Take-Home Pay Calculator

What this calculator does

Enter a gross salary, choose a country, and it returns what lands in your account: income tax and compulsory employee contributions deducted, with the effective rate you pay across your whole salary and the marginal rate on your next hundred. It covers the United Kingdom in full — including Scottish rates and bands, National Insurance, student loan plans and pension contributions — alongside the destinations our clients move between: United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Portugal, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and Thailand.

Why the tax year and the review date are on screen

Most salary calculators show you a number. This one shows you the number, the tax year it belongs to, the date the rates were last checked and the source they came from, because a tax figure without those is not worth much. Rates move constantly: in the ten months before this tool was written, Cyprus raised every band threshold with effect from 1 January 2026, Australia cut its lowest rate from 16% to 15% on 1 July 2026, and Hong Kong lifted the basic allowance to HKD 145,000. Each of those would quietly break a calculator built the year before, and nothing on the page would look wrong.

The UK calculation in detail

For 2026/27 the personal allowance is £12,570, and it is withdrawn by £1 for every £2 of income above £100,000 — which is why anyone between £100,000 and £125,140 faces a marginal rate above 60% rather than the 40% the band table implies. The calculator applies the taper, so the figure it returns in that range is lower than most quick estimates. Outside Scotland, tax is 20% to £50,270, 40% to £125,140 and 45% above. Scottish taxpayers have six bands instead of three, running from a 19% starter rate to a 48% top rate. National Insurance is charged separately at 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above, on gross pay.

A pension contribution entered here reduces income tax but not National Insurance, which is how a net-pay or relief-at-source workplace scheme works. Salary sacrifice is different — it reduces both, and it will make your take-home higher than shown. If you are weighing how much to contribute, the Pension Gap Calculator sizes the target and the Annual Allowance Calculator checks the ceiling.

What it will not tell you

It will not tell you where you are tax resident, and that question comes first. Each country decides residence by its own rules, and leaving one does not automatically end your liability there — the UK Statutory Residence Test and our residency tests for other countries are the place to start. It also models one salary in one country: it does not apply double tax treaty relief, split-year treatment, or the special regimes several of these jurisdictions offer new arrivals — Cyprus has exemptions for first employment, and Portugal's IFICI regime can change the answer substantially for those who qualify.

Nor does it tell you whether a move is worth it. A tax-free salary in the UAE is not the same as a 45% pay rise once school fees, private medical cover and housing are priced in. Put the take-home figure into the Income & Expenditure Calculator and the destination into the Cost of Living Calculator, and you will have the comparison that actually matters.

How each country taxes a salary

The calculator above gives you a figure. This is what sits behind it, country by country — the rates, the contributions that come off alongside income tax, and the reliefs we have deliberately not applied. Each entry links to our guides on living and working there.

Countries we have left out, and why

Some jurisdictions cannot be answered honestly with a single national figure, so we do not try:

• Spain — Income tax is split between the state and each autonomous community, so there is no single national rate to quote.
• Switzerland — Tax is levied federally, by canton and by commune, and the total varies widely depending on where you live.
• United States — Federal tax is only part of the bill — most states, and some cities, levy their own income tax on top.
• Greece — The published scale carries no stated tax year, and the 2025 reform adds separate scales by age and number of children that are not available in a form we can model reliably.
• Malta — Three separate rate schedules apply depending on whether you are single, married or a parent. Not yet modelled.

If you need a figure for one of these, the variation is exactly why it is worth asking rather than estimating — a Zurich salary and a Geneva salary can differ by a meaningful margin after tax on identical gross pay. Our expat guides cover the wider picture for most of these destinations, and we are happy to run the numbers for a specific location.