How the model works
Each region is taxed entirely in its own currency using its published income-tax brackets and mandatory employee social-contribution rates. Your salary is converted into that currency, taxed, then the net is converted back so you can compare like for like. The effective tax rate is currency-independent, which makes it the most honest cross-border comparison.
Who it models
A single, tax-resident, employed person with no dependents, using only the universal allowances everyone gets. It covers income tax + mandatory employee social contributions — the deductions that actually come off a payslip.
What's excluded
Employer contributions, voluntary or occupational pensions, student-loan repayments, most city and local taxes (e.g. New York City), wealth and church taxes, tax-treaty effects, and situation-specific reliefs. It's an estimate, not a filing tool.
Sub-national assumptions
Where sub-national tax matters, we model a representative location and label it on the card: Canada = Ontario, Switzerland = Zürich, China = Shanghai, Spain = Madrid, Italy = Rome. For the US we cover federal plus California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois.
Flagged approximations
Some systems are region-dependent or formula-based and can't hit the same precision as clean bracket systems — these carry an explicit note on their card: Germany, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, South Korea and Israel. Our accuracy target is within ~2% of an official calculator for clean bracket systems, and ~2–3% for these flagged cases.
Exchange rates
Tax is always calculated in each region's own currency. Exchange rates never touch the tax maths — they do two cosmetic jobs: they line one salary figure up across countries, and they normalise each take-home back into a single comparison currency. This is why the effective tax rate is currency-independent, and why it is the most honest number on this site for comparing across borders.
The calculator fetches live rates (open.er-api.com, cached 12 hours) each time you load it, and you can edit any rate yourself in the "Exchange rates & assumptions" panel. The figures written into our static pages are different: they are computed when the site is built, so they are frozen at the rates of that day. Every such figure is stamped "at exchange rates as of 25 September 2026" so you can see how old the conversion is — currencies can move several percent in a month, and cross-currency figures here move with them. Where a number matters to you, run it through the calculator, which uses today's rates.
Sourcing & verification
Tax tables are researched from official revenue authorities and checked against official or reputable calculators before publishing. In full honesty: many government sites block automated access, so some figures were corroborated via PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, EY and the Tax Foundation rather than read directly off the government page. Tax years vary by region (shown on every card) and tables are refreshed as rates change. For anything that affects a real decision, confirm against the official source below and a qualified professional.