E-scooters in Copenhagen: renting a Lime, the city’s no-rental zone, and Denmark’s rules

Which e-scooter apps work in Copenhagen?

Lime. When the Municipality of Copenhagen (Københavns Kommune) last invited companies to rent out scooters, in September 2024, only one applied for 2025 to 2027, so the city made an agreement with Lime alone, its page says (read 2 November 2026). You unlock a scooter in the Lime app.

At 8:57 am on Monday 2 November 2026, Danish time, the Copenhagen map showed about 580 Lime scooters as last counted. The map shows the nearest one and the walk to it, and a button opens the app.

Check the price in the app before you unlock. New to shared scooters? See how to rent an e-scooter.

Copenhagen’s own rules: a no-rental zone and about 400 parking areas

Danish law sets how you ride, but the city decides where rental scooters may stand. A company needs an agreement with the municipality before it puts scooters on public land, and the city sets the terms:

• A cap. At most 3,200 rental scooters in the municipality, outside the no-rental zone, shared between two to four companies.
• A no-rental zone in the dense city. No rental scooters may be put out in Indre By (the old centre), Islands Brygge, Christianshavn, by Svanemøllen Strand, or in parts of Valby, Amagerbro, Nørrebro, Vesterbro and Østerbro.
• About 400 parking areas. Outside the zone, rental scooters may stand only in about 400 selected parking areas, which the city shows on its map.
• Three-year agreements. The current one runs from 2025 for three years; the city plans its next call for companies at the end of 2027.

The model goes back to 2021, when the agreements began and the scooters returned to the streets on terms like these. The city explained then that you could still ride through the whole city and stop for a moment while the ride was running, but could not end a ride inside the zone, except on private land. On 24 August 2023 the City Council (Borgerrepræsentationen) voted 44 to 11 to keep the model as it was: parking only in agreed, GPS-controlled areas, with none laid out on public roads in the zone.

Plan the end of your ride. If you are heading for the old centre, Christianshavn or Islands Brygge, end your ride in a parking area outside the zone and walk the last stretch.

Can you ride an e-scooter in Copenhagen? Age and helmet

Yes, from the age of 15. The rules are set by an executive order, BEK nr 40 of 14 January 2019 (BEK 40), and Rådet for Sikker Trafik, the Danish Road Safety Council, lists them on its page for e-scooters (el-løbehjul):

• Age: 15 or over (BEK 40, § 10). Under 15, a child may ride only with an adult of at least 18, or alone in signed play areas and on private land.
• Helmet: compulsory for every rider, adults included, since 1 January 2022 (§ 10 a). Riding without one costs DKK 1,500. Bring one when you rent.
• One rider only: no passengers.
• Lights: on whenever you ride, day and night.
• Phone: no phone in your hand while you ride, as on a bicycle.

An e-scooter is legal on Danish roads only if it can go no faster than 20 km/h on its motor alone (BEK 40, § 1) and can’t be set to go faster. The police can confiscate an illegal one.

Where can you ride an e-scooter in Copenhagen?

Ride as a cyclist does. Danish rules tell e-scooter riders to follow the cycling rules: use the cycle track where there is one, and obey the cyclists’ lights and signs.

• Never on the pavement. Pavements, footpaths and pedestrian crossings are off limits.
• Signal. Give a hand signal when you turn or stop, as cyclists do.
• Take care when you overtake. The council warns that others find your speed hard to judge and that you can be hard to hear coming from behind.

Rådet for Sikker Trafik warns that standing up makes an e-scooter hard to balance and that, on its small wheels, even a small hole in the road can bring you down. Its advice: practise before you ride in traffic, until you can ride steadily, brake quickly and give signals without losing your balance.

Where can you park a rental e-scooter in Copenhagen?

Only in one of the city’s parking areas, and only outside the no-rental zone. The areas are virtual, GPS-controlled ones, and the city’s map shows all of them. Park lawfully and considerately, Rådet for Sikker Trafik advises, so the scooter bothers no one and nobody trips over it.

In 2023, as the parking areas were working, the city moved from regular checks of rental scooters to spot checks. When the scheme began, it said scooters found outside the areas and not on a ride would be collected, with a bill of DKK 338 each to the company, a fee it kept in 2023.

If a rental scooter is in your way, the city asks you to complain to the company that rents it, which can deal with it straight away; its contact details are on the scooter.

Denmark’s e-scooter rules and fines in one table

These national rules apply in Copenhagen as everywhere in Denmark.

DKK 1,000 is the council’s one fine for breaking the traffic rules on an e-scooter.

Drinking, insurance and night rides

• Alcohol. The limit is 0.5 per mille (færdselsloven § 53), with a zero limit for illegal drugs. Stopped over the limit, you are arrested and a blood sample is taken. The fine is DKK 2,000 the first time and DKK 4,000 the second; a third time can mean prison. After an evening in Nyhavn, walk or take the Metro.
• Insurance. On a rental scooter it is the company’s duty to hold the compulsory liability insurance for any damage you cause, and you must be able to show proof of it, tourists included; the app or the company’s website should show it. Ride against the rules and the insurance may not pay: hit someone on the pavement, for example, and you could face a very large claim yourself.
• At night. Your lights must be on anyway, day and night: white or yellow at the front, red at the back, clearly visible from at least 300 metres (BEK 40, § 8).

Metro, S-tog, buses and the harbour bus

On a rental scooter, end your ride in a parking area near the station and walk in. For a scooter of your own, Din Offentlige Transport, the partnership of DSB, the Metro, Movia and Hovedstadens Letbane, gives these rules; staff decide whether there is room:

• Small and folded: a scooter that folds to under 30 × 60 × 100 cm travels free on trains and buses, folded for the whole trip. A bigger one counts as a bicycle.
• Metro: a bicycle or larger scooter needs a bicycle ticket and may not travel on weekdays from 7:00 to 9:00 or from 15:30 to 17:30.
• S-tog: free, but you can’t get on or off with it at Nørreport on weekdays from 7:00 to 9:00 or from 15:30 to 17:30.
• Buses (Movia): it stands in the middle of the bus, strapped in, if the driver finds room. Not on lines 1 to 100 or S-buses in weekday rush hours (7:00 to 9:00 and 15:30 to 17:30); not, from 0:30 to 4:30 on Friday and Saturday nights, on night buses and lines 1A, 2A, 4A, 5C, 6A, 7A and 8A; and never on minibuses or Nærbusser.
• Harbour bus: always free.

Coming back out, open the Copenhagen map to find the nearest Lime to the station exit.

Over the bridge to Malmö

Malmö, across the Øresund Bridge, is in Sweden, with Swedish law and its own rules for rental scooters: see our Malmö guide. A bicycle on the Øresund train needs an Øresund bicycle ticket, unless the whole trip is between Copenhagen Airport and Østerport, and a scooter of your own that doesn’t fold small counts as a bicycle.

Did you know?

• Thirteen companies. In 2021 the city recalled that rental scooters had first appeared three years before, when riding an e-scooter on public roads wasn’t legal at all; later, scooters from 13 companies stood on its land, before the agreements of 2021.
• From four to one. Four companies showed interest in 2021. Tier and Bolt ended their agreements in spring 2023, leaving Voi and Lime, and for 2025 to 2027 there was a single applicant: the agreement is with Lime alone.
• More parking areas voted down. In 2023 the companies proposed 59 or 132 parking areas inside the no-rental zone. On 24 August the City Council voted down three amendments for about 132, 59 or 30 more areas, each by 34 votes to 19.
• Riskier than a bike. Danish and foreign studies put the accident risk on an e-scooter at 5 to 10 times that on a bicycle, Rådet for Sikker Trafik said in September 2024.