Denmark imported goods worth DKK 2,099.5 million from Portugal in the first seven months of 2026, according to Statistics Denmark’s trade-by-partner table, 5.0 percent more than the DKK 2,000.4 million recorded in January–July 2025. At the krone’s fixed rate that is about €281 million. The year started badly and turned sharply: the first four months were 12.6 percent below 2025, then May, June and July came in 32 percent above the same months of last year, with June (DKK 361.9 million) and July (DKK 361.7 million) the two strongest months since July 2024. The data, published on 8 September with July as the latest month, complete the set of Nordic mirror statistics NorthSouth HQ has assembled this month after the INE country tables, Statistics Norway and Statistics Sweden. Where Sweden’s purchases from Portugal are six kronor in ten industrial, Denmark’s are six kroner in ten consumer goods: clothing, shoes, ceramics, textiles, wine and furniture together make up 59 percent of the bill.
The growth comes off a weak base. Calendar 2025 was a down year for the Danish leg too: imports from Portugal fell 5.9 percent to DKK 3,290.1 million from DKK 3,496.4 million in 2024, almost entirely because of a single category, pharmaceuticals, which dropped from DKK 534 million to DKK 328 million. Strip that out and Danish demand for Portuguese goods was broadly flat in 2025 and is growing at close to double digits in 2026.
| SITC division | Jan–Jul 2025 (DKK M) | Jan–Jul 2026 (DKK M) | Change | Share 2026 | Full year 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 84 Clothing and accessories | 322.8 | 408.9 | +26.7% | 19.5% | 502.9 |
| 85 Footwear | 291.2 | 327.3 | +12.4% | 15.6% | 495.8 |
| 66 Non-metallic mineral manufactures (ceramics, glass, stone) | 139.2 | 177.6 | +27.5% | 8.5% | 235.7 |
| 65 Textile yarn, fabrics and made-ups | 137.0 | 146.3 | +6.8% | 7.0% | 231.9 |
| 69 Manufactures of metal | 128.0 | 93.6 | −26.9% | 4.5% | 181.7 |
| 11 Beverages | 83.8 | 91.3 | +8.9% | 4.3% | 194.3 |
| 74 General industrial machinery | 82.7 | 78.3 | −5.3% | 3.7% | 139.0 |
| 54 Medicinal and pharmaceutical products | 255.1 | 74.5 | −70.8% | 3.5% | 327.7 |
| 24 Cork and wood | 25.9 | 72.4 | +179.8% | 3.4% | 47.1 |
| 89 Miscellaneous manufactured articles | 62.9 | 70.0 | +11.3% | 3.3% | 116.3 |
| 78 Road vehicles | 10.2 | 58.2 | n/m | 2.8% | 65.4 |
| 29 Crude animal and vegetable materials | 41.7 | 55.3 | +32.7% | 2.6% | 57.9 |
| 88 Photographic and optical goods, watches | 48.2 | 47.6 | −1.2% | 2.3% | 77.9 |
| 58 Plastics in non-primary forms | 46.9 | 45.6 | −2.9% | 2.2% | 71.0 |
| 68 Non-ferrous metals | 17.0 | 32.4 | +90.9% | 1.5% | 25.9 |
| 05 Vegetables and fruit | 41.8 | 29.4 | −29.8% | 1.4% | 63.0 |
| 77 Electrical machinery and appliances | 34.2 | 23.7 | −30.7% | 1.1% | 51.5 |
| 82 Furniture and bedding | 32.7 | 17.1 | −47.6% | 0.8% | 52.1 |
| 63 Cork and wood manufactures | 12.2 | 15.5 | +27.3% | 0.7% | 22.3 |
| All goods | 2,000.4 | 2,099.5 | +5.0% | 100% | 3,290.1 |
Source: Statistics Denmark (DST), table SITC2R4, imports by 2-digit SITC and country, border-crossing principle, data to July 2026 published 8 September 2026; NorthSouth HQ calculations. n/m = not meaningful.
Clothing and shoes: DKK 736 million, a third of everything
Clothing (SITC 84) is the largest line at DKK 408.9 million, up 26.7 percent, and footwear (SITC 85) the second at DKK 327.3 million, up 12.4 percent. Together they are DKK 736 million, 35 percent of Danish imports from Portugal, and both are growing faster than the total. This is the corridor everyone can see: the Danish fashion brands that source in northern Portugal, from Ganni, whose named strategic suppliers include the Braga knitwear maker Ramil, to Danish Endurance, whose performance socks are made in Portuguese factories, and the footwear brands that buy in Felgueiras and São João da Madeira, with ECCO’s own Eccolet factory in Santa Maria da Feira, its first outside Denmark, producing since 1984. The footwear figure is the one NorthSouth HQ flagged in its footwear piece on Monday: Denmark is Portugal’s largest Nordic shoe market by some distance, buying about three times what Norway does and four times what Sweden does on 2025 full-year figures, and it is still growing while Portuguese footwear exports as a whole fell 2.1 percent in the first half.
Textiles (SITC 65, yarns, fabrics and home textiles) add DKK 146.3 million, up 6.8 percent, so the whole textile-clothing-footwear complex is DKK 882 million, 42 percent of the total. The third fast-growing consumer line is non-metallic mineral manufactures (SITC 66), which in Portugal’s case means ceramics, tableware, glass and cut stone: DKK 177.6 million, up 27.5 percent, and on course to beat 2025’s DKK 235.7 million comfortably. Vista Alegre, Bordallo Pinheiro and the ceramics clusters around Caldas da Rainha and Águeda sell into a Danish market with an unusually strong appetite for design tableware. Beverages (SITC 11), which for Portugal is wine and port for the Danish grocery and restaurant trade, rose 8.9 percent to DKK 91.3 million, a contrast with the 11 percent decline recorded by Sweden, where the state monopoly decides the shelf.
Cork nearly triples; pharma collapses; furniture halves
The largest single swing in percentage terms is cork and wood (SITC 24, raw and semi-worked cork, sawn wood): from DKK 25.9 million to DKK 72.4 million, and already above the whole of 2025 (DKK 47.1 million), though still short of 2024’s DKK 120.8 million. Cork manufactures (SITC 63, stoppers, flooring, composites) added DKK 15.5 million, up 27.3 percent; Corticeira Amorim and Amorim Cork Composites are the obvious names behind both lines. Non-ferrous metals nearly doubled to DKK 32.4 million and road vehicles went from DKK 10.2 million to DKK 58.2 million, a jump that in Denmark’s small market is more likely a fleet or bus consignment than a trend.
On the other side of the ledger, pharmaceuticals (SITC 54) fell 70.8 percent to DKK 74.5 million, continuing a collapse from DKK 534 million in 2024 to DKK 328 million in 2025. The Danish pharmaceutical trade with Portugal is dominated by intra-group flows, and the two-digit table does not say whose; what it does say is that a category that was Denmark’s largest import from Portugal in 2024 is now its eighth. Manufactures of metal (SITC 69) fell 26.9 percent to DKK 93.6 million, furniture (SITC 82) almost halved to DKK 17.1 million, electrical machinery fell 30.7 percent to DKK 23.7 million and fruit and vegetables dropped 29.8 percent to DKK 29.4 million.
The Danish side: exports to Portugal up 4.9 percent despite a pharma halving
Denmark sold Portugal goods worth DKK 2,626.2 million (about €352 million) in January–July, up 4.9 percent, after a 2025 in which exports jumped 20 percent to DKK 4,449.9 million. The mix changed completely. Pharmaceuticals, Denmark’s biggest export to Portugal last year at DKK 1,236.5 million, fell 57.7 percent to DKK 322.7 million in the seven months; the lost ground was made up by perfumery and toiletries (SITC 55, DKK 233.4 million, up 35.8 percent), general industrial machinery (DKK 216.3 million, up 20.1 percent), power-generating machinery (SITC 71, DKK 176.8 million from DKK 16.3 million, in a division that includes engines, turbines and generating sets), specialised industrial machinery (DKK 160.3 million, up 178 percent), clothing (DKK 140.4 million, up 93.6 percent, consistent with Danish brands such as Bestseller stocking a growing Portuguese store network from Danish hubs) and cereals (DKK 100.5 million from DKK 17.3 million). Fish, the traditional Danish export to Portugal, fell 21 percent to DKK 176.2 million, and meat rose 36 percent to DKK 97.4 million. Denmark’s goods surplus with Portugal widened slightly, to DKK 527 million from DKK 503 million.
Reconciling with INE
As with Sweden, the Danish figures are lower than the Portuguese ones. INE’s July release put Portuguese exports to Denmark at €385.9 million for January–July, up 7.8 percent; Statistics Denmark’s €281 million is about 27 percent less. The gap is wider than Sweden’s 9 percent and has the same cause: Statistics Denmark’s intra-EU import figures are by country of consignment, so Portuguese clothing, shoes and wine that pass through a German or Dutch distribution centre before crossing into Denmark are booked to Germany or the Netherlands. Given how much Portuguese apparel and footwear moves through central-European hubs run by the brands themselves, a large routing gap is exactly what one would expect. In the other direction INE records €411.6 million of imports from Denmark, 17 percent more than the €352 million Statistics Denmark records as exports, for the mirror-image reason. Both series agree on direction: the Danish leg of the corridor is growing in 2026, led by exactly the consumer categories in which Portugal has spent two decades building a premium.
Statistics Denmark’s August figures are due around 8 October, when Statistics Sweden’s July and Norway’s September data will also be in; NorthSouth HQ will update the three-country series then. Portuguese exporters with named Danish customers, from Bestseller’s and Ganni’s suppliers to cork, ceramics and wine, are listed in the Portuguese Companies in Scandinavia directory; Danish companies operating in Portugal are in the Danish Companies in Portugal directory.