Modeling agencies in Denmark: 32 agencies (2026)

The model market in Denmark

Danish model management is concentrated in Copenhagen. Our catalogue has 16 of its 32 agencies in Copenhagen, and three more work in the capital's suburbs: Hellerup, Klampenborg and Albertslund. The second centre is Aarhus with four agencies: two home-grown ones and the Aarhus offices of the two big Copenhagen names. Odense has two agencies, and we found one each in Aalborg, Esbjerg, Herning, Silkeborg, Ebeltoft, Aakirkeby on the island of Bornholm and Tappernøje in South Zealand. In Randers, Kolding, Vejle, Horsens, Viborg, Sønderborg, Svendborg, Næstved town, Køge, Hillerød and Billund we found no agency office. That is the real picture of a small country whose work runs through the capital.

There is no official statistic on the number of models. TV 2 wrote in 2014 of "the roughly 2,500 Danes whose workplace is the catwalk", and Avisen.dk reported in 2015 that 487 of about 2,500 Danish models belonged to the models' association. The agencies in the catalogue fall into four groups.

• Fashion agencies. Unique Models has worked since 1989; the national encyclopaedia Lex names its owners as Salling, Aller, Egmont, Jacqueline Friis-Mikkelsen (Svane) and Jesper Thomsen, and credits it with discovering Freja Beha Erichsen, Josephine Skriver, Eddie Klint and Oliver Bjerrehuus. Scoop Models was founded in 1993 by the former model Bente Lundquist. Elite Model Management Copenhagen grew out of Copenhagen Models, the first Danish model agency, founded in 1966 to 1967 by Trice Tomsen and merged with John Casablancas' Elite in 1987. Le Management started in Aarhus in 2010, and Fashion Forum called it Northern Europe's largest model agency in 2024, with more than 100 employees in the group. 2pm Management (since 1999) merges fashion and entertainment, Heartbreak Management is the Copenhagen office of an Oslo agency, opened in 2010, and Two Management Scandinavia is the branch of a Los Angeles agency. The smaller fashion agencies are Gossip Model Management, Étoile Models, Selten Models, MA 11 Management and the men-only RAD Model Management.
• Commercial and mixed agencies. BASIC CPH calls itself Denmark's largest model and actor agency with an archive of more than 6,500 people; its sister agency Sonder Agency works from the same address. Smash Agency in Aarhus writes that height, skin tone and size do not matter to it and won the Børsen Gazelle award for fast-growing companies two years running (2024 and 2025). CC Models in Odense is both a model and a casting agency. JS Total Booking has supplied models and extras to commercials, series and films since 1983. Cast Agency Denmark is a casting agency whose catalogue is visible only to logged-in clients.
• Children's agencies. Children only are represented by Le Management Kids (ages 0 to 16), Star Kids (0 to 16) and 1·kid modelmanagement (0 to 14). A kids board also exists at Casablanca Models in Ebeltoft, whose kids models, the agency says, are booked by the retail chains føtex and bilka, at LESS Models in Herning (children from the age of 1) and at several mixed agencies.
• Regional agencies. Legend Model in Aarhus belongs to Peter Niebuhr, whose earlier agency INQ Models joined Unique Models in 2014. Vero Model Management is registered in Silkeborg (company registered on 31 March 2025) and its models walked the SS27 shows at Copenhagen Fashion Week in August. Highline Fashion in Aalborg dates from 1986, Facetoface in Esbjerg is the former Memborg Models, and Bornmodels on Bornholm also keeps an office in Copenhagen. The Milan mother agency Ewa Talents Management has worked from Odense since 2023.

The big clients are Danish fashion and retail companies. GANNI has been led by creative director Ditte Reffstrup since 2009 and has offices in Copenhagen, Paris, New York and Shanghai. BESTSELLER, the family company founded in 1975 by Troels Holch Povlsen and Merete Bech Povlsen, runs more than 20 brands including JACK & JONES, ONLY, VERO MODA and NAME IT, with 3,100 stores in 47 countries. Pandora, headquartered in Copenhagen, had revenue of DKK 32.5 billion in 2025. The charter's list of signatory brands includes Cecilie Bahnsen, Stine Goya, ROTATE Birger Christensen, Saks Potts, Samsøe Samsøe, Baum und Pferdgarten, hummel, Zizzi and By Malene Birger, as well as the BESTSELLER, DK Company and IC Group conglomerates. The magazines Eurowoman and ALT for damerne are published by Story House Egmont, Costume belongs to Bonnier Publications, and the editor-in-chief of ELLE Denmark, Cecilie Ingdal, sits on the board of Copenhagen Fashion Week.

Most Danish careers begin with a scout in the street. Freja Beha Erichsen was scouted in the street by Unique Models and walked her first shows for Miu Miu, Prada and Louis Vuitton in February 2005. Josephine Skriver signed with Unique at 15 and broke through internationally in 2011. Mona Tougaard from Aarhus was scouted at 12, won Denmark's Elite Model Look in 2017 at 15 and opened Prada and closed Chanel in her first season, AW19. Caroline Brasch Nielsen told i-D she was scouted at 15 while queuing for pizza. Helena Christensen was invited to Paris at 19 to work for Chanel and Vogue.

How an agency works and what contract you sign

Denmark has no licence, permit or public register for model agencies. Private job placement and the hiring-out of labour were licensed until 1990: Act no. 840 of 20 December 1989, titled "Liberalisering af arbejdsformidlingen", repealed the minister's permit, its withdrawal and the supervision by the Director of Labour, and those changes took effect on 1 July 1990. Before that, about 20 businesses and organisations held a permit. Since then anyone can start an agency after registering a business and getting a CVR number. No statute in force requires a licence, registration or notification to represent models.

The one labour-intermediary act in force is the temp-agency act of 2013 (Vikarloven). It covers businesses that enter into an employment relationship with workers and send them to a client to work under the client's supervision and direction, and it forbids such businesses from charging the worker for placement (section 4(2)). A typical Danish model agency does not employ the model; it represents her for a fee, so on the wording of the act it is not a temp agency. That is our reading: no ministry, court or Arbejdstilsynet text has applied the act to a model agency. One bankrupt agency, Modelhouse Production ApS, was registered under the temp-agency industry code 782000.

No statute describes the model's contract with the agency: whether it is agency, a contract for services or employment follows general civil and tax law. The only published binding period is Unique Models': its contracts bind for one year, and "the most normal in the industry is 3 years". In 2014 the eight largest agencies agreed to let the models' association and Dansk Artist Forbund review their contracts and working conditions, and Unique's CEO Jacqueline Friis-Mikkelsen confirmed to TV 2 that "there is a big difference between the contracts". In 2015 the association was working to get agencies to adopt standard contracts; whether any was adopted is not verified. The charter itself recommends a framework agreement on wages and working conditions between the associations of agencies and models, and no such agreement exists. What a contract should contain is set out in our guide to the modeling contract.

Commission

No law or association sets the commission. None of the Danish agencies whose sites we opened (Unique, Scoop, Elite Copenhagen, Vero, Le Management, Smash, CC Models) publishes an agency commission percentage, and no Danish press source states a norm. The charter says only that "agreements concerning specific wages and conditions are made between the model agency/the model and the client and between the model agency and the model" and asks for greater transparency. Unique Models' Q&A says that, as in other creative trades, the fee varies from job to job. So read the percentage, and the amount it is calculated on, in your own contract. The one documented fee is paid by clients, not models: charter agencies add a DKK 75 health-check fee to every client invoice, and Legend Model's client terms set a health and well-being fee of DKK 100 per model per booking.

Fees charged to applicants

No law sets or bans an agency's fees to models; the only ban in force is for temp agencies that employ the worker. It would therefore be wrong to write that a registration fee is illegal in Denmark. What applies to how a fee is sold is the Marketing Practices Act (Markedsføringsloven): section 3 requires good marketing practice and special care where children and young people are the target, sections 5 and 6 forbid misleading actions and omissions, section 7 forbids harassment, coercion and undue influence, and the Consumer Ombudsman supervises. Section 36 of the Contracts Act lets a court alter or set aside a contract that would be unreasonable to enforce. We found no judgment about a model agency's fee or contract.

The big Copenhagen agencies say starting is free. Unique Models: "Does it cost money to start as a model at Unique Models? No, it does not. The start-up phase is free", and new models get walking, acting and training courses free of charge. Elite Copenhagen: its scouts and agents "will never request payment to recruitment". CC Models "never demands payment", Star Kids stresses that a fee is paid for every job, and Le Management Kids works without binding contracts. Elsewhere there are fees, and we show them on the profiles with their prices:

Some figures tell you more than others. When a fee is paid for a test shoot before acceptance, the agency earns from applicants and not only from clients. In a Trustpilot review of 30 August 2019 a 20-year-old model wrote that she paid DKK 500 for a shoot of under 5 minutes at Casablanca Models and felt unwelcome; the owner replied that it was a test shoot, not a casting, and that the applicant was only 164 cm, below the agency's minimum. We do not remove fee-charging agencies from the catalogue: the rule is to list everyone who represents models and to say what we found.

Contract and payment

The Danish press wrote for years about late and missing pay. The former Unique model Anne Sophie Sonnergaard wrote in Politiken in August 2012 that models rarely get paid for editorials, that many shows pay nothing "because it is seen as an honour", that payment can arrive "up to a year and a half" late, and that a friend was told her DKK 2,000 fee would be spent on retouching her legs instead. In 2012 more than half of the catwalk models at Copenhagen Fashion Week accepted working for free, and in a 2012 questionnaire of 130 models 82% said they had also worked free during the year for portfolio pictures or as favours, paid in gift cards or clothes. By August 2013 all nine agencies DR asked said they now paid models at fashion week and used nobody under 16. The models' association said in 2013 that most of its enquiries concerned a lack of transparency, missing pay and confusion about rights, and Avisen.dk wrote in 2015 of "great opacity in the contracts models sign with the agencies". Whether this has changed is not verified. Have the payment term written into your contract and ask for a regular model statement.

Artificial intelligence is the new subject. In May 2025 Le Management's CEO Jannick Lindberg initiated the European alliance FAIRe after a large German client e-mailed a demand for full rights to photos so that it could build new digital models from the body parts of different models; more than 50 agencies joined, Unique Models among them. Legend Model's terms, updated on 21 September 2026, forbid creating digital twins or avatars of a model or training AI models on her pictures without written consent. Before you sign, read which usage rights and buyouts you grant.

Employment status: employee, fee recipient or self-employed

There is no special statute on the status of models. Under the general tax rules a model is an employee (A-indkomst, tax withheld), a fee recipient (honorarmodtager, B-indkomst) or self-employed. Skattestyrelsen writes: "B-indkomst is income from which tax and am-bidrag have not been deducted before you receive the amount, for example if you run your own business or receive a fee"; the recipient pays B-skat and the 8% labour-market contribution (am-bidrag) through the preliminary assessment or in TastSelv. Which route applies to you depends on the facts: who chooses the jobs, how payment is made and whether turnover will exceed DKK 50,000 in 12 months. Payment in kind, in clothes, gift cards or vouchers, is taxable at its value.

Denmark has no statutory minimum wage: "There is no mandatory minimum pay in Denmark. The pay is typically governed by collective agreements for different types of work." We found no collective agreement for models. The models' association Foreningen Danske Modeller, founded in 2010 and chaired by Ida Burchardi, had 500 members in 2014 and aimed to become a union with help from LO and Dansk Artist Forbund; the register copy shows its registration ended on 7 August 2019, though it still appears on the charter's signatory list. There is no work-accident insurance for models either, as Sonnergaard wrote in 2012: "as a model you are self-employed".

Boards and requirements

Danish agencies divide their models into boards. In our catalogue 25 agencies have a women's board, 23 a men's board, 13 a new faces board, 11 a talent board, 11 a kids board, 8 a commercial board, 5 a curve board, 5 a senior board and 2 a sport board. One agency has no boards assigned: the site of Facetoface in Esbjerg showed only a notice about a new site in October 2026. You can filter the catalogue by board: women, men, new faces, kids, commercial, curve, senior, talent and sport. Curve boards exist at Legend Model, Smash Agency, BASIC CPH, Heartbreak Management and Casablanca Models; Denmark's first agency for curvy women only, Volume Model Management, was founded in 2014 by the model Maja Volmark after INQ Models joined Unique and closed its curve board, but we found no live site for it. Boards for mature models exist at Legend Model, Smash Agency, JS Total Booking, Casablanca Models and CC Models.

Fashion boards set height and age requirements, and they differ:

Elite Copenhagen prints no height or age requirements but requires a parent's approval and attendance at any meeting under 18. Unique Models never weighs its models, prefers them to be 16 before they work in Denmark and does not let them travel abroad alone before 18. What boards and requirements look like worldwide is explained in our guide to the types of modeling.

How to choose and check an agency

We do not rank agencies and we do not vouch for them. The catalogue has every Danish business that represents models and shows a model roster: the ones that charge fees, the ones that represent actors, extras or sportspeople alongside models, and the ones about which we found little company data. We left out hostess and promotion staffing firms, open casting databases where anyone can sign up (Go-Talent, Onlinecasting.dk, Modelcasting.dk, Selfcast), actor-only agencies, influencer-only agencies, schools and dead businesses. How to choose an agency in any country is in our guide how to choose a modeling agency. In Denmark the check has three steps.

1. The website. Section 7 of the E-Commerce Act (E-handelsloven) obliges every commercial website to show, easily and permanently, the name, the physical address, an e-mail address and the CVR number; the Consumer Ombudsman stresses that a contact form is not enough. A site without these details breaks the law and is a warning sign. In the catalogue we show an address only from the agency's own site: Gossip, Étoile, MA 11, RAD and 1·kid print no street address on their sites, while the register has Gossip Management ApS at Tagensvej 71 (a c/o address), Étoile at Østerbrogade 130 and 1·kid at Nordre Molevej 9 in Klampenborg.
2. The CVR register. Every Danish business has an eight-digit CVR number, and the register at datacvr.virk.dk is free to search: it shows the address, the industry code, the participants and the status. NORMAL (companies) and Aktiv (sole traders) mean a live registration; "Under konkurs" means bankruptcy proceedings are open, "Under tvangsopløsning" compulsory dissolution, "Opløst efter konkurs" that the company no longer exists, "Ophørt" that a sole trader has deregistered, and "Opløst efter erklæring" that the owners closed a solvent company. Search by name and address together: a query for "2pm Management" returned the unrelated VPM FUND MANAGEMENT A/S. A CVR number is on 26 of the 32 catalogue records; we found none for CĀRE Models, Heartbreak Management, MA 11, RAD, Selten Models and Sonder Agency. The VAT number is the CVR number with the prefix DK and can be checked in the EU's VIES system, but a business under DKK 50,000 turnover can have a CVR number without a VAT registration, so check existence in the register, not in VIES.
3. The charter list. The signatory page of the Danish Fashion Ethical Charter names the agencies publicly. It is a voluntary status, not a licence and not a certificate; the list carries no dates, so closed agencies remain on it and a new signatory may be missing.

Under-age models

Children's work in Denmark is governed by the Working Environment Act (Lov om arbejdsmiljø, LBK nr 442 af 24/04/2026) and its implementing order on young people's work, Bekendtgørelse om unges arbejde, BEK nr 1713 af 18/12/2025, in force since 1 January 2026. Section 60(2) of the Act says that young people under 15 or still in compulsory schooling may not be employed, and chapter 9 of the order, "Cultural and similar activities", sets the exceptions that apply to shoots and shows.

Since 1 January 2026 the permit for a child under 13 is issued by Arbejdstilsynet, not the police: the Ministry of Employment writes that "supervision and permits for work by children under 13 are moved from the police to Arbejdstilsynet". Older texts about applying to the police are out of date. Both the company and the child's parents can apply, through the virk.dk form with MitID; the child's CPR number, address and parents' details are needed, and a child from abroad needs a passport copy. The target processing time is at most 3 weeks. Working time includes preparation, make-up, breaks and marketing, but not travel to the location. Arbejdstilsynet looks for a child minder or adult contact person, a rest room, planned breaks, a written time plan and parents involved in the planning. Parents can be fined if a child works in breach of the order with their knowledge (section 48(4)). The working-environment rules do not require a criminal-record certificate (børneattest) and set no form requirements for children's contracts.

The law sets no minimum age for catwalk or photo modelling above the general rules, and there is no BMI rule. The higher floor comes from the charter, not the law: a model must be 16 to work, a 15-year-old can work with dispensation and accompanied by an adult, and under-15s only with children's and teenage clothing, accompanied by an adult whom the agency arranges. The agencies' own application floors: Unique 14, Scoop 14 for girls and 15 for boys, Vero 14, Highline 16, Legend 12 for women and 14 for men, Selten 14. What a chaperone is and why it matters is in the glossary.

The Danish Fashion Ethical Charter

The Danish Fashion Ethical Charter (Modebranchens Etiske Charter) was founded in 2007 by Danish Fashion Institute together with the Danish Association against Eating Disorders and Self-harm (LMS). At first it was a plea to the industry; in 2013, after several high-profile cases, rules on age, diet and wages were added; in 2015 the industry was given the chance to sign it and a steering committee was set up; in 2017 the world's first health check for models was launched; and in 2018 two new values were added. Danish Fashion Institute later became two organisations, Global Fashion Agenda and Copenhagen Fashion Week. Today the charter is run by Copenhagen Fashion Week: it leads the steering committee and receives and files the signed agreements. Permanent committee members are CPHFW's CEO Cecilie Thorsmark, Dansk Mode & Textil, LMS, The Soulfuls, the Baum und Pferdgarten designer Helle Hestehave and Unique Models' CEO Jacqueline Svane as the representative of "one of the country's eight largest model agencies"; the committee meets twice a year and has the authority to penalise signatories.

The charter has five rules for models.

• Age. "Models must be at least 16 years of age in order to work. Models who are 15 years of age can be given dispensation to work if accompanied by an adult. Models under 15 can only work with children's and teenage clothing and likewise must be accompanied by an adult (which the agency arranges)."
• Food. Clients commit to serving models nutritious and healthy food at jobs that last more than two hours.
• Pay. "Models must receive monetary payment for their work." Dispensation is possible only in agreement with the model and only for educational institutions, student projects, charities and non-commercial publications. Copenhagen Fashion Week requires brands to ensure fair compensation for every model in their showcases.
• Health check. LMS runs a conversation of about one and a half hours, adapted from the Eating Disorder Examination, for all Danish models at charter agencies once they are over 16. If there are no signs and the model is over 22, it is valid for the rest of the career; at 16 to 22 for 2 years; where there are concerns, for 1 year with an offer of 3 to 5 conversations; and if action is necessary, "the model cannot continue working as a model until the model has been assessed" by a doctor. The agency pays for the check, funded through the DKK 75 health-check fee added to every client invoice. The 2017 pilot for 16-year-olds was budgeted at about DKK 200,000.
• Medical certificates. All international models must provide a valid medical certificate, valid for 2 years, which the brands submit with the casting sheets; the cost is usually borne by the model's foreign agency or the model.

The sanctions are private. An agency without valid health checks gets a warning at the first fashion week and exclusion from the following fashion week at the second; a brand without medical certificates gets dialogue, a warning, then exclusion. Exclusion means a public entry on the charter's blacklist and the loss of the logo, of visibility, casting days and shows at Copenhagen Fashion Week. On the day we checked, the blacklist was empty. The charter is tied directly to the fashion week: Minimum Standard 19 of the Sustainability Requirements reads "We are a signatory of the Danish Fashion Ethical Charter and comply with their rules", and without it a brand does not get onto the official schedule.

The charter also works as a political tool. In June 2017, when the 21-year-old Danish model Ulrikke Louise Lahn Høyer was dropped from a Louis Vuitton show in Japan for being "too big" and told to drink only water for 24 hours, Health Minister Ellen Trane Nørby and Danish Fashion Institute's director Eva Kruse wrote to Louis Vuitton asking it to follow the charter's principles. The model was with 2pm Management at the time; the agency's head Peter Damgaard said part of her mission had succeeded, while casting director Ashley Brokaw denied the account in Business of Fashion.

Taxes

How much tax you pay depends on where you live and on your status. A freelance model living in Denmark declares fees as B-indkomst and pays B-skat plus 8% am-bidrag; from 2026 am-bidrag on B income is paid only from the year you turn 18. Skattestyrelsen's worked example: on a DKK 1,000 fee the am-bidrag is DKK 80 and the tax rate is applied to DKK 920. More on models' taxes in general is in our guide to model taxes.

For a model living abroad the fifth row is the one that matters. The Tax Agency's legal guide (C.F.8.2.2.17.2) says: "There is only limited tax liability to Denmark if there is an employment relationship with a Danish employer or a foreign employer with a permanent establishment in this country, or the person has a permanent establishment in this country." Our reading: a self-employed model paid a fee by a Danish agency or client for a few days' work, with no Danish employer and no Danish establishment, owes no Danish tax on that fee and nothing is withheld; the fee is declared at home. Whether a given booking is employment depends on the facts, and we did not read the treaty position for any particular country. The artist-tax story familiar from the Netherlands or Germany does not exist here. Talk to a tax adviser before your first job and ask your home social-security institution about an A1 certificate: we did not check the social-insurance rules for posted and self-employed workers.

Papers and registration: CPR and tax number

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens need no work permit in Denmark. SIRI writes: "As an EU citizen you have the right to reside and work in Denmark with or without an EU residence document. You may freely enter Denmark and you may begin to work in Denmark upon arrival." After that, everything depends on how long you stay.

1. Up to 3 months. There is nothing to apply for. For a tax card a tax number is enough: "If you are working here for 3 months or less, you will get a tax number instead of a civil registration number." The employer can apply for the card at the earliest one month before the job; via TastSelv if you are already registered with an address and MitID, otherwise with form 04.063 (about two weeks) with the contract and your passport or ID card. Without a tax card 55% is withheld from a salary. If you only fly in for bookings and keep living abroad, ask the agency whether it needs a Danish number at all: for a self-employed model with no Danish employer there is no withholding.
2. Longer than 3 months. You need an EU residence document from SIRI: form OD1A online, no fee, normal processing "0 days" (up to one month if more information is needed); attach your passport or ID card and a contract or an employer's declaration signed within the last 60 days, and appear in person at a SIRI office within 30 days, where the document can be issued immediately. SIRI assesses whether you are a worker: "You must normally work for at least 10-⁠12 hours a week" for at least 10 to 12 weeks; an irregular worker can show payslips instead. The document has no expiry date, and job seekers may stay up to 6 months without one.
3. CPR number. If you intend to stay for 3 months or more (6 months for EU and Nordic citizens) you must notify the Civil Registration Office, and a permanent Danish address is mandatory. Apply in person at a Citizen Service centre or an International Citizen Service (ICS) centre with the EU residence document, passport and proof of address: "You therefore need an EU residence document before you can register an address and receive a Danish CPR number." ICS centres are in Copenhagen (ICS East), Aarhus (ICS West), Odense (ICS South), Aalborg (ICS North), Esbjerg and Sønderborg. The number has 10 digits: date of birth plus four.
4. After the CPR number. The health card arrives after 2 to 3 weeks, MitID needs a CPR number and age 15, and Digital Post follows automatically. NemKonto is the bank account that receives public payments and tax refunds; if you live abroad you can set up a non-Danish NemKonto. You can open a Danish bank account only once you have a tax card, with photo ID and an address. An employer reporting a non-resident's pay must have your home-country Tax Identification Number (TIN) since 1 January 2024.

If you are not an EU citizen

A non-EU national needs a residence and work permit; the application fee for the work schemes is DKK 6,810 in 2026. There is an exemption for models, but it is tiny: "Professional models who work in Denmark for a short period of time in connection with companies holding significant and international fashion shows and fashion fairs are exempt from the work permit requirement for up to 3 working days within a period of 180 days. The 3 working days can be used together or in 3 separate working periods of 1 day durations." A visa is still needed where your nationality requires one. The artists' exemption covers artists, musicians and performers who are the focal point of a public, ticketed artistic event of normally less than 14 days; whether a fashion show counts as such an event for a model is not verified. The longer routes are built for salaried jobs: the Pay Limit Scheme needs a job paying at least DKK 552,000 a year into a Danish bank account for at least 30 hours a week, and the scheme for special individual qualifications gives "a professional jockey" as its example; no scheme names models. SIRI answers in writing whether a permit is needed in a given case and issues a "guiding statement", so ask before you travel. Non-EU children under 13 also need the Arbejdstilsynet permit.

Scams and warning signs

Danish sources describe four recurring patterns.

• Fake scouts using a real agency's name on Instagram. On 5 September 2025 TV 2 Fyn, citing the fact-checker Tjekdet, reported that profiles posing as Le Management agents asked young women for their age, measurements and intimate pictures. The agency's legal adviser Ditte Roesgaard: "We have by now had quite a few enquiries from people who have been contacted by someone claiming to work for Le Management." A profile named "Alexander Stormgaard" claimed to be a Le Management scout, and no such person works there; a 16-year-old turned up at the agency's Copenhagen office believing he had an appointment. The agency was not involved in the fraud. Elite Copenhagen's site carries a standing notice that individuals online falsely pose as its agents and scouts and asks applicants not to engage until the identity is verified directly with Elite; Scoop's contact page warns about fake Scoop scouts, and Bornmodels has a "Recruitment warning" section.
• Webcam castings and payment for recruitment. Real agencies say the opposite: Scoop does "not cast via Skype, Facetime or other webcam options", Smash holds castings only face to face at the agency, CC Models never casts over Skype or social media and never asks for photos without clothes or in underwear, Elite never asks for payment to be recruited or for nude or lingerie pictures, and Vero warns: "Be cautious if someone online asks you to send pictures in underwear or nude." The police's National Unit for Special Crime warned on 6 February 2024 about sextortion after sharing intimate pictures.
• Phoenix companies. Avisen.dk described the Modelhouse Production case on 15 February 2015: an event coordinator was promised DKK 23,000 a month and paid DKK 13,800, with no holiday pay, pension or contract; he was dismissed after contacting his union HK, the city court ordered the agency to pay him DKK 103,399, HK petitioned it into bankruptcy, and the business continued "from the same address and with the same director, but under a different name" as 1st Modelbooking. HK's René Knudsen called it "pure and simple fraud, bankruptcy riding", and director Maria Christina did not wish to be interviewed. The register copy confirms that Modelhouse Production ApS ended on 29 July 2015. The company is not in the catalogue.
• Paid "model for a day" and unpaid work "for exposure". Casablanca Models sells a styled shoot with make-up to anyone aged 12 to 70 for DKK 1,950, and Trustpilot reviews of June 2022 criticised the service; the agency replied and asked for the participant's name. Such a shoot is a service, not representation. Working free "for the honour" was the norm in 2012 and 2013, and the charter's pay rule is the industry's answer to it.

One press report has nothing to do with scams, but you should know it, and we show it both on the profile and here. On 3 February 2026 the daily Berlingske reported that the name of Scoop Models appeared in released Jeffrey Epstein documents. Director Bente Lundquist confirmed that she had worked with Epstein's friend, the model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, but said she knew nothing of his "sexual interests". The station Radio4 appealed the same month to former Scoop models of the 1990s who had visited Epstein and Brunel. Only the standfirst was readable behind the paywall; the article does not say that the agency or its director is accused of a crime. We found no 2017 to 2018 #MeToo story naming a Danish model agency, photographer or scout in the Danish press.

Where to complain

• Arbejdstilsynet: about the conditions at any workplace, including a child's shoot; the complaint form is on at.dk, questions about children's permits go to arbejdstilladsertilborn@at.dk. The authority can visit unannounced, "for example during a concert, in the middle of a recording".
• Forbrugerombudsmanden: about misleading marketing, pressure on minors and a site without company details.
• SIRI: about permits and the EU residence document; it answers in writing whether a permit is needed.
• The police: about sextortion with intimate pictures and fraud.
• Skattestyrelsen: about the tax card, the tax number and B-indkomst.

More general warning signs are listed in the glossary entry on modeling scams.

How to apply

The safest road into Denmark runs through a mother agency: it sends digitals, measurements and a video to the Danish agencies and negotiates the terms once an offer comes. Copenhagen Fashion Week even requires each model's mother agency on the casting sheets. If you apply directly:

1. Choose agencies by city and board: the catalogue can be filtered at the top.
2. Read on the agency's profile what we found about fees to applicants, the company, the charter and the press.
3. Take photos in daylight without make-up. Unique asks for three natural photos, Legend for five without make-up, Smash for six, Selten for two against a white wall, Gossip for natural ones without filters, CC Models for two.
4. Measure your height and compare it with the requirements in the table above.
5. Use the channel the agency names: Unique, Scoop, Elite, Legend, Vero, Smash and Star Kids have online forms, Étoile, Gossip, Selten, LESS and CC Models ask for an e-mail, Highline also takes post, and 2pm, MA 11, RAD and 1·kid have no application page. Vero accepts applications only through its form.
6. If you want to meet in person, Unique Models' open casting runs every Friday from 14:00 to 16:00 (except holidays), and the Salling department stores hold castings with Unique in Jutland: the latest were on 16 October 2026 in Aalborg and 17 October 2026 in Aarhus. Highline Fashion, Nordjyske wrote in 2012, holds castings every three months, and LESS Models invites selected applicants to a monthly meeting with polaroid test shoots.
7. If you are under 18, give your parents' contact details and be ready to come with them.
8. Wait as long as the agency says: Unique replies within 14 days only if interested, LESS within about 14 days, BASIC CPH to everyone within 2 to 3 weeks, and Scoop and Selten write only to suitable applicants. Unique deletes an unselected applicant's data after 30 days.
9. Once invited, ask in writing for the contract, the commission, the binding period, the payment term, every fee you will be charged and who pays for travel and accommodation. Prepare for castings with our guide model casting: how to prepare.

Copenhagen Fashion Week and the calendar

Copenhagen Fashion Week calls itself the biggest fashion week in Northern Europe, held twice a year, in January or February and in August. It is a foundation funded by industry contributions and commercial partnerships, with the strategic partner Zalando as the main contributor; the board has been chaired since 1 January 2019 by Thomas Klausen, CEO of Dansk Mode & Textil, and the CEO since 2018 is Cecilie Thorsmark. The SS27 season ran from 3 to 7 August 2026, and the next season, AW27, runs from 1 to 5 February 2027. Dates for August 2027 had not been announced on the day we checked. All fashion week dates are in our fashion calendar, and the difference between SS and AW is explained in the glossary entry on fashion seasons.

A few rules matter to a model. Every brand on the official schedule must have signed the charter and must "consider diversity and inclusivity when casting models". Brands file medical certificates for models "who are not signed to a Danish MA", Danish models must have gone through the health check, and after the week the brands submit casting sheets with each model's full name, mother agency and social media handle. The sustainability requirements, binding since January 2023, consist of 19 minimum standards screened by an external committee led by Rambøll: no fur, exotic skins or feathers, no single-use plastic backstage, a code of conduct for suppliers. The partners are Oslo Runway, Berlin Fashion Week, the British Fashion Council and Amsterdam Fashion Week.

What a show costs the brand shows why fashion week is not a source of money for a model: an application fee of DKK 2,500 (waived under DKK 1 million turnover), a runway package from DKK 9,000 to DKK 40,500 depending on turnover plus a sustainability fee of DKK 450 to 2,400, presentations at DKK 5,000 to 28,000, while CPHFW NEWTALENT recipients pay no schedule fee but cover model casting, venue and PR themselves. In 2012 more than half of the catwalk models worked unpaid; since 2013 the agencies say they pay, and the charter's pay rule is now binding on every brand on the schedule. If you are invited to Copenhagen Fashion Week, ask your agency in writing for the fee, the show exclusive terms and who will file your medical certificate.