Travelling by train

You can have the additional cost of the journey covered compared with your usual transport to work when you:

In practice (for example when using a Rejsekort), it may be difficult to maintain that SDU only covers the train ticket between the city where your workplace is located and the destination of the business trip. There must be room for a practical and pragmatic solution, as long as it is explained in the travel expense report.

Regardless of how you bought the train tickets, you must provide – and where possible document – the following:

• Name of the traveller
• Journey destination
• Purpose of the journey
• Amount.

The documentation must appear electronically together with the expense voucher in either the ERP financial system or zExpense.

Requirements for travel by train in Denmark

SDU accepts that travellers by train in Denmark describe the purpose of the train journey in less detail than when travelling by plane, private car, company car or taxi. This is because train travel involves less financial risk. You must always state the city, destination/meeting place and the names of any fellow travellers. If the traveller does not describe the purpose of the journey in the DSB app, the organisational unit must ensure that the information about the train journey is entered into an Excel sheet or a Word file and uploaded to the ERP system. Please note that when buying in the DSB app, you can only write 80 characters in the “Add note” field.

If your unit wishes to have a Business Travel Card, you must enter into a framework agreement with DSB. Under business type, specify "Public institution or public company".

Documentation for the Business Travel Card

If your unit acquires a Business Travel Card, there are some challenges related to the documentation requirements. You will receive an invoice from DSB Debitorbogholderiet for DKK 50 for the plastic card itself and then invoices for DKK 1,000 for topping up the card. The first top-up invoice of DKK 1,000 arrives immediately after the invoice for DKK 50, when you have not yet used the card for travel and therefore cannot state purpose, destination, etc.

How to document it:

1. In the note for the invoice of DKK 50 for the purchase of the plastic card itself, write: ”New Business Travel Card for NN (name of person or unit)”
2. In the note for the first top-up invoice of DKK 1,000, write: ”First top-up on Business Travel Card for NN (name of person or unit)”.

Every month (around the 6th), the contact person for each Business Travel Card receives by email a statement of consumption for the previous two months. On the statement, you must add information about the purpose and destination of each journey as well as the name of the traveller(s).

Attach the monthly statement with the added information to the subsequent electronic invoice from DSB Debitorbogholderiet for the top-up amount of DKK 1,000.

In September 2024, Økonomiservice held a webinar on the documentation requirements when using the Business Travel Card.  See this PDF of the PowerPoint presentation from the webinar. 

If you receive several top-up invoices for the same Business Travel Card because monthly consumption exceeds DKK 1,000, you only need to attach the monthly statement to the first invoice.

Long-distance coaches are an excellent alternative to trains.

Long-distance coaches across the country are operated, for example, by Flixbus.dk or Kombardoexpressen.

The same documentation requirements apply as for train journeys.