Current Status

As of , the EU salary adjustment effective 1 July 2026 has not yet been adopted by the Council. The annual update is normally adopted by Council regulation in December of the year of effect, with retroactive force to 1 July. That regulation is then published in the L-series of the Official Journal of the European Union and the back-payment is processed in the January or February payroll.

The most recent officially published adjustment is the one effective 1 July of the previous year, adopted in December and published in the Official Journal as a Council regulation amending the salary tables in Annex XIII to the Staff Regulations. The exact percentage and revised salary tables are searchable on EUR-Lex under "annual update of remuneration of officials and other servants of the European Union".

For the broader mechanism, see the salary adjustments hub; for the formula in detail, see how Article 65 indexation works.

The 2026 Calendar

The annual update follows a well-established calendar. For the 2026 adjustment effective 1 July 2026:

  • January-June 2026. Eurostat collects monthly inflation data for Brussels and Luxembourg, and tracks central-government civil service pay decisions in the reference Member States.
  • June 2026. Cut-off for the inflation series. The harmonised Brussels consumer price index reading for June 2026 is the reference for the Brussels inflation factor in the formula.
  • October-November 2026. Eurostat publishes the interim version of the specific indicator, the report that aggregates the central-government pay data from the reference Member States.
  • November 2026. The Commission adopts the formal proposal for a Council regulation, on the basis of the Eurostat report. The proposal contains the headline percentage, the new salary and pension tables, and the new correction coefficients.
  • December 2026. The Council adopts the regulation. Publication in the Official Journal follows within days. The institutions update their HR and payroll systems.
  • January-February 2027. Active staff and pensioners receive the back-payment for the period from 1 July 2026 to the date of the regulation's adoption. From the next month onward, payslips show the new tables directly.

If the calendar slips — which has happened in years where the Council needed extra time to debate technical points — the back-payment simply rolls into the next available payroll. The legal effect is unchanged: the regulation always applies from 1 July of the year of effect.

What the Public Data Suggests

In the absence of the formal Eurostat report, the public data series that feed the formula give a directional read on where the 2026 update is likely to land. None of these series gives a precise figure on its own; the headline percentage is the result of a combination, with weights that are fixed in Annex XI.

On Brussels inflation, the harmonised consumer price index series published by Statbel and aggregated into Eurostat's HICP gives the year-on-year reading. The June 2026 reading versus June 2025 is the relevant cut-off. If that reading is in the low-to-mid single digits, it pushes the headline up by a similar magnitude on the inflation side.

On the specific indicator, central-government pay decisions in the reference Member States are the driver. National civil service pay deals are typically announced in the spring or autumn budget cycles. Information from national official journals and from the European Public Service Union's annual review gives a reasonable picture of what each Member State has signed off ahead of Eurostat's aggregation.

The two factors are then combined per the Annex XI formula. There is no political input. The Commission proposal in November 2026 will simply put the arithmetic into a draft regulation; the Council's role is to adopt it.

We update this page as Eurostat publishes monthly readings and as the formal Commission proposal is adopted.

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Will the Moderation Clause Trigger in 2026?

The moderation clause in Annex XI caps the headline annual update when the result of the formula crosses a fixed threshold. Above that threshold, only part of the excess is paid in the current year; the rest is carried forward to the next annual update. The intent is to smooth large positive shocks across two years rather than concentrate them.

In recent years, the moderation clause was at the centre of the policy debate around the 8.5% adjustment effective 1 July 2023. Given that the 2024 and 2025 adjustments returned to lower single digits, the moderation clause is less likely to bite in 2026 unless an unusually large positive specific indicator combines with a high Brussels inflation reading. The formal Commission proposal in November 2026 will state explicitly whether the clause has been triggered.

The exception clause, which allows the Commission to propose a different figure in the case of a sudden and serious deterioration of the EU economic situation, has stricter and more contested triggers. It has been used and successfully challenged in court; the institutions are reluctant to invoke it. On current macroeconomic data, it is unlikely to play a role for 2026.

What the 2026 Adjustment Will Mean for Your Payslip

The headline percentage applies to every line of the basic salary table — every grade and every step, AD, AST, AST/SC, FG I to FG IV. It also applies to the household allowance, the dependent child allowance, the ceilings of the education allowance, the installation allowance, the daily subsistence amounts, and the pensions paid by the EU pension scheme. The expatriation allowance is computed as 16% of the basic salary, so it moves automatically with the new tables.

For an AD7 step 3 official in Brussels, a one-percentage-point change in the annual update is in the order of fifty to sixty euros per month on the basic salary alone, before allowances. For an AST3 step 1 official, it is around forty euros per month. For a contract agent at FG IV grade 13 step 1, it is around thirty euros. The cumulative effect of two or three percent of annual update over a multi-year career is substantial.

The country correction coefficients are revised in the same December regulation. Those revisions are independent of the headline adjustment and are calculated from comparative cost-of-living surveys run by Eurostat for each duty station. Staff posted outside Brussels will see two effects on their January payslip: the headline adjustment and the new correction coefficient for their location. In some years the two effects move in opposite directions.

To model your own case, plug your grade, step and duty station into the EU salary calculator; we update the underlying tables as soon as the December regulation is published.

What to Watch Between Now and December

  • Brussels HICP monthly releases. Statbel publishes the Belgian harmonised index in the second week of each month for the previous month; Eurostat aggregates it. The trend across the spring and early summer of 2026 sets the inflation factor for the formula.
  • National civil service pay deals. Public-sector pay agreements in the reference Member States. Watch the spring budget cycles in particular for those decisions.
  • Eurostat specific indicator interim release. The October or early November release. This is the first official indicator that points at where the headline figure will land.
  • The formal Commission proposal. Published as a Commission communication and a draft Council regulation, typically in mid-to-late November. This is the first definitive figure for 2026.
  • The Council adoption. A Council regulation in the L-series of the Official Journal, in December. This is the legal moment at which the new tables become binding.

Historical Context: Where 2026 Sits

The 2026 update follows three years of unusual swings in the inflation factor. The 1 July 2023 adjustment of around 8.5% was the largest in the formula's history. The 1 July 2024 and 1 July 2025 adjustments returned to lower single digits as Brussels inflation moderated. The 2026 figure is widely expected to sit in a comparable range to 2024 and 2025, barring a surprise on either side of the formula.

The 2026 regulation also comes after the Commission's mid-decade review of the staff reform. That review covered Annex XI mechanics; nothing in the public communications suggests a structural change to the formula before the next staff regulations review. The December 2026 regulation is therefore likely to apply the existing methodology unchanged.

For a side-by-side comparison of EU salary adjustments and national civil service indexation over the same period, see the EU vs national indexation page. For an end-to-end walkthrough of the formula and the moderation and exception clauses, see how Article 65 indexation works.

References