Comparison tool · 2026 tax year
What €100,000 of employer cost is actually worth
Your employer spends the same €100,000 in Sofia and in Brussels. What reaches you is not the same at all. This tool shows what survives payroll taxes, income tax and VAT in 31 European countries.
Bulgaria leaves the most at €68,554. Belgium leaves the least at €35,835. That is 1.91 times the spending power from an identical employer outlay. The number that decides a relocation offer is rarely the one on the offer letter.
Compare two countries
Pick where you are and where you are considering. Every figure starts from the same €100,000 of total employer cost.
Figures assume a single person with no children, employment income only, no expatriate tax regime, and the standard VAT rate applied to all spending. See the methodology before quoting any figure.
All 31 countries
Sortable. Every column is derived from the same €100,000 anchor, so the rows are directly comparable. Purchasing power is the figure that matters: what the money buys after everything.
| # | Country | Gross salary | Employer tax | Employee tax | Income tax | Net | VAT | Purchasing power | Kept |
|---|
How the figures are built
This is the part most comparisons leave in a footnote. It belongs at the front, because it is the whole reason the numbers differ from a headline tax rate.
- Start at €100,000 of total employer cost. Gross salary plus every employer social contribution and payroll tax. This is the only figure comparable across borders.
- Solve for gross salary, with ceilings applied. Most of these countries cap social contributions. At this income the cap usually binds, so the effective employer rate is well below the headline rate. Missing this is the single most common error in comparisons like this one.
- Deduct employee contributions, with their own ceilings.
- Deduct income tax on the correct statutory base. Some countries allow social contributions as a deduction and some do not. Real bracket schedules are used, including mandatory regional, municipal and surcharge components, and the automatic allowances and credits a normal employee receives.
- Divide by one plus the VAT rate. Not multiply by one minus it. Spending €120 where VAT is 20% buys €100 of goods. This distinction changes the ranking, not just the totals.
What this number is not
It is purchasing power, not quality of life. Cost of living, housing, healthcare, education, pension entitlement and public service quality are all excluded. A country that takes more may well give more back. Several commenters made exactly this point when the underlying chart circulated, and they were right to. It is a separate question, and this table does not answer it.
Ten countries carry a contribution with no national rate
In the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Denmark, at least one mandatory employer contribution is set per employer or per sector rather than nationally. The Dutch handbook is explicit about it: for the work-capacity contribution it says only that the employer should refer to their own notice. Where this applies, a published national average is used. It is a property of those systems rather than a gap in the data, and any comparison that quotes a single clean rate for those countries is smoothing over something real.
Sources
National tax authorities, social insurance institutions, official gazettes and finance ministries, for the 2026 tax year. Advisory-firm summaries were used to cross-check and never as the sole authority for a rate. Primary references include Belastingdienst (Netherlands), Verohallinto (Finland), HMRC (United Kingdom), Skatteverket (Sweden), URSSAF (France), INPS (Italy) and Agencia Tributaria (Spain). Where a figure could not be confirmed from a primary source it is flagged rather than filled in.
Why these figures differ from the chart you may have seen
A version of this comparison has circulated widely. It is wrong in four ways, and the errors are not small.
- VAT applied backwards. It multiplies net by one minus the VAT rate instead of dividing by one plus it. Every country is understated, and because the error scales with the VAT rate it distorts the ranking itself.
- Rows that do not reproduce from their own inputs. Sweden is shown with 0.0% employer payroll tax. The real rate is 31.42% and uncapped. Follow the chart's own stated method with its own printed rates and several rows do not produce the answer printed beside them.
- Contribution ceilings ignored. At this income level most of these countries cap social contributions, so headline rates overstate the burden, and they overstate it most in exactly the countries the chart places at the bottom.
- Sorted by the wrong column. 21 of its 31 ranks follow its before-VAT figure while the headline it presents is the after-VAT one.
Correcting all four moves 27 of the 31 countries. Only Bulgaria, Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Romania hold their position. Denmark rises fifteen places once its employer costs are treated as the fixed per-employee amounts they actually are. Sweden rises twelve.
What to do with this before you accept an offer
Gross salary is a negotiating anchor. Purchasing power is what pays your rent. Three things worth checking before you sign, in order of how often they get missed:
- Ask for total employer cost, not gross. It is the only figure that compares two offers in two countries honestly, and any employer can tell you it.
- Check whether an inbound or expatriate regime applies to you. Several of these countries operate one, and it can change the answer completely. This table deliberately excludes them, so it is your floor rather than your forecast.
- Work out where you will be tax resident, which is not always where you work. Our tax residency day counter covers the day-count tests that decide it in Southeast Asia.
Questions
What does this table actually measure?
It measures how much real spending power an employee is left with from EUR 100,000 of total employer cost, in each of 31 European countries, under 2026 rules. Total employer cost means gross salary plus every employer social contribution and payroll tax. Four layers are then removed in order: employer payroll taxes, employee payroll taxes, income tax, and VAT on what is actually spent. The figure that remains is what the money buys, not what appears on a payslip.
Why is the starting point employer cost rather than gross salary?
Because employer cost is the only figure that is comparable across borders. Employer social contributions range from about 1.1% of gross in Denmark to over 43% in France, so two employers spending the same amount can advertise wildly different gross salaries. Starting from gross salary compares the marketing, not the money. Starting from total employer cost compares the same outlay everywhere.
Why does VAT belong in a tax comparison?
Because it decides what the net salary buys. A country can hold income tax down and recover the difference at the till. Hungary charges 27% VAT and Switzerland 8.1%, a gap of nearly 19 points applied to everything the employee spends. Leaving VAT out flatters high-VAT countries and understates the real spread. VAT is applied here by division, not subtraction: spending EUR 120 at a 20% rate buys EUR 100 of goods, so net is divided by 1.20.
Which country comes out best, and by how much?
Bulgaria leaves the most at EUR 68,554, and Belgium the least at EUR 35,835. That is a ratio of 1.91 to one from the identical EUR 100,000 of employer cost. The gap is wide but it is not double, and any chart claiming a country delivers more than twice another on this measure is using figures that do not hold up.
What assumptions does the model make?
A single person with no children and no dependants, employment income only, no expatriate or inbound tax regime, and rules in force for 2026. The standard VAT rate is applied to the whole of net pay. Where income tax varies by region or municipality, the capital city is used and named. A household with children, a mortgage, or an inbound tax regime will see materially different figures, and several countries offer regimes that change the answer completely.
What does the number deliberately not capture?
Cost of living, housing, healthcare quality, education, pension entitlement and public service quality are all excluded. Purchasing power measures what lands in your pocket, not what you receive in return for the tax. A country that takes more may give more back. That is a separate question and this table does not answer it.
Why do ten countries carry a note about employer contributions?
Because in those countries at least one mandatory employer contribution has no single national rate. It is set per employer or per sector by law. The Dutch work-capacity contribution is the clearest case: the tax authority's own handbook states only that the employer should refer to their individual notice. Where that applies, a published national average is used and the country is flagged. It is a property of those systems, not a gap in the research.
Where do the figures come from?
National tax authorities, social insurance institutions, official gazettes and finance ministries, for 2026. Advisory-firm summaries were used to cross-check but never as the sole authority for any rate. Every country's sources are listed with the issuing body named. Where a figure could not be confirmed from a primary source it is flagged rather than filled in.
How does this differ from the chart circulating on LinkedIn?
The circulating chart applies VAT by multiplying by one minus the rate instead of dividing by one plus it, which understates every country and distorts the ranking because the error scales with the VAT rate. Several of its rows cannot be reproduced from the rates printed on the chart itself, Sweden is shown with zero employer payroll tax when the real rate is 31.42% and uncapped, and 21 of its 31 ranks are sorted by its before-VAT column while the headline figure is the after-VAT one. Correcting all of that changes 27 of the 31 positions.
How often is this updated?
Annually, when each country's rates and thresholds for the new tax year are published, and sooner if a country makes a mid-year change large enough to move its position. Contribution ceilings and bracket thresholds are index-linked in most of these countries and move every year, which is the most common reason a comparison like this goes quietly out of date.
Weighing an offer in another country?
The tax arithmetic is the easy part. What it means for your pension, your existing investments and where you end up tax resident is the part worth a conversation.
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