💰Salary Calculator 2026 — Gross to Net & Net to Gross, Take-Home Pay (9 Countries)

Across every country this calculator supports, the underlying principle is identical: the gross salary is the amount the employer commits to disburse, while the net salary is what actually lands in the employee's bank account. Sitting between the two are statutory income tax and a stack of mandatory social-security contributions — typically pension, public health insurance, and unemployment insurance. Each jurisdiction layers reliefs and credits on top of that core scheme, so two countries with similar headline rates can produce noticeably different take-home pay. The calculator above models each country's 2026 schedule end-to-end so you don't have to reconstruct it manually.

The general formula is straightforward: Net = Gross − Income Tax − Social Contributions. For employees, both the income tax and the employee share of social contributions are withheld at source by the employer, so the figure on the payslip is already the net. Going from net to gross is harder because progressive brackets make the relationship non-linear; the calculator therefore runs a binary search that converges on the exact gross within a handful of iterations and sub-cent precision. The same engine drives every country tab — only the per-country tables and rate constants change.

Where the countries diverge is in the specific rates and the reliefs they grant. Romania charges a flat 10% income tax plus 25% CAS (pension) and 10% CASS (health) on the employee side, with a personal deduction for low-income earners and per-dependant credits under Article 77 of the Fiscal Code. Hungary applies a flat 15% personal income tax plus 18.5% TB social contribution, on top of generous family tax credits (családi adókedvezmény). Germany combines progressive Lohnsteuer (14%–45% under §32a EStG) with roughly 20% in employee social contributions split between pension, health, long-term care, and unemployment insurance. Poland uses a progressive PIT (12% up to 120,000 PLN, 32% above) plus ZUS contributions and a non-deductible 9% health premium. Spain stacks state and regional IRPF brackets onto a 6.35% Seguridad Social employee share. The United Kingdom layers 20%/40%/45% Income Tax on top of National Insurance (8% then 2%). Brazil withholds progressive IRRF on the INSS-reduced base, with the INSS itself capped at the teto de contribuição. France collects PAS at source and stacks roughly 22% in cotisations sociales (vieillesse, AGIRC-ARRCO, CSG/CRDS). The Netherlands bundles inkomstenbelasting and the volksverzekeringen into a single loonheffing, then claws back significant amounts via the algemene heffingskorting and arbeidskorting.

Every supported country also imposes employer-side contributions that sit on top of the gross — the so-called total employer cost. Romania's CAM is a slim 2.25%, Hungary's SZOCHO 13%, Germany's employer share roughly 20% (largely mirroring the employee), Poland around 20%, and Spain close to 30%. France is the heaviest at 42%–45% depending on size and sector. The calculator surfaces this number in a separate panel so you can quote total cost when negotiating contracts or budgeting headcount.

Several 2026 reforms are worth flagging because they shift the numbers materially. Romania abolished the IT/construction/agriculture exemptions through OUG 156/2024 starting January 2025; a 300 RON deduction for minimum-wage earners runs through June 2026 and drops to 200 RON from July 2026 (HG 146/2026). Hungary set the minimum wage at 322,800 HUF and the garantált bérminimum at 373,200 HUF via Government Decree 426/2025. Germany raised the Mindestlohn to €13.90/hour through the 5. MiLoV. Poland's minimum wage climbs to 4,806 PLN per Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1242. France's SMIC sits at €12.02/hour. Each of these is wired into the per-country tabs so the floor of the calculator always reflects current law.

All rates used here are tracked directly from each jurisdiction's official tax authority and gazette. The links in the next section point to those primary sources — start there if you need to verify a specific bracket, contribution rate, or relief.

• ANAF — Romanian Tax Code (Law 227/2015)
• NAV — Hungarian National Tax and Customs Administration
• HMRC — UK Income Tax & National Insurance
• BMF — German Federal Ministry of Finance
• AEAT — Spanish Tax Agency

Romania has historically maintained several payroll regimes that sit outside the standard 10% income tax + 25% CAS + 10% CASS schedule applied to ordinary employees. These special cases — IT exemption, construction-sector exemption, intellectual-property contracts, and self-employed PFA status — drive a large share of the country's tax-related search traffic. The live calculator at the top of this page models the standard employment regime; the rules below explain when and how the alternative regimes used to apply, and what changed for 2025–2026.

1) IT exemption for software developers (scutirea IT pentru programatori). Between 2004 and 31 December 2024, Romanian employees performing software-development work paid 0% personal income tax under Codul Fiscal art. 60 alin. 2 (and the predecessor texts in Law 571/2003 and OG 27/2007). Eligibility was tightly bounded by OMFP 1168/2017: the employee's job title had to appear on the regulated list (programator, analist programator, analist sistem informatic, inginer de sistem etc.); the employer had to be active in an ICT NACE code (5821, 5829, 6201, 6202, 6209); the gross monthly salary had to exceed roughly 4,000 RON; and the employee needed a long-cycle higher-education degree relevant to the activity. From 1 January 2025 the exemption was abolished by OUG 156/2024 (Monitorul Oficial 1281/30.12.2024), so all programmers now pay the standard 10% income tax. Practically, a developer earning 10,000 RON gross used to keep around 9,500 RON net in 2024; under the post-reform 2026 regime (CAS 25% + CASS 10% + IR 10% with no exemption) the same gross yields roughly 5,950 RON net — a sharp drop that shifted negotiating norms across the entire ICT labour market. Archive years 2024 and earlier on this site continue to apply the legacy rules where relevant.

2) Construction-sector exemption (scutirea în construcții). Codul Fiscal art. 60 alin. 5 mirrored the IT model for construction workers when the employer's NACE code was in 41/42/43 and at least 80% of the employer's turnover came from construction activity, with the gross monthly salary in the 4,000–10,000 RON window and signed eligibility declarations on file. CAS was reduced (25% → 21,25%) and CASS was waived, in addition to the 0% income tax. The exemption applied to permanent and fixed-term contracts alike and was widely used by larger construction groups. OUG 156/2024 abolished this regime alongside the IT one, effective January 2025; the third leg of the trio — the agricultural-worker exemption under art. 60 alin. 7 — was rolled back in the same OUG, leaving Romania with a unified payroll schedule across previously segmented sectors.

3) Author's-rights contracts (drepturi de autor). Codul Fiscal art. 72-73 keeps a special regime for income from intellectual-property contracts: a deemed-deductible expense of 40% applies automatically (no documentation required), so 10% income tax is levied only on the remaining 60% of the gross. Social contributions follow a threshold model — CAS (pension) is owed only when annual author income reaches 12 minimum wages, paid on a chosen base of 12 or 24 minimum wages; CASS (health) is similarly threshold-based, with a six-minimum-wages floor and a 60-minimum-wages cap. Crucially, no employer-side CAM contribution is due and the worker has none of the labour-code protections (paid leave, sick pay, severance) that an employment contract carries. In practice the regime is used by writers, journalists, photographers, music composers, and a sizeable population of software contractors who structure their work as IP-assignment rather than salary; it is treated as miscellaneous income, not as employment.

4) PFA — Persoană Fizică Autorizată. PFA is the registered self-employed individual entrepreneur status (registration at ONRC), governed by Codul Fiscal art. 67-69. Two tax models are available: the actual-system (sistem real, full P&L bookkeeping with progressive thresholds and deductible expenses) or the income-norm system (norma de venit, a fixed annual estimate published per NACE code, available only for qualifying activities and only while turnover stays below 100,000 EUR). Income tax is 10% on net income in both models. CAS is owed at a chosen base of 12 or 24 minimum wages once annual income reaches 12 minimum wages. CASS is computed at 10% on a tiered floor (6, 12, 24, 36, 48 or 60 minimum wages) since the 2024 reforms, with a 60-minimum-wage cap on the contribution base. VAT is optional below 88,500 EUR (~300,000 RON) of annual turnover and mandatory above. Compared with employment, PFA generally carries lower social charges at low-to-mid incomes, but offers no paid leave, no sick pay, and no unemployment insurance, so the comparison is rarely just about the headline net.

Closing note: the live calculator above models standard employment only. For the IT and construction archive (years 2024 and earlier), switch to the 2024 archive year via the year-selector at the top of the page; for drepturi de autor and PFA the calculation methodology differs materially and is best modelled with input from a Romanian tax advisor familiar with your specific sector and turnover band.

• ANAF — Codul Fiscal (Law 227/2015)
• Monitorul Oficial — OUG 156/2024 (abolition of IT/construction/agriculture exemptions)
• ONRC — PFA registration (National Trade Register Office)
• ANAF — guidance for individuals (drepturi de autor, PFA)
• Inspecția Muncii — labour-law overview