Questions · Addresses

DAWA shut down on 1 October: what do I do with Danish addresses?

What happened on 1 October

DAWA – Danmarks Adressers Web API – shut down on 1 October 2026 at 10:00. Since then the autocomplete, the address cleansing and the lookups that Danish websites had been calling for years no longer answer, and a call returns an error. It came as no surprise: DAWA was built as a temporary solution until the national data distributor was in service, and the agency has published both the replacements and a migration guide.

There are three replacements: Adressevælger for searching addresses and street names as the user types, now with phonetic search; Adressevask for correcting addresses that are already written; and the Datafordeler for the data itself. Danish basic data stays free of charge.

When switching to Adressevælger is enough

If your site only works with Danish addresses, if you need autocomplete or the lookup of one address at a time, and if you have a developer who can make the switch, the public replacement is the natural choice. The same goes if you want something as close to DAWA as possible: RadarAddress has its own API, with fields and responses different from DAWA's, so it is not a drop-in replacement.

When it makes sense to look beyond Denmark

There are three situations where it pays to rewrite the code once for every country you ship to.

• You ship to several countries. A shop delivering to Norway, Germany or the Netherlands had one address field for Denmark, on DAWA, and nothing for the rest. With RadarAddress there is one field that works in every country in service: the address is completed and verified in that country's own form, against its national address register where it publishes one (most do) and against other open sources where it does not, with the same JSON response and the same widget. Sweden follows as soon as access to the Swedish register is in place; the current list is always on the Countries page.
• You would rather not write code. The WooCommerce plugin and the PrestaShop module install and activate with your account token: the address is corrected at checkout while the customer types, and every order gets an outcome, without an order ever being blocked.
• You also have a customer list. Upload an Excel or CSV file as it is and download it verified, row by row, with every correction stated field by field and duplicates flagged even when they are written differently. Emails and phone numbers are checked in the same run.

How to start without committing

You create an account, every month starts with a free allowance, and there is no contract: when you need more, you buy a package, which does not expire. For the API and the plugins all you need is your account token; for files you upload from the website. All prices are on the Pricing page, the documentation on the API page.

A Danish address, before and after

Outcome: modified. Street and house number verified in the national register, the outdated “DK-” prefix removed from the postcode, the city in its official form. Every correction is stated, field by field.