Salary calculator 2026 - gross, net and employer cost

Example 1: 1200 € gross and a 2% II pillar

Take an employee on a contract salary of 1200 € a month who has filed the basic exemption application and pays the default 2% into the II pillar.

Income tax here is only about 8.4% of gross, even though the rate is 22%. The reason is the basic exemption: the first 700 euros are untaxed, and the lower the salary, the larger the share it covers. As pay rises, the effective income tax rate creeps towards 22% but never reaches it.

The calculator works through the steps in exactly this order:

• Unemployment insurance: 1200 × 1.6% = 19.20 €.
• Funded pension: 1200 × 2% = 24.00 €.
• Taxable income: 1200 - 19.20 - 24.00 - 700 = 456.80 €.
• Income tax: 456.80 × 22% = 100.50 €.
• Net salary: 1200 - 19.20 - 24.00 - 100.50 = 1,056.30 €.
• On the employer side, social tax of 396.00 € and insurance of 9.60 € are added, for a total cost of 1,605.60 €.

Example 2: 3500 € with a 6% or 2% II pillar

At a gross of 3500 € the unemployment insurance is 56 €. At 2%, 70 € goes to the pension account, taxable income is 2,674 €, income tax 588.28 € and net pay 2,785.72 €. Raise the contribution to 6% and 210 € goes to the account, taxable income drops to 2,534 €, tax is 557.48 € and net pay 2,676.52 €.

The pension account receives 140 € more, yet net pay falls by only 109.20 €. The 30.80 € difference is income tax that is no longer withheld, because funded pension contributions are deducted from taxable income. Each extra euro contributed costs you just 78 cents of take-home pay. The employer's total cost (4,683 €) does not depend on the contribution rate at all.

Note that the tax wedge percentage rises from 40.5% to 42.8% with the 6% option. The wedge counts the pension contribution as a deduction, although it is really money saved in your own name.

Example 3: from a target net to gross, and hourly pay

In pay negotiations people think in terms of what lands in the account, but the contract states gross. Type the amount you want into the net field and the calculator finds the matching gross. To take home 1800 € with a 2% contribution you need a gross of 2,189.07 €, which costs the employer 2,928.97 €. With a 4% contribution the same net requires 2,235.43 € gross.

Gross is found by successive approximation, so checking the net in the other direction may be a cent off (for example 1,799.99 €). That is rounding, not an error.

For hourly pay, set the period to hour and enter the real number of working hours in the month. A rate of 12 € and 168 hours gives a gross of 2,016 € and a net of 1,669.87 €. If a month has fewer hours, change the hours field, because the calculator divides the monthly amount by exactly that number.

How to read the results table

The top three rows (total employer cost, social tax and employer unemployment insurance) are greyed out because nothing there is taken from your pay. They show what your job costs the employer. The rows with a minus sign below gross are the amounts withheld from your salary.

The bar under the headline shows the same split visually: green is net pay, red is income tax and blue is unemployment insurance together with the funded pension. The wider the green part, the smaller the share withheld.

The percentage column on the right is relative to gross, which is why the employer cost shows more than 100%, for example 133.8% at a salary of 1200 €. The tax wedge under the headline is calculated differently: (employer cost - net) ÷ employer cost. At 1200 € it is 34.2%, so roughly a third of the money the employer spends never reaches the employee.

Special cases and the extra options

The defaults suit an employee with one main job. In other situations change them, or the net figure will be wrong:

• Second job: the basic exemption is used with one employer only, so untick it. From 800 € you then take home 601.54 €, as income tax is 169.66 €.
• Partial exemption: if your application states a smaller amount, type it into the exemption field. A 1200 € salary with a 350 € exemption gives a net of 979.30 €.
• Not in the II pillar: choose 0%. From 1200 € you keep 1,075.02 €, and income tax is slightly higher (105.78 €).
• Old-age pension age: tick the option and the 776 € exemption is used instead of 700 €.
• Earlier years: selecting 2023-2025 applies the rates of those years and the income-dependent exemption, handy for checking an old payslip.

What the calculator does not include

The calculator assumes the same gross every month. A bonus, holiday pay or sick pay changes the figures for that month, and there are separate calculators for those. Fringe benefits, III pillar contributions and non-salary income such as rent or dividends are not reflected here either.

Your annual result can differ from the sum of the payslips. If the exemption went unused in some months or you had deductible expenses, part of the tax comes back through the annual return, which the income tax refund calculator helps estimate. If the exemption was applied by two employers at once, the difference has to be paid instead.