TIME puts CopenPay on their Best Inventions-list for 2025

The renowned American magazine TIME has listed CopenPay as one of the Best Inventions for 2025.

Wonderful Copenhagen’s nudging project was included on this year's annual list, which features “300 extraordinary innovations changing our lives,” according to TIME.

The Danish capital and CopenPay has been placed in the category 'Social Impact'. 

”In the development of CopenPay, we realised that we were dealing with something special – so it’s been fantastic to see how it’s resonated globally. First, from tourists, and then we were almost blown away by the enormous interest from the media around the world. And now with a spot on TIME’s Best Inventions in 2025, this huge recognition of everyone who has contributed to making CopenPay a success,” said Rikke Holm Petersen, Director of Marketing, Communication and Behaviour.

To compile this year’s list, TIME solicited nominations from TIME editors and correspondents around the world. Each contender was evaluated on a number of key factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.

CopenPay is a nudging initiative that rewards tourists for taking positive actions for the destination. That could involve collecting rubbish, riding a bicycle, taking public transport, or arriving in Copenhagen by train.

CopenPay was launched by Wonderful Copenhagen in 2024 and returned in 2025 on a much larger scale. The 25 local participants from the first year, became 100 in 2025. The acts that were rewarded were also expanded, and participants joined in from a larger area of the Danish capital.

“We created CopenPay, because we wanted to nudge tourism development here and internationally.  While tourism should evolve if we want to see a transformation of the industry,we also saw a willingness to contribute positively from people in general, but without them turning the sentiment into action. That’s why we launched CopenPay to make tourists more aware of the choices they make when they travel, and to make it easy and fun to contribute positively to the destination you visit,” said Rikke Holm Petersen.

CopenPay have previously been mentioned on Condé Nast Travelers ”Bright Ideas in Travel” for 2025 and on Fast Company’s list of Innovative Companies. See TIME’s list of the 300 Best Inventions for 2025 here.