Skattestyrelsen's 2026 Crackdown on Gifted Products: What "Free" Actually Costs a Danish Influencer

The short answer: "free" is taxable by default

If you're an influencer or content creator and you receive a free product, a discount code, a free trip or a stay, it's taxable income in Denmark as a general rule — regardless of whether there's a formal deal that you'll mention it. Skattestyrelsen (the Danish tax authority) distinguishes between two situations that are taxed differently: a genuine gift with no obligation attached, taxed at its subjective value, and a product you receive as payment for mentioning or reviewing it, taxed at its full market value. Skattestyrelsen is running a targeted 2025-2026 control campaign against content creators, and has already found errors in nine out of ten creators checked. This article covers the distinction, how to report it correctly, and what the campaign actually means for you.

Gift or payment? The distinction that decides how much tax you owe

Per Skattestyrelsen's own guidance on skat.dk, all forms of income are taxable — including when payment comes as products, discounts, gift cards, trips or experiences as part of a collaboration or a mention. But Skattestyrelsen draws a line between two situations:

• A genuine gift (unsolicited, no obligation): if you receive a product unsolicited, with no specific agreement that you'll advertise it, review it or similar, it's treated as a gift. It's taxed at its subjective value — the value you yourself assess the gift to be worth to you, and the price you'd pay for it yourself. Skattestyrelsen itself stresses an important limit, though: subjective value must never differ significantly from market value. In practice, the room to move is narrow for an ordinary, easily resold consumer product — the difference only becomes practically relevant for a product with genuinely limited personal utility to you specifically (wrong size, a niche you don't cover, something you wouldn't have chosen yourself).
• Payment in kind (the product is consideration for something): if you choose to mention or review something you received as a gift, Skattestyrelsen no longer treats it as a gift but as payment for a service — regardless of whether the sender originally required it. Here you're taxed on the full market value, i.e. what the product actually costs to buy.

This is the rule that surprises the most creators: you can't "keep" a lower subjective value by posting a grateful story or review afterwards. The moment you mention it, it legally reclassifies from gift to payment — and the taxable amount jumps to market value. See how the same market-value principle applies to products received as part of an actual affiliate or brand deal in affiliate influencer marketing in Denmark and in gifting vs. paid collaborations.

How to report a gift or free product

Where you report the value depends on which tax category your influencer income otherwise falls into — see the full walkthrough of the three categories (employee, fee recipient, self-employed business) in employee or self-employed? How Denmark classifies an influencer's income. If you're a fee recipient (honorarmodtager), the value is reported in box 20 on the annual tax return and pre-filled in field 250 on the preliminary tax assessment. If you're a self-employed business, the value is included in the business's turnover the same way a cash payment would be. Neither figure is automatically reported by whoever sent the product — it's your own responsibility as the recipient to assess and report the value, whether that's a subjective value or a market value.

Genuine gift vs. gift tied to a mention: compared

Skattestyrelsen's 2026 control campaign: the numbers

The control campaign isn't a vague concern — it's concrete and already underway. Per Skattestyrelsen's own press release, an initial control of more than 600 content creators found errors in nine out of ten of those checked. Skattestyrelsen currently has around 140 ongoing controls, and a further 700 people have been selected for control during the rest of 2025 and through 2026. Alongside the controls, Skattestyrelsen has launched a new guidance hub at skat.dk/contentcreator and is running webinars in spring 2026 with tips and a Q&A, specifically aimed at content creators and influencers. The stated purpose is explicitly to get both established and new creators to pay the correct tax and use the correct deductions — not just to collect back-payments.

For an influencer, that means something concrete: a high error rate in the controls already completed suggests that common practice among Danish creators hasn't been correct — both among those who actively tried to avoid tax, and, likely, among many who simply didn't realise a free product had to be reported at all.

Worked example (hypothetical)

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

Imagine a micro-influencer who, over a year, receives three unsolicited packages from three different brands, each with a market value of DKK 800:

• Package 1: she uses the product privately and never mentions it on any of her channels. It's assessed at its subjective value — in this example she sets it at DKK 700, because the product is a niche she doesn't normally buy into, though the value can't differ significantly from the DKK 800 market value.
• Package 2: she posts an Instagram Story mentioning the brand positively, with no prior agreement to do so. Because she mentions the product, it reclassifies from gift to payment, and she owes tax on the full DKK 800 market value — not a lower, self-assessed value.
• Package 3: she passes the product on to a friend and never mentions it. Here a lower subjective value could arguably apply, since the product genuinely had no personal utility to her — but documenting that it was never used or mentioned matters if Skattestyrelsen asks.

Total taxable value across the three packages is therefore 700 + 800 + (a lower, individually assessed subjective value for package 3) — not 3 × 800, but not DKK 0 either, which is what many influencers mistakenly assume because they never asked for the products.

VAT, briefly

This article covers the influencer's own income tax on the gift. If your total turnover from content-creator activity — including gifts and products assessed at market value — passes DKK 50,000 over 12 months, you should generally register for VAT; see the full walkthrough in affiliate influencer marketing in Denmark. Whether and how the brand sending the gift has to handle VAT on its own side of the transaction is a separate question this article doesn't verify — see VAT and tax deductions for buying influencer marketing in Denmark for the brand's side instead.

Common mistakes

• Assuming "free" means "tax-free." It doesn't — the value must be reported whether payment comes in kroner or in product.
• Assuming you can keep the lower subjective value after mentioning the product. The moment you mention or review it, it must be taxed at market value.
• Setting the subjective value significantly below market value without a genuine basis — Skattestyrelsen only allows a narrow gap.
• Waiting for the brand to report the gift. It's your own responsibility as the recipient to assess and report the value — not the sender's.
• Assuming the control campaign only targets large creators. Skattestyrelsen's own control has already covered over 600 creators across all sizes, with a nine-in-ten error rate.

Make Influence's perspective

Make Influence doesn't advise individual creators on their personal tax affairs — that's a question between the individual creator and Skattestyrelsen or an accountant. What we see in practice is that the line between a genuine gift and payment often gets blurry precisely because it's decided by the creator's own behaviour afterwards — not by what the brand originally asked for. Our recommendation to brands is to be explicit about whether a product is sent with no expectation at all, or as part of a collaboration with an expected mention — precisely because that difference has a direct tax consequence for the creator receiving it. See gifting vs. paid collaborations for how we recommend structuring that decision from the brand's side.

FAQ

Do I have to pay tax on a gift I never asked for?

Yes, if the gift has value. It's only taxed at its subjective value as long as you don't mention or review it — mention it, and it's taxed at market value instead.

What's the difference between subjective value and market value?

Subjective value is the value you yourself assess the product to be worth to you — but per Skattestyrelsen, it can never differ significantly from market value. Market value is what the product actually costs to buy. For an ordinary consumer product, the difference is therefore often small in practice.

What happens if I mention a product I got as an unconditional gift?

It reclassifies from gift to payment for a service, and you must be taxed on the full market value — even though there was no original agreement to mention it.

Where do I report the value of a gift or free product?

If you're a fee recipient, it's reported in box 20 on the annual tax return (pre-filled in field 250 on the preliminary assessment). If you're a self-employed business, it's included in the business's turnover. See employee or self-employed? for which category applies to you.

Does Skattestyrelsen's control campaign only target large creators?

No. The initial control covered over 600 creators across all sizes, and a further 700 people have been selected for control in 2025-2026 — there's nothing suggesting the campaign is limited to large creators.

Does a gift's tax status affect my right to unemployment benefits (dagpenge)?

Indirectly, yes — gifts and products taxed as payment count toward the income an a-kasse and Skattestyrelsen assess when deciding whether your influencer activity can be approved as a self-employed secondary occupation. See does influencer income affect Danish unemployment benefits (dagpenge)? for the full walkthrough.

Does a platform have to report my gifts to Skattestyrelsen under DAC7?

DAC7 requires certain digital platforms to report sellers'/creators' income to Skattestyrelsen — but it's a separate reporting duty that doesn't exempt you from assessing and reporting the value of a gift correctly yourself. See DAC7: what it means for influencer and creator platforms for what DAC7 actually covers, and which platforms are in scope.