Denmark’s PISA 2025 profile combines a relatively strong mathematics position with a much weaker recent trend. Mathematics remained above the OECD average, while science and reading were close to it. Yet all three Danish mean scores were lower in 2025 than in 2022 and lower than in every assessment before 2022 within their comparable series.
Denmark’s PISA 2025 scores and international standing
The latest cycle places Denmark close to the OECD benchmark in two domains and above it in mathematics, but mean-score ordering tells only part of the story.
PISA 2025 results for Denmark
Mean scores, OECD comparison, change from PISA 2022 and calculated position by reported mean score.
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| Domain | Denmark | OECD average | Gap vs. OECD | Change since 2022 | Score-based position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Science | 478 | 482 | −4 | −16 | 31st |
| Mathematics | 471 | 463 | +8 | −19 | 20th |
| Reading | 460 | 461 | −1 | −29 | 27th |
Score-based positions are calculated by ordering OECD-published rounded mean scores among participating countries and economies with reported values. They are descriptive positions, not official OECD statistical ranks.
Mathematics is Denmark’s strongest domain relative to the OECD benchmark: its mean is eight points above the OECD average. Reading is one point below the OECD average and science four points below it. The larger contrast is temporal rather than cross-sectional: Denmark lost more points than the OECD average in every core domain between 2022 and 2025.
Denmark’s 2022–2025 declines were larger than the OECD-average declines
Score-point change in the three core PISA domains.
The chart compares arithmetic changes in published mean scores; it does not imply that every cross-cycle difference has the same degree of statistical certainty.
OECD pairwise comparisons show that Denmark’s science mean of 478 was not statistically distinguishable from the means reported for Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Spain, Croatia, the Slovak Republic and Luxembourg. Those published means span from 486 to 474. A simple ordinal position therefore gives more apparent precision than the uncertainty in the estimates supports.
Denmark scored 506 in computational problem solving, compared with an OECD average of 500. This is a separate PISA 2025 domain and should not be merged with the historical mathematics, reading or science series.
Denmark’s PISA scores from 2000 to 2025
Denmark has participated in every PISA cycle since 2000. The standard long-run comparison begins in 2000 for reading, 2003 for mathematics and 2006 for science.
Historical mean scores by PISA cycle
All available cycles in Denmark’s core-domain series.
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| PISA cycle | Reading | Mathematics | Science |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 497 | — | — |
| 2003 | 492 | 514 | — |
| 2006 | 494 | 513 | 496 |
| 2009 | 495 | 503 | 499 |
| 2012 | 496 | 500 | 498 |
| 2015 | 500 | 511 | 502 |
| 2018 | 501 | 509 | 493 |
| 2022 | 489 | 489 | 494 |
| 2025 | 460 | 471 | 478 |
A dash indicates a cycle before the standard long-run comparison baseline for that domain. It is not a zero score or an interpolated value.
The 2025 drop followed very different earlier paths across the three domains
Denmark’s reported PISA mean scores across all comparable assessment cycles.
The vertical scale starts at 430 because PISA scores are scale scores rather than percentages; the axis range is shown explicitly so differences are not mistaken for zero-based quantities.
- Reading stayed within a narrow 492–501 range from 2000 through 2018 before falling to 489 in 2022 and 460 in 2025.
- Mathematics declined through 2012, recovered in 2015 and 2018, then fell by 38 points between 2018 and 2025.
- Science was comparatively stable through 2022: its 2006–2022 observations ranged from 493 to 502. The 2025 score of 478 sits below that earlier band.
Mathematics: the earlier recovery did not persist
Mathematics began its comparable Danish series at 514 points in 2003, followed by 513 in 2006. The mean fell to 500 by 2012, then rose to 511 in 2015 and 509 in 2018. PISA 2022 reduced the mean to 489, and PISA 2025 brought it to 471.
The first-to-latest difference is −43 points, calculated from the OECD-published 2003 and 2025 means. Despite that long-run decline, mathematics remains Denmark’s strongest domain relative to the current OECD average.
Reading: the sharpest recent deterioration
Reading looked unusually stable for much of Denmark’s PISA history. The mean moved from 497 in 2000 to a series high of 501 in 2018, a spread of only nine points across seven assessments. The pattern changed after 2018: reading fell to 489 in 2022 and then to 460 in 2025.
The 2025 mean is 41 points below the 2018 high and 37 points below the 2000 starting value. Reading also recorded Denmark’s largest 2022–2025 decline among the three core subjects, at 29 points.
Science: a narrow historical band before 2025
From 2006 through 2022, Denmark’s science mean stayed between 493 and 502. The highest observation was 502 in 2015; the 2018 and 2022 results were 493 and 494. PISA 2025 lowered the mean to 478, 16 points below 2022 and 24 points below the 2015 high.
That makes 2025 different from the earlier science pattern. OECD’s Denmark country note also reports that the 2025 mean in each of the three core subjects was lower than in every assessment before 2022.
The 2025 distribution shows a stronger proficiency floor but a thinner top
Mean scores do not show how students are distributed across proficiency levels. Denmark’s 2025 proficiency profile differs from the OECD average at both ends.
Minimum proficiency and top performers in Denmark
Share of students reaching Level 2 or higher and the share reaching Levels 5–6 in PISA 2025.
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| Domain | Denmark: Level 2+ | OECD: Level 2+ | Denmark: Levels 5–6 | OECD: Levels 5–6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Science | 75% | 74% | 5% | 7% |
| Mathematics | 72% | 65% | 5% | 8% |
| Reading | 71% | 69% | 4% | 6% |
Denmark has a higher share reaching the baseline Level 2 threshold than the OECD average in science, mathematics and reading, while its share of top performers is lower in all three. A mean score near the OECD average therefore hides a different distribution of achievement.
Low-performing shares have risen since 2015
OECD trend data show that deterioration is not limited to the mean. Between PISA 2015 and PISA 2025, the share of Danish students below Level 2 increased in every core domain.
The performance distribution also widened between 2022 and 2025. OECD reports that the score gap between Denmark’s highest-scoring 10% and lowest-scoring 10% increased during that period, with the widening especially pronounced in mathematics.
Denmark compared with the other Nordic countries in PISA 2025
The Nordic comparison gives Denmark’s international position a closer peer context than a single global ordinal number.
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| Country | Science | Mathematics | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland | 504 | 469 | 474 |
| Sweden | 485 | 464 | 466 |
| Denmark | 478 | 471 | 460 |
| Norway* | 470 | 452 | 453 |
| Iceland | 441 | 450 | 422 |
* OECD advises caution when interpreting Norway’s 2025 estimates because one or more PISA sampling standards were not met.
Denmark has the highest reported mathematics mean among the five Nordic countries in 2025, at 471 compared with Finland’s 469. In science and reading, Denmark is below Finland and Sweden but above Norway and Iceland. The two-point mathematics separation from Finland is a descriptive difference in rounded means and should not be treated as a statistically established Nordic rank.
Socio-economic differences in Danish science performance
PISA 2025 also shows how Denmark’s science mean is distributed across students with different socio-economic backgrounds.
Students in Denmark’s most advantaged national socio-economic quarter outscored those in the least advantaged quarter by 69 points in science. The corresponding OECD-average difference was 85 points. OECD also reports that Denmark’s science gap between these groups remained broadly stable from 2015 to 2025 because performance declined to a similar extent among advantaged and disadvantaged students.
These measures do not remove the association between background and achievement. They show that the measured socio-economic science gap in Denmark was narrower than the OECD average in PISA 2025.
International standing and Denmark’s own trend point in different directions
Denmark’s 2025 international position is not weak in the same way as its time series. Mathematics remains above the OECD average, while science and reading are close to the OECD benchmark. Within Denmark’s own historical record, however, 2025 is the lowest observed mean in all three comparable core-domain series.
The proficiency data add another distinction. Denmark still has a larger share of students reaching Level 2 than the OECD average in each core domain, but a smaller share reaching the highest proficiency levels. The result is a profile with a comparatively stronger baseline threshold, fewer top performers and a recent downward movement that is larger than the OECD-average decline.
Data Sources and Measurement
In Denmark, 5,098 students in 283 schools completed PISA 2025, representing about 56,500 15-year-olds, or an estimated 80% of the country’s total 15-year-old population. The school response rate did not fully meet the PISA standard, and student exclusions exceeded the tolerance specified in the technical standards. OECD reports that, after further analyses, Denmark’s data were considered fit for reporting.
The 2025 mean scores, proficiency shares, score-change statements, socio-economic measures, participation sample and Denmark-specific data-quality information are based on the OECD PISA 2025 Results: Denmark country note.
Cross-country PISA 2025 mean scores, short-term changes and pairwise science comparisons come from OECD PISA 2025 Results, Volume I: Student Performance. Score-based positions on this page are calculated from the reported rounded means and are not official OECD ordinal ranks.
The pre-2025 Danish series is drawn from official OECD trend tables, including the PISA 2018 performance-trend snapshot for Denmark and PISA 2022 Results, Volume I: Long-Term Trends. Reading comparisons begin in 2000, mathematics in 2003 and science in 2006 because those cycles established the main comparison scale for each domain.
OECD records Denmark as a participant in 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2022 and 2025 on the OECD PISA participant page for Denmark. Technical datasets and supporting documentation are available through the OECD PISA data and methodology portal.
PISA mean scores summarize a distribution of student performance; they are not individual proficiency levels or pass/fail thresholds. Percentage changes in proficiency groups and score-point changes in national means are different measures. Small differences between country means can also be smaller than the statistical uncertainty around the estimates, which is why rounded score ordering should not be treated as a precise league table.