Australia vs Hong Kong
$100,000 of real income is $146,459 in Australia and HK$576,759 in Hong Kong. After income tax and every compulsory contribution, Hong Kong leaves you $13,879 a year more to spend than Australia — and what each tax buys back is the half of the question no dataset prices.
Hong Kong leaves $13,879 a year more than Australia on the same real income, after income tax and compulsory social contributions.
Hong Kong leaves you $13,879 a year more to spend than Australia
The figures on this page are in international dollars, and that choice is the whole reason the comparison means anything. Converting AUD to HKD at the exchange rate would measure what your money is worth if you carried it abroad. What you want to know is what it buys where you earn it, and for that the right conversion is purchasing power parity — a basket of what households actually buy, priced in each country.
So: $100,000 of real income is $146,459 in Australia and HK$576,759 in Hong Kong. Those two salaries buy the same thing before tax. They do not buy the same thing after it.
After everything compulsory — income tax and the social contributions that come off a payslip — Australian take-home is $108,270 and Hong Kong take-home is HK$506,420. Back in the common unit that is $73,925 against $87,804, a difference of $13,879 a year and $138,793 over 10 years.
Grey columns are what a year of Australia and a year of Hong Kong are worth in the same money. The bars between them are each thing that changes, in the order it changes: green adds, amber takes away.
Per month, which is how anyone actually reads a payslip: $9,023 in Australia and HK$42,202 in Hong Kong — $6,160 and $7,317 once both are put in the same unit. The $1,157 a month between them is the figure worth carrying into a negotiation.
Australia takes 26.1% of the gross and Hong Kong takes 12.2%.
Income tax is only part of it, and the smaller part in Hong Kong
Most comparisons between countries stop at the income tax rate. That is the number governments publish and the number newspapers repeat, and on a payslip it is routinely the smaller of the two deductions.
Australia, on $146,459: income tax $38,189 and compulsory contributions $0 — 26.1% and 0.0% of gross. Australian contributions are collected inside the income tax calculation rather than beside it, so they are already in the first figure.
Hong Kong, on HK$576,759: income tax HK$52,339 and compulsory contributions HK$18,000 — 9.1% and 3.1%. Made up of mandatory provident fund, employee contribution (HK$18,000).
The base the tax is charged on is not the same thing in the two countries either. Australia taxes gross salary and Hong Kong taxes assessable income after deductions — which is why comparing headline rates on gross salary gets the answer wrong before any arithmetic starts.
Cheaper in Hong Kong than AustraliaDearer in Hong Kong than Australia
Each bar is how far apart Australia and Hong Kong are on that component, and which way. Housing almost always runs several times wider than everything else — which is why a single blended index tells you very little.
A word on Australia, where the contributions line looks empty and is not: that country collects social insurance inside the same calculation as the income tax, and publishes it that way, so it is already inside the first figure rather than missing from the second. A zero there would be a reporting choice, not a country where nothing is deducted — and telling the two apart is exactly what makes these comparisons hard to do from published tables.
This is the part that took the longest to get right on this site, and it was wrong here before: the country pages used to show income tax alone and call the remainder take-home. On a salary like this that overstated what you keep by $3,121 a year in the worse of the two.
What the tax buys is the other half, and this page cannot measure it
Everything above measures what leaves your pay. It says nothing about what comes back, and between two countries that is not a detail — it is the larger half of the question.
In one country the tax bill includes your healthcare, your children's university and a pension you will actually live on. In another it does not, and you buy those yourself out of the money the page just told you that you kept. A comparison that declares a winner on take-home alone is the same trick as comparing top tax rates, which is the thing this site exists to argue against.
We looked for a way to put that half into a comparable number and there is not one. No international dataset measures the value of what a tax system returns to a household. Saying so is more useful than a made-up index.
The one piece of this that exists as a comparable figure — out-of-pocket health spending per person — is not published for Hong Kong, so even that partial measure is unavailable for this pair. It is left blank rather than estimated.
And health is one line of several. Pensions, childcare, university fees, unemployment cover and the quality of what the money buys are all outside these figures — some of them larger than health. Read the numbers above as what you keep, not as who is better off.
To live the same in Hong Kong you would need $83,278
The question behind most of these searches is not which country is cheaper. It is "I have an offer — is it enough?"
Matching what $100,000 buys you in Australia takes $83,278 of real income in Hong Kong, which is HK$480,313 at Hong Kong prices. That is 16.7% less than you earn now — you could take a cut of $16,722 and be no worse off.
It is solved by inverting the whole calculation rather than scaling it. Brackets, contribution ceilings and deductions that do not move with pay all break the straight line, and they break it exactly at the salaries where people negotiate. A rule of thumb gets this wrong by thousands.
The dashed line is the salary you earn now. The solid line is what matches it in Hong Kong. If the relationship were a simple multiplier the two would be parallel — they are not, because brackets, the Social Security ceiling and a property tax that does not move with income all bend it.
The figure also moves with the salary, which is why the chart below is a line and not a number: Australian and Hong Kong systems are progressive to different degrees, so the gap between them is not a fixed percentage.
The answer changes with the salary, and sometimes it flips
Both systems are progressive, but not in the same way and not at the same points. Resolved at six levels of real income:
On $30,000 — Hong Kong by $1,669 a year. Australia keeps $26,764 of it, Hong Kong $28,433; effective rates 10.8% and 5.2%.
On $50,000 — Hong Kong by $5,832 a year. Australia keeps $40,473 of it, Hong Kong $46,304; effective rates 19.1% and 7.4%.
On $75,000 — Hong Kong by $9,582 a year. Australia keeps $57,473 of it, Hong Kong $67,054; effective rates 23.4% and 10.6%.
On $100,000 — Hong Kong by $13,879 a year. Australia keeps $73,925 of it, Hong Kong $87,804; effective rates 26.1% and 12.2%.
On $150,000 — Hong Kong by $26,501 a year. Australia keeps $102,803 of it, Hong Kong $129,304; effective rates 31.5% and 13.8%.
On $250,000 — Hong Kong by $56,501 a year. Australia keeps $155,803 of it, Hong Kong $212,304; effective rates 37.7% and 15.1%.
The direction holds across the whole range — Hong Kong at every level from $30,000 to $250,000 — but the size of the gap does not: it runs from $1,669 to $56,501.
Contribution ceilings are usually what bends these lines. Where a country caps its social contributions, the effective rate falls away above the cap; where it does not, it keeps climbing. That single design choice moves high salaries more than any headline rate does.
What is strange about each of these two systems
A bracket is a bracket everywhere. What separates two tax systems is the exception each one carries, and neither of these appears in a table of rates:
Australia — top rate 45.0%, reached at $190,000, with $18,200 exempt at the bottom. The Medicare levy sits outside the ATO rate table, so the published scale understates the charge by two points.
Hong Kong — top rate 17.0%, reached at HK$200,000, with HK$145,000 exempt at the bottom. Two separate calculations, and you pay whichever is lower — so above a published crossover, allowances stop mattering.
Both relieve the bottom of the scale the same way, through an exempt band of income taxed at nothing, so the two scales are at least comparable in shape even where the rates differ.
The top rate is the figure that gets quoted and it is rarely the one that matters: what decides a normal salary is where the scale starts biting, how the relief at the bottom is given, and whether social contributions are capped. All three are above.
A raise is worth more in Hong Kong, whatever the averages say
The effective rates above are averages over the whole salary. They are not what you feel when you get a rise, and the two can point in opposite directions.
On the next $1,000 of real income at this level, Australia takes 39.0% and leaves you $610; Hong Kong takes 17.0% and leaves you $830.
That is a gap of 22.0% on every extra unit earned — and it runs the same way as the average rates.
Marginal rates are where contribution ceilings, tapering allowances and surcharges show up. They are also what decides whether a promotion, a bonus or a second job is worth the trouble, and they are almost never in a comparison of headline rates.
Whether the contributions ever stop is the difference nobody looks at
Income tax scales are progressive almost everywhere. Social contributions are not: most countries stop charging them above a ceiling, a few never stop, and that single design choice moves high salaries more than any rate in a table.
Australia: contributions take 0.0% of a $100,000 salary and 0.0% of a $250,000 one. They are essentially uncapped, so they keep taking the same share however much you earn.
Hong Kong: 3.1% at $100,000 and 1.2% at $250,000. Capped as well, on the same pattern.
The two systems are built differently here, and that is most of why the answer at $250,000 is not the answer at $50,000. One country lets the burden fall away on high pay and the other does not.
Total share of gross taken at the two levels: 26.1% and 37.7% in Australia, 12.2% and 15.1% in Hong Kong.
These are not equally rich countries, and the price level says so
One more thing has to be said before any of the figures above are read as advice. Australia and Hong Kong do not have the same salaries to offer.
On the World Bank's index of household prices, where the United States is 100, Australia sits at 94.8 and Hong Kong at 74. That is what the conversion on this page corrects for: $100,000 of real income costs an employer $146,459 in one and HK$576,759 in the other.
Output per person, also in international dollars: $71,934 in Australia and $80,423 in Hong Kong. The two are broadly comparable, so a salary at this level means something similar in each.
Which is the limit of every figure on this page, stated once more: it prices a salary you already have an offer for. It does not tell you that the offer exists.
Among the 27 countries here, Australia is 11th and Hong Kong is 3rd
Both resolved on the same $100,000 of real income, ranked by what is left to spend:
Thailand keeps the most, $90,352, and Italy the least, $60,321 — a spread of $30,031 on identical real pay.
Australia sits at $73,925 and Hong Kong at $87,804. They are 8 places apart.
Sitting immediately around them: South Africa at $74,158, The United Kingdom at $73,049, Jamaica at $72,545, India at $89,256. If the difference between Australia and Hong Kong looks decisive, notice how many other countries fall inside the same span — take-home alone rarely separates two places as cleanly as a single pair suggests.
A ranking of what you keep is not a ranking of where to live, and the gap between those two statements is the whole of the previous section. How this is calculated, including what it refuses to claim.
Over 10 years: $138,793
At $13,879 a year, 10 years in Hong Kong rather than Australia is worth $138,793 in today's purchasing power.
A move between countries is the expensive kind, and none of that is in the figure: visas, shipping, a deposit in a currency you do not yet earn, and in many cases a period of paying into two systems at once. There are also tax-residence rules that decide which country taxes you in the year you move, and they are not modelled here.
The line starts below zero because moving costs about $15,000 and lands entirely in year one. It takes until year 2 for the move to pay for itself. That is the figure a per-year comparison hides.
At three horizons: $41,638 over three years, $138,793 over 10, $416,380 over thirty.
The longer the horizon, the more the part this page cannot measure matters — a pension you accrue, healthcare you will need later, a child's education. A ten-year figure on take-home alone flatters whichever country asks for less now.
The other comparisons people run next
Every country here is resolved against every other on the same real income. The ones most often paired with these two:
Australia vs Austria — Australia by $8,679 a year.
Australia vs Canada — Australia by $1,488 a year.
Australia vs Ethiopia — Australia by $12,564 a year.
Australia vs France — Australia by $5,075 a year.
Australia vs Germany — Australia by $12,860 a year.
Australia vs India — India by $15,331 a year.
Australia vs Ireland — Australia by $7,724 a year.
Australia vs Italy — Australia by $13,604 a year.
Australia vs Jamaica — Australia by $1,380 a year.
Australia vs Japan — Australia by $1,526 a year.
Or start from one country: every Australia comparison and every Hong Kong comparison, each resolving all 26 on one page.
Where every number here comes from
The price level and the conversion between currencies:
World Bank, International Comparison Program — PPP conversion factor, household final consumption expenditure (LCU per international $), 2025 — read 2026-09-11. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PRVT.PP
World Bank — Price level ratio of PPP conversion factor to market exchange rate, 2025 (United States = 100) — read 2026-09-11. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPP.03.CD
World Health Organization Global Health Expenditure Database, via World Bank — Out-of-pocket health expenditure per capita, PPP, 2023 — read 2026-09-11. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.OOPC.PP.CD
The Australian figures:
Australia income tax — from the authority that sets it, with the rates and thresholds on the Australia calculator page.
Australia contributions — Australian Taxation Office — Medicare levy: 2% of taxable income, withheld with income tax and already included in this site’s Australian engine. Superannuation is paid by the employer on top of salary rather than deducted from it, so it is not a payroll deduction. Read 2026-09-11. https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/medicare-and-private-health-insurance/medicare-levy
The Hong Kong figures:
Hong Kong contributions — Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority — Mandatory contributions for employees: 5% of relevant income from both employer and employee, with monthly minimum and maximum relevant income levels of HK$7,100 and HK$30,000, so the employee contribution is capped at HK$1,500 a month; an employee earning below the minimum makes no contribution while the employer still does. Read 2026-09-11. https://www.mpfa.org.hk/en/mpf-system/mandatory-contributions/employees
And what is still not modelled on either side, stated rather than left to be discovered:
— Australia: Study and training loan repayments (HELP and the rest) are deducted through the pay cycle above an income threshold and are not modelled.
— Australia: The Medicare levy surcharge for higher earners without private hospital cover is not included.
— Hong Kong: Deductions beyond MPF are not modelled: self-education expenses, approved charitable donations, elderly residential care, home loan interest, domestic rent and voluntary health insurance all reduce assessable income.
The price figures are the 2025 release and are not extrapolated to the current year.
Where to go next
Questions
- Is it better to earn in Australia or Hong Kong?
- On what you keep, Hong Kong: $13,879 a year more in spending power on the same real income of $100,000. On whether you are better off, that is a different question — the two countries do not buy the same things with the tax they collect, and this page says what it can measure and what it cannot.
- How much do I need to earn in Hong Kong to match Australia?
- $83,278 of real income, which is HK$480,313 at Hong Kong prices — 16.7% less than you earn now. It is solved by inverting the calculation, because brackets and contribution ceilings break any simple proportion.
- Why not just compare the tax rates?
- Because the income tax rate is routinely the smaller of the two deductions. On this pair, compulsory social contributions are $0 in Australia and HK$18,000 in Hong Kong, on top of income tax of $38,189 and HK$52,339. A comparison of headline rates misses all of that, and in several countries it misses more than half of what comes off the payslip.
- Why international dollars instead of euros or dollars?
- Because an exchange rate measures what money is worth if you carry it abroad, not what it buys where you earn it. The conversion used here is the World Bank's purchasing power parity factor for household consumption, which prices a comparable basket in each country. $100,000 of real income is $146,459 in Australia and HK$576,759 in Hong Kong — two very different numbers that buy the same thing.
- Does this include what the tax pays for?
- No, and that is the honest limit of the comparison. In one country the tax includes healthcare, education and a pension; in another the household buys those itself. No international dataset measures the value of what a tax system returns, so this page does not pretend to. For this pair not even the out-of-pocket health figure is published on both sides, so it is left blank rather than estimated.
- If I move from Australia to Hong Kong, which country taxes me that year?
- That is decided by tax residence rules, and they are not modelled here. Most countries tax you as a resident from the day you arrive or from a day-count threshold, and a double tax treaty decides which one wins where both claim you. In the year of a move it is common to file in both. The figures on this page describe a full year settled in one country, not the year you cross between them — and the difference in that one year can be larger than the annual gap shown above.
- Do these figures assume a single person?
- Yes: one earner, no children, the main regional scale where a country has more than one, and no deductions beyond the standard ones. Australia and Hong Kong both treat households differently from single filers, and in some countries — joint assessment, family quotients, child credits — the difference is large enough to reverse the comparison. The single-filer case is the one that can be stated identically in all 27 countries, which is why it is the one used.
- Which country takes the largest share of a salary?
- Of the 27 here, Italy leaves the least of a $100,000 real income — $60,321 — and Thailand the most, $90,352. Australia leaves $73,925 and Hong Kong $87,804.