The normal retirement age for the main public pension has been increasing in Denmark, and is planned to increase further in the future.

The reason is rising life expectancy: people live longer, so they receive pensions for more years.

As people draw pensions for more years, government pension spending grows, putting pressure on the government budget.

Increasing the retirement age helps maintain current monthly benefit levels in the future, without increasing taxes or reducing other spending.

Under current rules, this ensures that the public pension system is more than fiscally sustainable.

If, instead, the retirement age were frozen from 2040 onwards, this would generate substantial permanent costs to the government of roughly DKK 69 billion per year, or 4.7% of total government spending.

In that scenario, if pensions, other spending, and taxes remained unchanged, the government budget would tip out of balance: public finances would not be sustainable.