Main card, secondary card, and exemption card are different types of tax cards that the Danish Tax Agency uses to determine how much tax should be deducted from your income. Here’s an explanation of each:

Main Card
Used for your primary income (e.g., full-time job or student grants).

Includes:

The employer deducts tax based on both the tax rate and the allowance.
May only be used at one place at a time – where you have your main income.

Secondary Card
Used for secondary income, e.g., a side job or additional earnings.

Includes:

You pay tax on the full income without any tax-free allowance.

Exemption Card
A special tax card meaning you don’t pay tax until you’ve earned up to your exemption limit (typically around DKK 40,000 per year for young people/students).

Commonly used by young people or students with low incomes.
Once the limit is reached, regular tax applies (automatically switches to a secondary card).

If you need to change the employee’s tax card from secondary to main/exemption card or vice versa, follow this guide.

Guide:

1. Go to the Employees tab, select the employee, and open the Tax Card tab.

2. Change the card type in the drop-down menu and click Request a New Tax Card.

3. It typically takes about an hour before the new tax card is retrieved.

If the Tax Card tab shows No tax card, it means the employee doesn’t have an active tax card. If no data appears at all, follow this guide.

How to fix the issue
The "No tax card" error occurs when the employee is not pre-registered with Skat. This can happen if the employee is new to the labor market (e.g., a youth worker) or has been self-employed and therefore doesn’t have a regular employee registration. Without an active eTax card, 55% tax must be withheld by default until a tax card is registered.

To obtain a tax card, the employee must log in to Skat.dk and update their preliminary income assessment. The employee must ensure that the change applies to the current month if it should take effect immediately (Skat’s default is the following month). Once done, we will automatically receive the new tax card.

Note:

If there is no data under the Tax Card tab, this could be due to two reasons: either the CPR number is incorrect, or the employee was just created. If you see a card labeled No tax card, follow this guide.

New employee:
Right after creating an employee, we don’t yet have a tax card because Skat must first send it. This may take a couple of hours, sometimes a day.

Incorrect CPR number:
If you entered the wrong CPR number or received an incorrect one from the employee, no tax card will be retrieved. In such cases, you will be notified in the message center and during payroll. You need to correct the CPR number and then request a new tax card under the employee’s Tax Card tab.

If your employee’s tax rate on the Salary payslip appears higher than what they see on Skat.dk, this can be due to two main reasons:

1. Tax card not yet updated in Salary. If the Tax Card tab shows No tax card, the employee doesn’t have an active tax card. Follow this guide.

2. Wage garnishment – automatic deduction due to debt.
This is the most common reason for a higher tax rate. Public authorities can collect debt directly from wages.

When part of the salary is used to pay off debt, the tax rate on the tax card is increased, meaning less net pay.

Important to know:

You can refer the employee to this page for more information:
​https://gaeldst.dk/borger/hvis-du-ikke-betaler-din-gaeld/vi-kan-traekke-en-del-af-din-indkomst

How the employee can check for wage garnishment:

If your employee currently uses a main or secondary card, they must change their tax card themselves at Skat.dk. Salary will automatically receive the updated card.

Note:
Although the new card appears immediately on Skat.dk, it may take several days before it's received by our system. This is because Skat updates internal records faster than they distribute data externally.

If your employee currently uses an exemption card, they must change their tax card themselves at Skat.dk. Salary will automatically receive the updated card.

Note:
Although the new card appears immediately on Skat.dk, it may take several days before it's received by our system. This is because Skat updates internal records faster than they distribute data externally.

If you see that no A-tax has been deducted from an employee’s payslip, it's usually because their salary is below the monthly tax-free allowance.

To check the allowance:

1. Go to the employee’s profile and click on the Tax Card tab

2. Here you’ll see the employee’s monthly allowance.

If the salary consistently falls below the allowance threshold, no A-tax will be deducted – this is fully compliant with the rules.

When the employee makes changes to their preliminary income assessment at Skat — for example, by activating their exemption card or adjusting income and allowance — we automatically receive the updated tax card.

Although it may be visible immediately on Skat.dk, it can take several days before it's sent to our system. This is because Skat updates internal records faster than they distribute them externally.

Response times from eIncome can vary significantly when creating a new employee, as the employee must first be registered to your company in the eIncome system. Expect a minimum of 3 hours, but in some cases, it can take up to 24 hours before we receive the tax card. For this reason, we recommend creating new employees well in advance of payroll processing.

The system does not prevent you from running payroll even if the tax card hasn’t yet been received, but you should be aware of the following: