journal is a VAT problem later. See the brugtmoms guide.
• Running on a generic retail POS. They work day one, break by month 3 when SKAT or your accountant asks for a VAT-split Z-report.
• Signing a 5-year storefront lease in month one. Test shop-in-shop first; convert to storefront only when you've validated the location has demand.
• Underinsuring produktansvar. One failed repair that damages a customer's device-plus-data can produce a 50,000 DKK claim. Insurance costs under 3,000 DKK/year.
• Mixing personal and business bank accounts. SKAT and bogføringsloven both expect a clear separation. Open the business account before the first invoice.