BackgroundContinuous medical education is essential for the individual patient care, the society, and the wellbeing of the general practitioner. There has been research into the reasons for participation in continuous medical education, but little is known about the barriers to participation. To tailor continuous medical education targeting general practitioners who are currently deselecting education, systematic knowledge of the barriers is needed.Continuous medical education can in addition to professional growth stimulate job satisfaction, diminish burnout, and reinforce feelings of competence. Continuous medical education may have positive implications for patients and for healthcare expenditures.Despite renumeration and a comprehensive continuous education model some Danish general practitioners do not participate in continuous medical education.MethodsFrom a total of 3440 Danish general practitioners 243 did not apply for reimbursement for accredited continuous medical education in a two-year period. Ten general practitioners were selected for an interview regarding maximum variation in practice form, number of listed patients, seniority as a general practitioner, geography, gender, and age. All ten selected general practitioners accepted to be interviewed. The interviews were analysed using Systematic Text Condensation.ResultsEach of the ten interviewed general practitioners mentioned several barriers for participating in continuous education. The barriers fell into three main categories:barriers related to the individual general practitionerbarriers related to the clinicbarriers related to the accredited continuous medical education offeredConclusionsApproximately 7% of the Danish general practitioners did not participate in accredited remunerated continuous medical education. A knowledge of the barriers for participating in accredited continuous medical education can be used to better target continuous medical education to the general practitioners.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-023-04432-9.