The company's routes at the time were from Denmark to Norway, the Baltic, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Iceland, and The Faeroe Islands, with ships carrying both freight and passengers.

After the continued expansion of the fleet in the 1880s, DFDS became one of the world's ten largest ship-owning companies.

The company revived with the establishment of new routes, and by the mid-1920s, the fleet consisted of 124 ships with a combined tonnage of 233,364 GRT.

[citation needed] The Second World War saw further losses to the company, with nine ships lost before the German invasion of Denmark in April 1940.

A large number of DFDS ships fell into British hands after the German invasion, and they were used as troopships.

To prevent her usage by the Germans, vital engine parts were "lost", only to be discovered after the end of the war.

Ships, representing about a fourth of the total Danish tonnage, sought refuge from seizure by belligerents in neutral ports.

[8] In the United States orders for their seizure were issued on 30 March 1941 and 40 ships were seized and placed under the control of the War Shipping Administration which registered most in Panama for diplomatic reasons and assigned commercial companies for operation.

[citation needed] DFDS created a sensation when they launched the world's first motor-driven short-sea passenger ship in 1925, from Helsingørs Jernskibs of Maskinbyggeri A/S.

Parkeston ( 2,762 GRT ) made her maiden voyage from Esbjerg to Harwich on 8 October 1925 at an average speed of 16.5 knots, burning 18 tons of oil per day compared with 55 tons of coal burnt by a similar predecessor on the route.

After completing Jylland in 1926, sister of Parkeston, DFDS took delivery in 1927 of the 1,854 GRT Dronning Alexandrine.

1964 saw the introduction of the first ro-ro passenger ferry, when MS England entered service on a route connecting Esbjerg to Harwich.

Akershus, the first real passenger-and-car ship which could also take trucks and trailers, entered service on the Frederikshavn-Oslo route.

In 1966, a hundred years after its start, the DFDS fleet consisted of 13 passenger ships, 53 cargo vessels, 4 tugboats, and 39 barges.

The freight services continued, linking Denmark to the Americas and various European and Mediterranean ports.

Between 1967 and 1970, four identical car-passenger ferries, originally named Kong Olav V, Prinsesse Margarethe, Aalborghus and Trekroner, entered service on the Copenhagen—Oslo, and Copenhagen—Aalborg routes.

Following this brief expansion, in 1982, the Mediterranean ferry services were discontinued and in 1984 DFDS gave up its deep-sea cargo routes completely, now concentrating solely on the European market.

1982 also saw the beginning of an ambitious project of operating a large ferry/cruise ship, MS Scandinavia, on the US East Coast under the brand of Scandinavian World Cruises.

The new division soon expanded, first in Sweden, and subsequently acquired several forwarding companies, e.g. in the UK and the Netherlands.

In 1989-1990, the tonnage on the Oslo—Copenhagen route was renewed with the entering into service in June 1990 of Queen Of Scandinavia, a ship with a capacity of 2,000 passengers and 400 cars.

In June 2001, the deal to acquire a 76.4 percent shareholding in the Lithuanian shipping company LISCO was finalized.

Established in August 1997 Norfolkline Containers was set up to offer Direct Port-to-Port services between Ireland and mainland Europe[citation needed].

[17] DFDS Denizcilik operates four freight ferry routes connecting Turkey with Trieste in Italy, Sete in France, and Tarragona in Spain with 16 freight ferries and its port terminals in Istanbul and Trieste.

[18] In April 2024 DFDS announced a takeover of Ekol Logistics pending EU approval, citing a bid of €260 million.