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I am living in Denmark (and a Danish citizen) and I am going to host a friend from Argentina for a month. Argentinian citizens require no visa to enter Denmark (or Schengen) as tourists.

I have been calling the Argentinian Embassy and also the Danish Immigration service without an answer to my question, which is:

How do I prove that I am the host and financially responsible for my friend during the stay?

As seen on the official Danish Immigration website:

If you are travelling visa-free, you will normally be permitted to enter Denmark if you fulfil the following general conditions:

[...]

You have the necessary means to pay for your stay and return trip. What will be considered as necessary funds depends on the length of your stay and whether you will stay at a hotel or in a privately owned home with family or friends. As a general rule, you must have at your disposal approx. DKK 350 per day. A smaller amount may be accepted if you are staying in a privately owned home and your host will cover all the costs. If you are staying at a hotel, you must have a greater amount at your disposal, approx. DKK 500 per day.

How does my friend prove that he is staying with me and I will cover the costs? In Spain there is an official "Invitations letter" that you can go and get stamped at the police station, and that will be proof enough. However, in Denmark, the only official invitation letter is for Visa Required travelers only, as far as I know.

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    Couldn't you create a document/letter from you to your friend that he carries with him for entry purposes, which includes relevant details of the stay, your identifiers and his (full names, address, phone etc.) and, particularly, your contact details.
    – Giorgio
    Commented Nov 14, 2016 at 14:00
  • @pnuts No - my friend will probably go through Spain and then take a flight from there to Copenhagen, where I will be waiting
    – Nicholas
    Commented Nov 14, 2016 at 14:01
  • @pnuts This just seems so strange. The Spanish one requires a Fee to be paid and then processed in the police station as far as I'm aware.
    – Nicholas
    Commented Nov 14, 2016 at 14:23
  • Are the flights to Spain and to Copenhagen all booked on the same itinerary/tickets? Sounds like the issue is his entry to Spain, not Denmark.
    – Giorgio
    Commented Nov 14, 2016 at 14:39
  • @Dorothy you are correct. So how do we prove this?
    – Nicholas
    Commented Nov 14, 2016 at 15:18

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Some countries have a formal invitation process that addresses maintenance and accommodation and some do not. For those that do not, it often boils down to how the person presents himself at the control point.

In a lot of cases they will take the person's word for it and a letter is simply a nice-to-have. The choice is yours, and in the absence of a formal letter you can draft one. If you do opt to draft a letter, make sure it includes...

  • your name and address
  • your occupation
  • your own status in the country
  • your relationship to the visitor
  • your entitlement to host someone at your residence
  • length of the visit
  • what you are offering (and why if not family)
  • if you will be at the residence during the visitor's entire stay

and of course (where reasonable) be in the arrivals area and reachable by phone. The basic letter has variants, especially if the visitors include children or appear to be vulnerable in some other way. You didn't mention any such irregularities so we don't need to go in to them here.

In the absence of a stated requirement, the letter does not need to be notarised and should work fine without a wet signature.

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