The list everyone searches for no longer exists
Every year in June, museum people, journalists and tourism professionals look for the same overview. Who had the most visitors? Who rose, and who fell?
Since September 2024 the answer has been more complicated. VisitDenmark discontinued the Attractions List because the data could no longer give an accurate picture. The last list covers 2023.
This article is the analysis for 2026. It is based on DST's visitor figures for calendar year 2025, published on 1 June 2026. Visitor figures for 2026 do not exist yet. The next DST release is 27 April 2027.
Statistics Denmark still publishes raw data and a short news item. On 1 June 2026 the figures for 2025 arrived. They show 17.6 million visits to museum exhibitions, spread across 398 visitor sites. It is the third year in a row with an increase. The growth is small. And it is not evenly distributed.
Here are the figures that actually exist. No new, unofficial ranking on top of DST. Method first, then DST's own top ten for state and state-recognised museums, and finally where you look up your own figures.
What the Attractions List was, and why it disappeared
For many years VisitDenmark collected visitor numbers for museums, zoos, aquariums and amusement parks in one annual publication. The list was used for benchmarking, press coverage and internal reporting. It was the closest thing Denmark had to a combined attractions ranking.
In 2024 VisitDenmark first changed its method. From then on the list was to be based only on official sources, in practice Statistics Denmark and HORESTA. Places that did not appear there dropped out. That change alone made the list harder to compare with earlier years.
In September 2024 VisitDenmark dropped the list altogether. The reason was data validity. Attractions in Denmark have such different classifications and such different reporting bases that the list could not give an accurate picture. Some of the largest tourist attractions did not appear at all.
There is therefore no longer a curated national overview of Denmark's most visited museums. DST's museum statistics are now the de facto source. They are narrower than the Attractions List. They cover museums, not amusement parks. In return they are official, annual and documented.
What Statistics Denmark actually published on 1 June 2026
DST's news item is short. It is also the best overall account that exists.
17.6 million visits to museum exhibitions in 2025. The year before the figure was 17.5 million. In 2023 it was 17.4 million. A third year in a row with an increase, and at the same time three years at much the same level. DST's own wording is that 2025 is "on a par with" 2024 and 2023.
Museums also count visitors who do not enter the exhibition. Café, garden, park and events on the museum grounds without access to the exhibition. In 2025 there were 3.6 million such visitors. Total visits came to 21.2 million, 700,000 more than in 2024. Of that, visitors without an exhibition visit accounted for 600,000 of the increase.
Exhibition visits rose by around 100,000. Most of the growth in the overall figure lies outside the exhibition.
The number of visitor sites was 398. DST's news item rounds it to "about 400". A visitor site can be a museum or an exhibition venue under a museum. The War Museum and Kronborg Castle, for example, are visitor sites under the National Museum of Denmark.
The distribution by category is unchanged from earlier years:
- Cultural history museums: 10 million exhibition visits. 74 per cent of visitor sites.
- Art museums: 4.6 million visits. 16 per cent of visitor sites.
- Museum-like institutions: 2.4 million visits. 9 per cent of visitor sites.
- Natural history museums: 500,000 visits. 2 per cent of visitor sites.
Cultural history museums therefore have both the most sites and the most visitors. Art museums have a higher concentration. Fewer sites, but a large share of the largest individual museums.
The next official update is 27 April 2027.
How DST counts a museum visit
Before you use a ranking, you need to know what it counts.
DST's headline figure is visits to the exhibition. That also includes visits in connection with events and teaching in the exhibition. It does not automatically include café, shop, outdoor areas or events without exhibition access. Those visitors sit in the separate figure of 3.6 million.
The statistics cover state-recognised museums, state-owned museums and a number of museums owned by associations or private bodies. They have been produced annually since 1984. In their current form they are comparable from 2009 for state and state-recognised museums, and from 2016 for museums without state funding.
From 2016 DST only publishes visitor-number lists for individual state and state-recognised museums. The lists sit on the topic page and go back to 2016. Museums for which DST has imputed data are not included in the list. The total on the list therefore does not always match StatBank.
DST also reports at visitor-site level. A museum with several branches can therefore appear as several lines. That is practical if you want to see Kronborg on its own. It is misleading if you assume that "one museum" is always one line in the top ten.
A further caveat that DST itself writes under the table: the top ten excludes museum-like institutions. Art halls and experience centres in science and cultural history are not included. A large institution in that category can have more visitors than several of the museums on the list without appearing.
If you look up your own figure, check three things. Whether you appear as one museum or several visitor sites. Whether the figure is exhibition visits or total visits. And whether you are comparing with a year in which the counting practice was the same.
The ten most visited museums in 2025
DST itself published a top ten in the news item of 1 June 2026. The figures are rounded to thousands and cover visits to the exhibition. Museum-like institutions are kept out.
| Rank | Museum | Category | Visits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Louisiana | Art | 727,000 |
| 2 | Den Gamle By | Cultural history | 560,000 |
| 3 | ARoS | Art | 556,000 |
| 4 | Rosenborgsamlingen | Cultural history | 554,000 |
| 5 | Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek | Art | 530,000 |
| 6 | Christiansborg Slot | Cultural history | 528,000 |
| 7 | Prinsens Palais | Cultural history | 416,000 |
| 8 | Statens Museum for Kunst | Art | 402,000 |
| 9 | Moesgård Museum | Cultural history | 372,000 |
| 10 | Statens Naturhistoriske Museum | Natural history | 365,000 |
Source: Statistics Denmark, News 1 June 2026. DST writes "more than 727,000" about Louisiana in the body text and 727 in the table. We use the table figure.
The ten museums accounted for 33 per cent of all exhibition visits in 2025. A third of visitors therefore went into ten places. The rest were spread across the remaining visitor sites of the 398.
Four of the ten are art museums. Five are cultural history museums. The Natural History Museum of Denmark is the only one in the top ten that is neither art nor cultural history.
The gaps between places are small in the upper half. From Den Gamle By in second place to Christiansborg Slot in sixth there are 32,000 visits. A strong special exhibition, a longer closure or a change in counting can move rankings without changing the real picture very much.
Prinsens Palais is the National Museum of Denmark's main building. It stands as a separate line, while other National Museum visitor sites stand on their own. If you read the list as "Denmark's ten largest museum organisations", you overestimate the spread and underestimate the large institutions with several addresses.
We have not added our own figures below tenth place. DST's detailed list for 2025 sits on the topic page. That is the right place to look up museums outside the top ten, and the right place to compare 2025 with earlier years.
The growth is real. It is also uneven.
DST counts the whole sector. The Organisation of Danish Museums (ODM) counts its members. The two accounts do not answer the same question, and they should not be added together.
ODM asked its members between 21 January and 2 February 2026. 72 museums replied, 50 per cent of the 143 museum members in the survey. The 72 museums had around 9 million visitors between them, on a par with 2024.
The distribution behind the average:
- 28 per cent had an increase of more than 10 per cent.
- 55 per cent were stable, understood as a swing of less than 10 per cent.
- 18 per cent had a drop of more than 10 per cent.
Every sixth museum in the survey therefore went backwards by more than 10 per cent, in a year when the national exhibition figure rose. That is the distribution a museum should hold up against its own figure. A national increase says nothing about your own house.
ODM also notes that some museums with a drop in the reported figures have changed how they count. Visitor volume in the building may be unchanged. State-recognised museums must now report visitor numbers to the Agency for Culture and Palaces according to the reform criteria. Only visitors in exhibitions and participants in professional events count, and the events only if they are ticketed. Exhibitions in public space, unticketed events and users of outdoor areas, café and the like are not included.
Some museums have reported the new, narrower figures in the ODM survey. Others have reported the broader ones. The figures for 2025 are therefore not fully comparable with the preceding years. That is ODM's own caveat, and it should travel with the 18 per cent whenever you quote them.
The finances in the survey point the same way as the visitor distribution. 79 per cent expect the 2025 accounts to break even or show a surplus. In 2023 the figure was 88 per cent. 14 per cent expect a substantial deficit, against 10 per cent in 2023. More visitors nationally is not the same as more money at the individual museum.
What the ranking can be used for
An annual ranking is a benchmark for the largest state and state-recognised museums, counted as exhibition visits. It is a national marker for whether the sector is holding its level. And it is a place to look up your own figure and compare it with yourself over time.
It does not cover the whole attractions market. Tivoli, zoos and holiday parks sit outside. Museum-like institutions sit outside DST's top ten. Private museums without state funding are included in the national totals, but are missing from the public individual lists from 2016 onwards.
Visitor numbers say how many came in. They say nothing about who came, how long they stayed, whether they came back, or what they took with them.
If you want to compare yourselves with others, choose museums with the same counting basis, the same type and preferably the same order of size. An art museum with 80,000 exhibition visits gets more from looking at other art museums in the same range than at Louisiana's 727,000.
DST's lists back to 2016 are the most stable starting point we have. Use them as a time series for your own museum before you use them as a race.
Visitor numbers are now also grant numbers
The museum reform took effect on 1 January 2025 and is being phased in over four years, so the model is fully in place in 2028. The variable incentive grant, around 24 per cent of the envelope, is calculated in part on visitor numbers. Only the top half of museums on each parameter receive a grant. The calculation is based on a three-year average, recalculated annually.
The Agency for Culture and Palaces has published the thresholds for 2026, based on the 2022-2024 average. Museums with between 3,636 and 37,021 annual visits on average received 0 kroner in variable grant on the visitor parameter. The interval 39,747-44,840 triggered 153,567 kroner. The difference between 0 and the first payment is in the order of 2,700 annual visits.
On top of that comes the minimum requirement of 10,000 annual visitors to retain state recognition, 8,000 for museums on smaller islands. Museums that do not meet the requirements get two years to put things right.
A drop of more than 10 per cent, which 18 per cent of ODM's participants reported for 2025, hits both reputation and grant. It can move the three-year average, and it can move the museum below a threshold. ODM's point about the new counting criteria belongs here. A drop that is only because café and outdoor areas no longer count can still feed through into the grant, because it is the new criteria the state uses.
Investments in 2026 only feed through into the grant for 2029, via the 2026-2028 average. That is the time lag that makes this year's figures worth more than they look.
What an extra visitor is worth in concrete terms, and how the thresholds look in kroner, is set out in What is an extra visitor worth?. The structure of the reform, the basic grant and the phase-in are gathered in The Danish museum reform.
The next figures come on 27 April 2027
DST updates the museum statistics once a year. The next time is 27 April 2027. Until then the 2025 figures are the official picture.
If you need 2025 for a board, a municipality or the press, cite DST for the national figures and for the top ten, and cite ODM for the distribution behind the average. Write the method in. Exhibition visits are not the same as everyone who steps onto the grounds. A visitor site is not always a museum. And a national increase of 100,000 exhibition visits is compatible with every sixth museum in ODM's survey falling by more than 10 per cent.
VisitDenmark has said that it will keep looking at whether comparable data can cover all attractions. Until that happens, DST's topic page is the place the list lives.
Sources
- Statistics Denmark: Museum visitors rise for the third year in a row (1 June 2026, next release 27 April 2027)
- Statistics Denmark, topic page Museums
- Organisation of Danish Museums, membership survey on visitor numbers 2025 (collected 21 January to 2 February 2026)
- VisitDenmark, Attractions in Denmark / the Attractions List (list discontinued September 2024)
- Agency for Culture and Palaces, operating grants for state-recognised museums (thresholds for variable grant 2026)
- Agency for Culture and Palaces, requirements and supervision (minimum requirement of 10,000 annual visitors)
About the author: Thøger Elung-Jensen is co-founder of Audioguiden and works with data and interpretation in the Danish museum sector.