Salary tax by country, 2026

Taking the first regime listed in each country's rules would rank countries by the order of their paperwork rather than by their tax. A regime with a revenue ceiling drops out of the comparison by itself once you go above it.

By default the ranking uses only regimes open to anyone. Special regimes exist for teachers, researchers, young taxpayers and people moving for the first time, and they can change the answer by tens of thousands: where one applies, the card shows what it would be worth to you as a separate opportunity. Switch Regimes to Best available to rank by that figure instead, and read the conditions before you believe it. We cannot check your age, your profession or your residence history, so anything resting on those is marked Conditional.

Each card links to the full calculation for that country, where every assumption is editable, every regime we checked is listed with its own number, and each rate carries its source and verification date.