EU Salary Calculator 2026

Use this interactive calculator to estimate your salary at any EU institution or agency. Select your staff category, grade, step, and duty station to see gross monthly pay, estimated net salary, and annual figures. All figures are based on the EU Staff Regulations salary grid for 2026.

How EU Salaries Work

EU institution salaries are set by the Staff Regulations and apply uniformly across all EU institutions, agencies, and bodies. Your pay is determined by three factors:

• Category: Administrators (AD), Assistants (AST), Secretaries/Clerks (AST/SC), or Contract Agents (FG I-IV).
• Grade: Your hierarchical level within the category. For example, AD5 is the standard entry grade for university graduates, while AD14-16 are director-level positions.
• Step: Your seniority within a grade. Officials advance one step every two years, up to step 5. Contract agents have up to 7 steps.

The basic salary figures represent monthly pay at the Brussels reference point. Salaries are adjusted annually based on cost-of-living indicators and a method defined in the Staff Regulations.

Country Correction Coefficients

Staff posted outside Brussels receive an adjusted salary through country correction coefficients. These coefficients are designed to provide equivalent purchasing power regardless of duty station. A coefficient above 100 increases the salary; below 100 reduces it.

Coefficients are updated annually by the Council based on Eurostat cost-of-living data. They adjust the basic salary only -- allowances such as the expatriation allowance are always calculated on the Brussels reference salary.

Tax Treatment

EU officials and other staff are exempt from national income tax on their EU salary. Instead, they pay a progressive EU community tax that ranges from approximately 8% to 45%, applied to taxable salary after a standard deduction.

In practice, the effective EU tax rate for most staff is between 15% and 30%, depending on grade and family situation. On top of the community tax, the following deductions apply:

• Pension contribution: approximately 10.1% of basic salary
• Sickness insurance: approximately 1.7% of basic salary
• Accident and occupational disease insurance: approximately 0.1% of basic salary
• Temporary crisis contribution: a solidarity levy that has varied over the years (currently suspended for most staff)

The combined effect of EU tax plus social contributions means that approximately 20-30% of gross salary is deducted, depending on grade and family status. This is generally lower than the effective tax rate in most EU member states, particularly for higher grades.

Additional Allowances

Beyond the basic salary, EU staff may receive several allowances that significantly increase total compensation:

• Expatriation allowance (16% of basic salary): Paid to staff who are not nationals of the country where they work, or who have not lived there for at least five years before recruitment. This is by far the most significant supplement and applies to the vast majority of EU staff.
• Household allowance: Approximately 2% of basic salary for staff who are married or have a registered partner, subject to conditions.
• Dependent child allowance: A fixed monthly amount (currently around EUR 420) per dependent child up to age 18 (or 26 if in full-time education).
• Education allowance: Covers a proportion of school and university fees for dependent children, up to a monthly ceiling. An additional flat-rate amount is paid when children attend a European School.
• Installation allowance: A one-time payment upon taking up duties, equal to two months' basic salary for staff entitled to the expatriation allowance, or one month otherwise.
• Daily subsistence allowance: A per-diem for staff who have not yet established their home at the duty station, paid for up to 120 days.
• Annual travel allowance: A lump-sum contribution toward travel costs to the staff member's place of origin, based on the distance between the duty station and home country.

When factoring in expatriation and household allowances, the total gross compensation for an expatriate AD5 officer can exceed the base salary by 18% or more. For a comprehensive look at salary levels, see the full EU salary tables.

Who Uses This EU Salary Calculator

We see three distinct audiences for this tool. The first is candidates preparing for an EPSO competition or a CAST permanent procedure, who need a realistic view of what an offer will mean for monthly cash flow before committing to relocation. The second is current EU staff comparing duty stations, often weighing a Brussels post against a delegation or an agency in another member state. The third is employers and recruiters in adjacent sectors — international organisations, member-state ministries, NGOs based in Brussels — benchmarking their compensation packages against the EU institutions to attract or retain talent.

For each of these audiences, the headline number you should look at differs. Candidates should focus on the net monthly figure and the after-allowance gross, because that drives the decision to accept the offer. Existing officials weighing a transfer should focus on the change in coefficient and any expatriation entitlement at the new station. Recruiters should look at the gross-with-expatriation figure as the closest equivalent to a private-sector total compensation package, since it includes the components that materially distinguish EU pay from comparable national or international roles.

How the EU Salary Calculator Works

Behind the scenes the EU salary calculator applies the formula that the Commission's Pay Master Office uses every month: net pay = (basic salary × coefficient/100) + allowances − EU tax − pension contribution − sickness/accident contribution − solidarity levy. The basic salary is read from Annex I of the Staff Regulations, and the coefficient comes from the latest Council decision under Article 64. The 25% deduction default in our results panel is the rounded average across grades and family situations; when you flip into the AD12+ range, your effective deduction rate rises, while a parent of dependent children at AD5 step 1 will land closer to 22%.

The calculator does not yet model the household allowance, dependent child allowance or education allowance because those depend on private information you may not want to enter. To approximate them: add roughly 2% of basic salary for the household allowance if you have a registered partner; add a fixed flat amount per dependent child (around EUR 460 per month per child in 2025); add the school-fee allowance only if your children attend a non-European-School institution and your invoice exceeds the threshold. These figures are summarised in Annex VII of the Staff Regulations.

Worked Examples

Example 1: AD5 step 1 in Brussels, single, no children

Basic salary at Brussels coefficient (100): roughly EUR 5,610. Add the 16% expatriation allowance for a non-Belgian official: EUR 897. Gross monthly: EUR 6,507. EU community tax progressive bands subtract approximately EUR 950, pension and sickness contributions subtract another EUR 660, and the solidarity levy adds about EUR 90 of deduction. Estimated net: around EUR 4,800 per month. Annual net: roughly EUR 57,600.

Example 2: AD9 step 3 in Luxembourg, married, two children

Basic salary at Luxembourg coefficient (100): roughly EUR 8,300. Household allowance (~2%): EUR 166. Two dependent child allowances (~EUR 460 each): EUR 920. Expatriation allowance for a non-Luxembourg national: EUR 1,328. Gross monthly: roughly EUR 10,710. After EU tax, pension and sickness contributions and solidarity levy, estimated net: around EUR 8,100 per month. The dependent child and education allowances themselves are not taxed.

Example 3: FG IV step 1 in Sofia, no expatriation, single

Basic salary at Sofia coefficient (~57): roughly EUR 3,300 × 0.57 = EUR 1,880 per month. No expatriation allowance (Bulgarian national returning home). After EU tax and contributions, estimated net: around EUR 1,560 per month. While the headline number is far below the Brussels reference, Eurostat's purchasing-power parity data for Sofia confirms that this corresponds to a similar standard of living to AD5 step 1 net in Brussels for housing, food and services within the EUR-equivalent basket.

Caveats and Common Mistakes

• The five-year expatriation rule. The 16% allowance applies only if you have not, during the five years ending six months before taking up duties, lived or worked principally in the country of your duty station. People who studied for a year in Belgium before applying often misjudge this and over-estimate their net pay.
• Step 1 is not always the starting step. Article 32 of the Staff Regulations allows recruitment authorities to grant up to two extra steps to a candidate whose professional experience exceeds the minimum requirement. If the vacancy notice mentions seniority recognition, model step 2 or step 3 in the calculator instead.
• Contract agent and permanent official scales differ. A contract agent at FG IV step 1 receives less than an AD5 step 1 official at the same Brussels coefficient because the Annex IV bis grid for contract agents starts at a lower base. Match function group to category before reading the figure.
• The annual Annex XI update is retroactive. The grid published mid-year applies to remuneration from the previous 1 July. If you start in May, your first paychecks may be adjusted upward in late autumn.
• Coefficients are point estimates of a city, not a country. A coefficient for Italy uses Rome prices; an EFSA staff member in Parma may face different cost-of-living conditions and there is no automatic regional adjustment.

Related Resources

• EU Staff Regulations (consolidated) — Annex I (basic salaries), Annex VII (allowances), Annex XI (annual update), Annex IV bis (contract agents).
• Eurostat — wages and labour costs — source data for the Brussels International Index used in Annex XI updates.
• EU salaries guide — full salary tables with annotations on year-over-year changes.
• EU correction coefficients — methodology and current values per duty station.
• EU contract types — how AD, AST, AST/SC and contract agent function groups differ.

EU Salary Calculator FAQ