International offers are difficult to compare because almost nothing about them is denominated the same way. The salary is quoted differently, the deductions work differently, the employer pays for different things, and the cost of an ordinary life differs by more than any of it.
What follows is a method rather than a table, because the right answer depends on the household. It takes about an hour and it routinely reverses first impressions.
Step one: normalise the gross figure
Before anything else, establish what each number actually represents.
- How many instalments? Twelve in the UK and Germany, fourteen in Austria and Spain, thirteen in Italy and Switzerland. An annual figure divided by twelve is wrong in about half of Europe, as the thirteenth month guide sets out.
- Does it include employer contributions? In some markets recruiters quote total employment cost. If the number looks 25% too generous, ask.
- Does it include superannuation or a pension? An Australian offer of A$120,000 plus super is A$134,400 of employer cost. Including super it is A$107,143 of salary.
- Is a bonus contractual or discretionary? A discretionary bonus belongs in a separate column, not in the salary.
Step two: calculate net, on the actual rules
Run each normalised gross figure through the real deduction stack rather than assuming a headline rate. The variation is larger than most people expect: 24.8% in Ireland at 60,000 euros against 38.6% in Belgium at the same salary.
Include anything mandatory that is not strictly tax. Singapore's CPF at 20%, Swiss health insurance premiums at CHF 300 to 450 a month, and American health plan contributions are all unavoidable and all sit outside the tax calculation. Every country comparison on this site works from the same 2026 rate data.
Step three: add back what the employer pays
Two offers with identical net pay are not identical if one includes 12% superannuation and the other does not. Add employer pension contributions, superannuation, and the employer share of health cover to each side before comparing.
Be honest about what these are worth to you. A pay-as-you-go state pension entitlement in a country you will leave in three years is worth considerably less than a portable fund balance. Contributions to a system you will never draw from are closer to a tax than a benefit, which is why the guide to employer contributions matters more for short assignments than long ones.
Step four: subtract the cost of an ordinary life
Housing is the single largest adjustment and it is worth doing precisely rather than through an index. Find three actual listings of the kind of place you would live in, in the specific neighbourhood, and use the real number.
After housing, four items move the answer more than the rest combined:
- Childcare. Ranges from heavily subsidised in Denmark, Sweden and Quebec to several thousand a month in Ireland, the UK and parts of the United States. For a household with two young children this frequently exceeds the entire tax difference.
- Healthcare. Free at the point of use in most of Europe, an insurance premium plus deductibles in the United States and Switzerland.
- Transport. A required car in most of North America and Australia, a monthly transit pass in most European cities.
- Schooling. International school fees, where relevant, dwarf every other item on this list.
Step five: check the reversible and irreversible parts
Some elements of an offer are recoverable if it does not work out and some are not.
Expatriate regimes are time limited and do not renew. The Dutch 30% ruling runs five years and steps down within them, as the guide to the ruling explains. Spain's Beckham law runs six. Italy's impatriati regime and Denmark's researcher scheme are similarly bounded. An offer that only works with the regime applied is an offer with an expiry date.
Pension contributions made in a country you leave may be recoverable, transferable or stranded, and which of the three depends entirely on the country pair. Exit taxes on unrealised gains apply in Germany, France, Spain, Denmark and Norway to significant shareholders, which occasionally makes leaving considerably more expensive than arriving.
The three adjustments that reverse decisions most often
Housing in the expensive city. A 25% higher net salary in Zurich, Dublin or San Francisco is frequently a lower discretionary income after rent. This is the most common reversal and the easiest to check.
The employer contribution nobody mentioned. Australian superannuation and Swiss second pillar pensions add ten to fifteen percent to packages that looked merely competitive.
The expatriate regime. A flat 24% in Spain or a 30% exemption in the Netherlands can move an offer from third place to first, and both are time limited, as the Beckham law guide sets out.
A note on currencies
Comparing offers requires converting them, and the rate you use today is not the rate you will live on. Anyone earning in one currency while holding obligations in another, a mortgage at home, family support, school fees, has taken a position they should be aware of. What a sustained currency move does to an otherwise strong salary is visible in Japanese pay and the exchange rate.