Are Press Trips Taxable? What Skattestyrelsen's Guidance on Vareprøver and Rejseanmeldelser Says

Product samples and trip reviews are two different questions with two different answers

Skattestyrelsen's own guidance "Influencer - vareprøver og rejseanmeldelser" (info.skat.dk) actually answers two separate questions that get conflated in practice: whether a free product sent for testing is taxable, and whether a trip given in exchange for a review is. The answers differ. Product samples are taxable by default. A trip, on the other hand, can escape separate taxation — but only if the cash payment the recipient gets for the review itself is proportionate to the work the review requires. That's the rule this article goes deep on.

Product samples: taxable, with one exception

If a creator receives a product for the purpose of, and in exchange for payment to, testing, displaying or reviewing it on social media, and the product may not be resold, its value is taxable income by default under the Danish State Income Tax Act (statsskatteloven) § 4 — valued at what it would cost to acquire the product through ordinary trade, per the Tax Assessment Act (ligningsloven) § 16(3). That applies whether or not cash payment is also received. There's one exception: if the product is discarded or destroyed within the same tax year it's received, and it hasn't itself generated income, no taxable income arises — Skattestyrelsen cites the principles of the National Tax Tribunal ruling SKM2021.608.LSR on hunting yields distributed as an employee benefit as the basis. See the broader breakdown of when "free" is tax-free at all in Skattestyrelsen's 2026 crackdown on gifted products.

Trip reviews: proportionality decides it, not whether the trip is "free"

The second question concerns trips and experiences: if a creator (or the company employing that creator) receives a cash payment from a client in exchange for taking part in a trip or experience and afterward reviewing it on social media, the trip's own value doesn't necessarily have to be taxed on top of the cash payment. What decides it, per Skattestyrelsen, is a case-specific assessment of whether the payment is proportionate to the value of the review:

• If the payment matches the value of the review: the trip's value doesn't have to be separately taxed.
• If the payment is so low that there's a disproportion between the payment and the review's value: the trip's value becomes partly or fully taxable on top.

There's no fixed amount or percentage threshold in the guidance — the assessment is case-specific and depends on how demanding the review actually is (number of posts, format, time required, specific content requirements).

The case behind the rule: SKM2022.427.SR

The rule comes from a binding ruling from Skatterådet (the Danish Tax Council), SKM2022.427.SR (decided 30 August 2022, published 8 September 2022). The specific context is worth knowing, because it isn't the same as "an influencer who personally receives a trip from a brand": the querent in the case is a private limited company (ApS) that runs a business advertising products and brands on social media — in other words, an influencer marketing/content business with employed creators. The company asked Skatterådet two questions:

1. Can product samples the company receives from clients, in exchange for payment to test, display or review them, and which may not be resold, be kept out of the company's taxable income? Answer: No (taxable, with the discard exception above).
2. Can the value of trips or experiences a client pays cash for, in exchange for letting the company's employees take part and afterward review it on social media, be kept out of the company's taxable income? Answer: Yes, conditional on the proportionality assessment above.

That means the published ruling formally concerns a company's own income assessment for its employees' trips — not directly a self-employed, personally-liable creator's own tax return. Skattestyrelsen has nonetheless chosen to publish it under the "Influencer" heading, because the assessment principle itself (proportionality between payment and the service rendered) doesn't obviously depend on whether the recipient is a company's employee or self-employed. How directly the principle carries over to a sole proprietorship hasn't, as far as this research found, been tested in a published ruling of its own — see "What this means for a self-employed creator" below for how Make Influence reads that carefully.

The example in the request: what does a "proportionate" trip look like?

In the background section of its request to Skatterådet, the company itself illustrates what this kind of trip typically involves, with an example: a colleague/competitor had recently been on a 4-day, 3-night trip to a European country against a cash payment of DKK 12,000. The itinerary ran from 9am to 9pm, and the trip was to result in three Instagram posts plus a blog entry with specific requirements on which sights had to be included. The example is part of the case's background facts, not a separate, named ruling from Skatterådet on that specific trip — but it shows the kind of workload a payment has to match for a trip's value to escape separate taxation.

What this means in practice for a brand arranging a press trip

Question to be able to answer	Why it matters
Is there a standalone cash payment for the review itself — separate from the trip's own costs?	Without a standalone payment, there's nothing to measure the trip's value against, and the assessment is likely to come out differently.
Is the payment proportionate to the workload (number of posts, format, time required, specific requirements)?	This is the core of the proportionality test — the more demanding the deliverable, the higher the payment needs to be to "cover" the trip's value.
Are the deliverables written down in advance (number, format, deadline)?	Without a written agreement, it's hard for either brand or creator to document what the payment actually covers if Skattestyrelsen asks.

See event activations, press trips and unboxing for the broader breakdown of what belongs in a press-trip agreement — including deliverables, usage rights and cancellation clauses.

What this means for a self-employed creator who receives a trip directly from a brand

SKM2022.427.SR is, as described above, formally a ruling about a company's own tax assessment for its employees' trips — not a direct ruling on a sole proprietor's or fee recipient's own personal tax. Make Influence's reading, as a reasonable but unconfirmed inference: the same underlying principle from the State Income Tax Act — that a service rendered in exchange for something of value is assessed on whether the total payment (cash plus benefits in kind) is proportionate to the effort provided — applies regardless of whether the recipient is an employee or self-employed, because it's a general tax-law principle, not a rule specific to the corporate form. That is not, however, the same as a confirmed ruling for your own situation. If you personally receive a press trip against a specific payment for a review, the safe route is to get a concrete answer from Skattestyrelsen or your accountant, with the actual figures on the table — exactly as with any other question about how your income as a creator should be classified, per employee or self-employed?

How this fits with the general gift-vs-payment rule

There are really three distinct situations in play, and it's easy to blend them together:

Situation	How it's taxed
The trip is a genuine, unsolicited gift — no expectation of a mention	Subjective value, as described in Skattestyrelsen's 2026 crackdown on gifted products — but mention it, and it reclassifies to payment
The trip itself IS the payment for the review — no separate cash payment	Full market value, the same underlying rule as a free product given as payment
The trip is followed by a separate cash payment for the review	The proportionality test from SKM2022.427.SR decides whether the trip's value is taxed on top of the payment

It's only the third situation this article is about. Situations 1 and 2 are covered in Skattestyrelsen's 2026 crackdown on gifted products, and the general distinction between a genuine gift and a paid collaboration is covered in gifting vs. paid collaborations.

Worked example (hypothetical)

The figures below are made up for illustration only — not a real ruling or customer case.

Imagine a brand pays a creator DKK 8,000 cash to take part in a 3-day press trip and afterward deliver two Instagram posts and one Reel. The trip's real cost to the brand (flights, hotel, meals) is DKK 9,500. Is DKK 8,000 a reasonable fee for two posts and a Reel — compared with what the creator would normally charge for equivalent deliverables in an ordinary paid collaboration? If so, the payment is likely proportionate, and the trip's value shouldn't be taxed on top. If the brand instead pays only DKK 500 cash for the same three deliverables, there's an obvious disproportion between payment and workload, and the trip's full value risks becoming taxable on top of the DKK 500.

Common mistakes

• Assuming a press trip is tax-free just because "it's a trip, not a fee." What matters is the ratio between payment and workload, not the form the payment takes.
• Confusing product samples with trip reviews. The same guidance answers the two questions differently — product samples are taxable by default, trips can escape it.
• Assuming the rule directly and confirmedly applies to a self-employed, personal creator. The published case concerns a company's employees — see the section above.
• Not writing the deliverables down. Without a written agreement on what the payment covers, it's hard to document proportionality afterward.

Make Influence's operational perspective

Make Influence doesn't advise on individual tax matters — that's a question for Skattestyrelsen or an accountant. What we see in practice is that the proportionality test actually rewards brands and creators who are already doing the right thing for other reasons: writing deliverables down in advance, and setting a payment that reflects the real workload, instead of treating a press trip as a free shortcut around an ordinary fee. Our recommendation is to price the review work on a press trip the way you'd price the same work without the trip — and let the trip be the trip.

FAQ

Is a press trip always taxable for the creator?

Not necessarily. If there's a separate cash payment for the review, and it's proportionate to the workload, the trip's value can escape separate taxation under SKM2022.427.SR. If there's no cash payment, or the trip itself is the payment, the ordinary gift/market-value rule applies instead.

What if the brand doesn't pay any cash for the review — only the trip?

Then the proportionality test in this article doesn't apply — the trip itself is the payment, and it's taxed under the ordinary market-value rule, as described in Skattestyrelsen's 2026 crackdown on gifted products.

Is there a percentage or amount threshold for when a payment is "proportionate enough"?

No. Skattestyrelsen explicitly applies a case-specific, individual assessment — there's no published rule of thumb or percentage.

Does the rule only apply to companies with employed creators?

The published ruling (SKM2022.427.SR) formally concerns exactly that situation. The underlying principle is a general tax-law one and isn't obviously limited to the corporate form, but a direct, confirmed extension to a self-employed, personal creator hasn't itself been tested in a published case — get a concrete answer from Skattestyrelsen or your accountant for your own situation.

Does the trip's cost to the brand also need to be documented, or only the payment to the creator?

The assessment concerns the ratio between the payment to the creator and the value of the review — not what the trip cost the brand to arrange. The brand's own cost is relevant for other reasons (budget, contract negotiation), but it isn't the core of the test itself.

Does a press trip still need to be disclosed as advertising?

Yes, regardless of its tax treatment — that's a separate requirement. See the full breakdown in event activations, press trips and unboxing.