Denmark's Retouched-Image Labeling Bill: Why It's Still Not Law in 2026

Short answer: no, there's no law requiring retouched-image labeling in Denmark

As of 24 August 2026, there's no Danish law requiring retouched advertising images or video to be marked as edited. The closest Denmark has come is a bill SF reintroduced in the Folketing in October 2024 (L 26, the 2024-25 parliamentary session) — which the governing Social Democrats voted against just two months later, in December 2024, despite having originally proposed a nearly identical bill themselves back in 2022. That original proposal was dropped as far back as 2023. And although SF, the bill's long-standing sponsor, has sat in government alongside the Social Democrats since 3 June 2026 as part of the new four-party coalition, the government's own political platform from June 2026 doesn't mention retouched-image labeling anywhere.

This is practical guidance from Make Influence, not legal advice. Use it to understand the current status — status can change, and you should check the Folketing's own case tracker or the Ministry of Business's page directly before building a long-term compliance plan around this topic.

What the bill would actually have required

The proposal — most recently tabled as L 26 in the 2024-25 parliamentary session — would have introduced a labeling scheme for businesses using retouched advertising images or film where a person's body shape, size or skin has been altered compared to the natural starting point. Labeling would have used a common, state-issued mark, and Forbrugerombudsmanden (the Danish Consumer Ombudsman) would have supervised the scheme under the Marketing Practices Act. Influencers would explicitly have been covered whenever they received direct or indirect payment to advertise a product — the same basic scope that already applies to the ordinary ad-disclosure duty, which is binding law today.

It's worth being precise about what the bill was not about: it concerned marking that an image has been edited on the body — not whether the content has to be marked as an ad at all. Those are two separate questions, and only one of them (ad disclosure) is currently law; the other (retouching) is what this article covers, and it still isn't.

Timeline: two dropped attempts in four years

Why the bill was dropped — twice, for two different reasons

2023: redirected to a commission instead of becoming law

The newly formed SVM government chose in spring 2023 to drop the original bill and instead fold the issue into the work of a commission on children and young people's wellbeing. SF's then-consumer spokesperson Karina Lorentzen Dehnhardt called it "very disappointing" at the time that a finished bill was being shelved in a commission rather than passed, and pointed to coalition partners Moderaterne and Venstre as the reason the bill was blocked.

2024: rejected while citing a broader law review

When SF itself reintroduced the bill in October 2024, it produced a genuine political reversal: the Social Democrats voted against their own earlier proposal. According to consumer spokesperson Karin Graasted, the party didn't disagree with the underlying problem — "We're completely aligned on the issue SF raises, but we will vote against" — but wanted to wait for the outcome of an ongoing, broader review of the Marketing Practices Act, partly to make sure influencers were properly captured. A Bech-Bruun attorney noted at the time that the existing draft could already reach influencers, since Forbrugerombudsmanden had already established that influencers operate as businesses subject to the Marketing Practices Act — which makes the stated scoping concern somewhat less obvious than it sounded.

The 2026 update: SF is now in government — and the bill still isn't

The most current, and most surprising, finding in this research: SF has sat in government alongside the Social Democrats, Radikale Venstre and Moderaterne since 3 June 2026 — the same party that voted the bill down less than two years earlier is now SF's own governing partner. The new government's political platform from June 2026 includes a major children-and-youth initiative under the banner "Børnenes Danmark" ("The Children's Denmark"), with DKK 5 billion committed permanently to things like after-school clubs, SFOs and a free-school-meals pilot scheme — but nothing in the material this article could find or verify mentions retouched advertising image labeling specifically. That isn't the same as a decision to drop the bill permanently — but it does mean nothing was found suggesting an imminent reintroduction either. Treat the status as unresolved, not settled in either direction, and revisit this topic if the government publishes anything concrete.

How this differs from other labeling rules that are actually in force

It's easy to conflate this non-existent rule with rules that sound similar but are genuinely binding law in Denmark and the EU today:

The point that's easy to miss: Denmark has already introduced a binding labeling duty for AI-generated deepfakes (via EU law) at a point when the far older, purely national proposal to label ordinary, non-AI retouching still hasn't made it through the Folketing twice. It isn't a case of the technology being too new to regulate — the retouching bill is over four years old.

What this means for brands and influencers today

IF you're considering retouching an influencer's body, size or skin in sponsored content → there's currently no legal labeling duty to comply with, but the ordinary ad-disclosure duty still applies unchanged, and if part of the audience is under 18, the stricter rules in Section 11 of the Marketing Practices Act apply to the content more broadly.

IF you operate across multiple Nordic markets → don't assume the rules are the same everywhere. Norway has had a retouched-image labeling scheme since 2022 — the model Denmark's own proposal was originally based on — but Denmark doesn't. Always check each country's own rules rather than assuming a Danish outcome applies elsewhere.

IF you're planning a campaign specifically built around body image or beauty products → even without a legal labeling duty, voluntary transparency is still worth considering — see Make Influence's recommendation below.

IF you're tracking this topic to anticipate future regulation → watch for the promised, broader review of the Marketing Practices Act that the Social Democrats themselves cited as their reason for voting against the bill in 2024; that's the most likely route if the rule is ever introduced.

Make Influence's operational perspective

In our view, the most interesting part of this story isn't whether the rule eventually arrives — it's how little political momentum it has had, even once the party that proposed it moved from opposition into government. That's a signal that brands and influencers waiting for a mandatory labeling scheme as a kind of external stamp of legitimacy could be waiting a while. Our recommendation for brands working with body- or beauty-related products is therefore to treat transparency about image editing as a voluntary trust investment rather than a compliance task you can defer until the law forces your hand — particularly because part of what the bill originally tried to address (body pressure among young people) doesn't go away just because the law doesn't materialize.

FAQ

Are there really no rules at all for retouched images in Danish marketing?

There's no specific law requiring retouching to be labeled. The ordinary ad-disclosure duty (that content is paid) still applies, and if the content targets children and young people, Section 11 of the Marketing Practices Act's other rules on what content can show still apply. But a specific duty to mark that an image has been edited on the body doesn't exist.

Does Norway have an equivalent law?

Yes — Norway introduced a retouched-image labeling scheme in 2022, which the Danish proposal was originally modeled on. Don't assume the two countries' rules are identical; always check each country's own legislation if you operate in both markets. See running an influencer campaign across the Nordics for a broader comparison of Nordic regulation.

Could the bill come back?

Yes, it isn't unlikely — it's already been reintroduced once (2024) after first being dropped (2023). But this article found nothing confirming a concrete, upcoming reintroduction as of 24 August 2026, even now that SF sits in government.

Does the ordinary ad-disclosure duty still apply even if the image is retouched?

Yes, entirely independently. If the influencer received a benefit for the post, it has to be marked as an ad under Marketing Practices Act § 6(4) — regardless of whether the image has also been edited. Whether it's an ad and whether the image is edited are two separate legal questions. See influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU for the full breakdown.

Is an AI-generated, unrealistic body shape the same problem as retouching?

Related, but legally different. If a body is created or substantially altered by AI in a way that creates the impression of a specific, real person, the EU AI Act's Article 50 can trigger a duty to disclose that the image is a deepfake — a rule that's already binding law. Ordinary retouching of a genuine photo (brighter skin, a slimmer waist) doesn't automatically meet that definition. See the EU AI Act's Article 50 labeling duty for AI-generated marketing content for the distinction.

Who would have enforced the scheme if the bill had passed?

Forbrugerombudsmanden was designated to supervise the labeling scheme under the Marketing Practices Act and the executive order governing the Consumer Ombudsman's activities — the same authority that already enforces the existing ad-disclosure duty and Section 11's rules for children and young people today.