35 countries in both studies · Denmark 2019 · Britain 2026
Britain and Denmark compared
The Danish Ministry of Finance publishes the best-known study of this kind, and its appendix gives net contribution by country of origin. That makes it the only external check available on the country rankings here. None of its numbers enter this model. The point of the comparison is to explain where the two diverge, not to make them agree.
Why the raw figures cannot be compared
Denmark ran a budget surplus in 2019. Its population comes to 94.1bn kr. in total, which is that surplus, and people of Danish origin come to 22,000 kr. each. Britain runs a deficit, so the average UK resident comes to −£4,046 — negative, and negative for everybody, whoever they are. Comparing the two headline numbers compares two budget positions rather than two populations.
So every figure below is each group’s distance from its own country’s average resident, divided by that country’s output per head:
(net contribution per person − national mean) ÷ GDP per capita
Denmark: mean 16,177 kr., GDP per head 396,194 kr. (2019). Britain: mean −£4,046, GDP per head £41,735 (2024). Both terms are in the same currency on each side, so the price level cancels and no purchasing power conversion is needed.
The two columns are not the same population. Immigrants AND descendants together. This model's rows are the foreign-born first generation only, so the two are not the same population. That alone should make the Danish column look worse than the British one, and it is the first thing to suspect wherever the two disagree.
The same countries, both places
Ranked by the Danish figure. Both sides are on average costing, because that is what Denmark does, and the British column charges each migrant group the schooling of its UK-born children, because that is the closest this data comes to Denmark’s scope. On that basis the two agree on the sign for 23 of 35 countries, and the rank correlation between them is 0.66.
| Country of origin | In Denmark | vs Danish average | In Britain | vs British average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| France | 102,000 kr. | +21.7% | £5,947 | +23.9% |
| United States | 100,000 kr. | +21.2% | £5,279 | +22.3% |
| Netherlands | 81,000 kr. | +16.4% | −£2,878 | +2.8% |
| India | 69,000 kr. | +13.3% | £110 | +10.0% |
| Italy | 63,000 kr. | +11.8% | −£2,089 | +4.7% |
| Sweden | 55,000 kr. | +9.8% | £2,124 | +14.8% |
| Spain | 49,000 kr. | +8.3% | −£355 | +8.8% |
| Germany | 34,000 kr. | +4.5% | £947 | +12.0% |
| Norway | 30,000 kr. | +3.5% | −£3,093 | +2.3% |
| China | 24,000 kr. | +2.0% | −£1,831 | +5.3% |
| Lithuania | 24,000 kr. | +2.0% | −£486 | +8.5% |
| Poland | 20,000 kr. | +1.0% | −£437 | +8.6% |
| Ukraine | 19,000 kr. | +0.7% | £4,533 | +20.6% |
| Romania | 13,000 kr. | −0.8% | −£760 | +7.9% |
| Hungary | 11,000 kr. | −1.3% | £596 | +11.1% |
| Iceland | 8,000 kr. | −2.1% | £2,627 | +16.0% |
| Russia | 4,000 kr. | −3.1% | £6,487 | +25.2% |
| Thailand | 3,000 kr. | −3.3% | −£4,003 | +0.1% |
| Bulgaria | 1,000 kr. | −3.8% | −£1,667 | +5.7% |
| Philippines | −2,000 kr. | −4.6% | £2,794 | +16.4% |
| Latvia | −3,000 kr. | −4.8% | −£302 | +9.0% |
| North Macedonia | −20,000 kr. | −9.1% | £1,281 | +12.8% |
| Vietnam | −26,000 kr. | −10.7% | −£5,851 | −4.3% |
| Sri Lanka | −37,000 kr. | −13.4% | −£3,897 | +0.4% |
| Iran | −42,000 kr. | −14.7% | −£7,322 | −7.9% |
| Pakistan | −45,000 kr. | −15.4% | −£7,308 | −7.8% |
| Turkey | −48,000 kr. | −16.2% | −£5,931 | −4.5% |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | −53,000 kr. | −17.5% | £442 | +10.8% |
| Morocco | −70,000 kr. | −21.8% | −£8,323 | −10.2% |
| Eritrea | −85,000 kr. | −25.5% | −£13,062 | −21.6% |
| Afghanistan | −98,000 kr. | −28.8% | −£10,194 | −14.7% |
| Iraq | −111,000 kr. | −32.1% | −£8,351 | −10.3% |
| Lebanon | −120,000 kr. | −34.4% | −£3,276 | +1.8% |
| Syria | −122,000 kr. | −34.9% | −£8,324 | −10.3% |
| Somalia | −145,000 kr. | −40.7% | −£12,086 | −19.3% |
Danish figures at 2019 prices, immigrants and descendants together, from Finansministeriet, Indvandreres nettobidrag til de offentlige finanser i 2019, revideret udgave September 2023, bilagstabel B2. British figures from this model, foreign-born first generation only. Yugoslavia appears in the Danish table and has no counterpart in a 2021 census classification, so it is left out. Britons in Denmark are among the highest contributors there, at 101,000 kr. each; there is no British row here to set against it, because in Britain they are not migrants.
Scope explains part of the gap, and that is testable
The Danish column counts immigrants and their descendants; the British model counts the foreign-born first generation. If that difference in scope really drives the divergence, then putting the British column on Denmark’s footing should move the two closer together. It does. Comparing the first generation alone gives a rank correlation of 0.58 and sign agreement on 18 of 35. Charging each group its UK-born children raises those to 0.66 and 23 of 35.
That is a prediction made and then checked, rather than an assumption. It does not make the British figures more correct — the children’s costs are still charged without the tax those children later pay — but it does say that a real part of the distance between the two studies is the population each one counts, and not a disagreement about the same people.
The countries where Britain still sits furthest above Denmark are Lebanon, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria. Several of them — Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Syria, Iraq, Somalia — are origins whose Danish population arrived largely as refugees or as their families, a group Denmark’s own analysis treats separately and puts at about −103,000 kr. a person. The countries where the two agree most closely — Spain, United States, Norway — are ones where migration to both countries is economic and the people who move are most alike. The pattern is about who moves where, which is a substantive answer rather than a defect in either study.
What the comparison is worth
A rank correlation of 0.66 across 35 countries is a real check, and it is worth more than the level agreement, because the levels are exactly what the two studies’ different scopes and different budget positions distort. Where the ordering agrees, two independent teams working from two different countries’ administrative records have put the same origins in the same places. Where it disagrees, the difference is the finding.
Three reasons the two can legitimately differ for the same country. The people are not the same people: who moves from a given country to Denmark is not who moves to Britain, and the routes, the years and the selection differ. The Danish column includes the second generation and the British one cannot. And Denmark’s labour market, benefit system and wage distribution are not Britain’s, which is the substantive question a reader should be left with rather than an artefact to be normalised away.