You are a Turkish child of a Turkish worker

You can apply for equal status with Danish citizens if both you and your parent are Turkish citizens, and your parent is or has been a worker in Denmark, and you and your parent have residence in Denmark at the time of the application

To apply for equal status according to this rule, both you and your parent must be Turkish citizens.

Other than that, and you must fulfill one of these conditions:

  1. You are under 21 years of age at the time of application, and your parent is or has been a worker in Denmark. Both you and your parent must have residence in Denmark at the time of the application. It must also be registered that you have lived with your parent in Denmark at some point before applying for equal status, but it is not a requirement that you still live with them.
  2. You have turned 21 years of age at the time of application, and you are being supported by your parent who is or has been a worker in Denmark, because you have a genuine and effective need for being supported, despite the fact that you are no longer a child in terms of age. Both you and your parent must have residence in Denmark at the time of the application. It must also be registered that you have lived with your parent in Denmark at some point before applying for equal status, but it is not a requirement that you still live with them.

Term definition

We assess whether your parent is or has been a worker in the same way as we assess whether a person can be considered a worker in Denmark according to EU law.

According to jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the decisive point of whether a person may be considered a worker under EU law is that, for a certain period of time, the person performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which s/he receives remuneration (salary). At the same time, it is crucial that the employment is genuine and effective and not what EU law refers to as marginal and ancillary.

As a general rule, we expect that your parent works a minimum of 10 – 12 hours a week. Since the decisive point according to case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union is that the employment has lasted for a certain period of time, we also expect that your parent, as a starting point, has employment to this extent every week for a continuous period of 10 weeks.

In our assessment we also include criteria such as whether your parent is entitled to paid holiday, remuneration during illness, the duration of the employment relationship and whether a collective agreement applies to the employment. Furthermore, in our assessment we also put emphasis on whether your parent has a gross income of a certain size every month. The general price and wage development in Denmark means that wages are continuously increasing. We take this into account when assessing whether your parent may be considered a worker under EU law.

By "child of," we mean a Turkish citizen who is the child of a Turkish citizen or the child of the Turkish worker's spouse or registered partner.

If you have turned 21 years of age when you apply for SU, you must be able to prove that for special reasons, you have a genuine and effective need of being supported by your parent regardless of the fact that you are an adult. It is not sufficient that your parent merely undertake supporting you.

You must attach documentation for this along with the application for equal status for foreign citizens when you apply for SU according to one of those rules. The documentation must show that your parent is supporting you. If you are over 21 years of age, you must also attach information and documentation for your situation which shows that you have a genuine and effective need for being supported by your parent despite the fact that you are a grown-up.

How to apply

Find information about how to apply for SU and equal status in minSU for the first time here.

Under point 9 (Consent and liability) of the application for foreign citizens applying for equal status with Danish citizens, you must state that you are applying for equal status because you are a Turkish child of a Turkish worker. You must also attach documentation to prove that you meet this requirement.

When assessing whether you can be granted equal status based on this condition, we always make a specific assessment of all the information in your case.

We will look, among other things, at the documentation you attach to your application for equal status with Danish citizens. Therefore, it is important that you attach all the documentation you want to be included in our assessment of your application. Documentation may include an employment contract and pay slips from your parent's employer in Denmark. We also use information from the national register of persons and the tax authorities. In addition, we use information from the national register and the Danish Tax Agency (Skattestyrelsen).

If you think that the information from the national register is inadequate or incorrect, you must contact the national register in the municipality which you live in. If you think that the information, which Skattestyrelsen has registered, is incorrect or inadequate you must contact Skattestyrelsen.

Equal status can be discontinued

If you apply for SU for a new study programme and previously have been granted equal status with Danish citizens according to the Danish rules, you do not have to apply for equal status again.

However, please note that you must apply for equal status again if you have lived outside of Denmark for a continuous period of more than two years, as your equal status is no longer valid after this period.

Facts - danish rules

If you have been granted equal status according to Danish rules, you cannot receive SU for a whole study programme abroad