Design Schools and Programs in Denmark

Design Studies in Denmark

Design in Denmark is taught along two lines. Product, furniture, fashion, textile and visual design are taught at specialised design schools, with a three-year bachelor's degree and a two-year master's degree. Digital and interaction design is also a university subject. Most bachelor's programmes are taught in Danish, so international students usually enter at master's level or come for a semester in English.

SpainExchange lists 2 schools for design in Denmark: Aarhus University, in Aarhus, and DIS - Danish Institute for Study Abroad, in Copenhagen. This page also describes two design schools that are not in our list, based on their own websites, because they show how the full design degree works.

How design degrees are organised

According to the official portal Study in Denmark, a university bachelor's degree is awarded after a three-year programme and a master's programme takes two years. The design schools follow the same pattern:

• Kolding School of Design: the bachelor's programme takes 3 years (6 semesters, 180 ECTS credits), is taught in Danish and starts in September. Its subject areas are accessory design, fashion design, communication design, industrial design and textile design. The master's programme takes 2 years (120 ECTS credits).
• Royal Danish Academy (Copenhagen): its design bachelor's programmes are Product+, with the sub-programmes Fashion Design and Textile, and Furniture, Space and Materials, and Visual Design and Interaction. Master's programmes include Graphic Communication Design, Furniture Design, and Visual Game and Media Design. The academy also offers a Master of Arts taught in English.
• Aarhus University: the bachelor's degree in Digital design covers interaction design, aesthetic programming, user experience and digital culture, from programming and interfaces to aesthetics and ethics. It is approved with Danish as the language of instruction and starts in week 35, at the end of August. A master's degree in Digital design builds directly on it.

Admission and language

Applications for bachelor's programmes go through the national admission website optagelse.dk, and a foreign qualification must be on a level with a Danish upper secondary school leaving certificate. The details differ by school:

• Kolding School of Design holds an entrance examination for the bachelor's programme. The application deadlines are 15 March at 12 noon in quota 2 and 5 July at 12 noon in quota 1. For the master's programme the deadline is 1 March and there is no entrance examination.
• The Royal Danish Academy teaches all its bachelor's programmes in design in Danish and requires Danish at A level. Entry to its master's programmes is competitive: the academy reports that 61 of 877 applicants were admitted to the master's programmes in design in 2026.
• For Digital design, Aarhus University requires Danish at A level, English at B level, a history subject at B level and a further language or communication and IT. The quota 1 threshold in 2026 was a grade average of 7.4 on the Danish scale (standby 6.1).

For Danish-taught programmes applicants must prove their Danish with an official test. English-taught programmes require a high standard of English, according to Study in Denmark; each institution sets the test scores it accepts.

A semester of design in English at DIS

DIS describes itself as a non-profit study abroad foundation established in Denmark in 1959, with semester, academic year and summer programmes taught in English in Copenhagen and Stockholm. It is designed for undergraduate students of North American colleges and universities: applicants need a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 and at least two completed semesters at a four-year college or university in the United States or Canada. Its design programmes in Copenhagen are studio-based:

• Architecture & Design, with core courses such as Architecture Design Studio and Interior Architecture Studio and visits to building sites and design offices
• Graphic Design, with project-based assignments in visual identity, branding and communication
• Furniture Design, in which students build their own prototype in the woodshop

These courses count towards the degree at the home university and do not lead to a Danish degree.

Costs and residence

Higher education in Denmark is free for students from the EU, the EEA and Switzerland. Other full-degree students pay tuition fees, which Study in Denmark puts at €6,000 to €16,000 per year (DKK 45,000 to 120,000). Design schools can be above that range: Kolding School of Design lists a tuition fee of €36,000 for the two-year master's programme for non-EU/EEA citizens. Materials are an extra cost. In Kolding, bachelor's students pay a one-off fee of around DKK 3,000 for shared materials and buy the materials for their own projects.

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens need a registration certificate if they stay longer than three months. Students from other countries apply for a residence permit through the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI). New rules apply to applications submitted on or after 1 October 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Can I study design in Denmark in English?

At bachelor's level the programmes described here are taught in Danish. In English there are master's programmes, such as the Master of Arts taught in English at the Royal Danish Academy, and study abroad semesters at DIS for students of North American universities.

Is there an entrance examination for design schools in Denmark?

Kolding School of Design holds an entrance examination for its bachelor's programme but not for its master's programme. Aarhus University admits students to Digital design through the quota system, without an entrance examination.

How much does it cost to study design in Denmark?

Nothing in tuition for students from the EU, the EEA and Switzerland. Students from other countries pay fees; Kolding School of Design, for example, charges €36,000 for its two-year master's programme.