International wage comparisons almost always use gross figures, because gross figures are what statistical agencies publish. It is the wrong basis for anyone deciding where to work, since the share of a salary that survives the deduction stack ranges from 63% to 84% across the countries covered here.
The table below takes a typical full-time average salary in each country, applies the local 2026 rules for a single employee with no children and no special regime, and converts the monthly result to euros.
The ranking
* Federal tax only; state and provincial tax reduce both figures. † Most of the Singaporean deduction is CPF, compulsory savings that remain yours. ‡ Swiss health insurance is bought privately and is not a payroll deduction. § Austrian pay arrives in 14 instalments and the figure is annualised. Average gross figures are approximations of national full-time averages and are not directly comparable between statistical agencies. Currency conversions use approximate mid-market rates for July 2026: 1 EUR equals 0.86 GBP, 1.16 USD, 1.60 CAD, 1.77 AUD, 1.95 NZD, 0.93 CHF, 7.46 DKK, 11.0 SEK, 11.7 NOK, 176 JPY, 1.50 SGD and 3.80 ILS.
What the table shows that a gross comparison does not
Three results only appear once tax is applied.
The Netherlands beats Germany by 406 euros a month on a salary that is 5,000 euros lower. A Dutch employee on the national average keeps 81.3% of it, thanks to the general and labour tax credits, while a German on 50,000 euros keeps 63.4% because four separate social contributions are charged before income tax is even calculated.
Spain beats Italy despite a lower average wage. Spanish employee social contributions run at 6.35%, against 9.19% in Italy, and the Spanish personal minimum is applied as a credit. The gap between the two systems is larger than the gap between the two labour markets.
Denmark finishes fifth. The country with the second heaviest deduction rate in the table places above Ireland, the UK, Germany and France, because Danish gross wages are high enough to absorb it. Reputation and arithmetic diverge here more than anywhere else, a point examined in Denmark's tax burden.
Why averages mislead, and what to use instead
An average is dragged upward by a small number of very high earners. Median full-time pay is a better description of the typical worker and it sits five to fifteen percent below the average in most of these countries, with the largest gap in the United States and the smallest in the Nordics.
Averages also hide the shape of the distribution. A German average of 50,000 euros and an Irish average of 50,000 euros describe different labour markets: the German figure clusters tightly, the Irish one is pulled up by a large and well paid multinational sector that most Irish workers do not work in.
For a decision about a specific job, the average is close to useless. What matters is the offer, run through the local rules, which is the exercise in one salary through 22 tax systems and in the individual country comparisons.
Purchasing power changes the order again
Nothing above adjusts for what things cost. Applying price level differences would push Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and Australia down and lift Spain, Italy, Japan and Israel up, in some cases by several places.
Housing does most of that work. A net salary of 3,000 euros in Milan and the same figure in Dublin describe very different lives once rent is settled, and the ratio between them is larger than any tax difference in the table.
Three things also sit entirely outside these numbers: employer contributions, which fund pensions and healthcare invisibly in Sweden and Australia and are covered in the guide to employer contributions; the number of salary instalments, which is fourteen rather than twelve in Austria and Spain, as the thirteenth month guide explains; and what the deductions actually buy, which is a health service in Germany and an insurance premium in the United States.