Denmark on an Italian Licence — No ZTLs, but Mind the Bridge Tolls

Denmark is a relief to drive after Italy. Your EU licence is valid as it is, no IDP, and the traffic is slow-pulsed and disciplined rather than improvisational. Best of all, the thing that quietly bleeds Italian drivers at home — the ZTL restricted-access camera zones in every historic centre — simply doesn’t exist here. You can drive into a Danish town centre without checking whether a hidden camera is about to post you a fine weeks later. Copenhagen has a low-emission zone aimed at older diesels, but standard rental cars meet it, so there’s no permit dance.

What you trade that for is a couple of bridge tolls. Denmark is a scatter of islands joined by engineering, and two of those joins cost money: the Great Belt between Zealand and Funen at roughly DKK 250 (≈ EUR 34) each way, and the Øresund across to Malmö in Sweden at about DKK 510 (≈ EUR 68). They’re the main east–west routes, not optional, so plan for them. You can estimate the toll on our vignette and toll calculator.

The alcohol limit is the same 0.05 as Italy, but the way fines work is different — serious offences are scaled to your income rather than fixed, so the headline number understates the risk. Speeds are 130 km/h on motorways, 80 rural, 50 in towns, with cameras common; a 10-over ticket is about DKK 1,000 (≈ EUR 135), checkable on the speeding fine calculator.

One genuinely new habit: Danish cycling. Bikes have dedicated lanes and priority at junctions, so glance at your inside lane before every right turn — it’s the most common slip for southern-European visitors used to roads where cyclists yield. Only a warning triangle is legally required in the car, fuel runs near $2.05/litre, and the emergency number is 112. The full local detail is on our Denmark driving guide.