Austria vs Luxembourg
On the same real income of $100,000 — €75,035 in Austria, €87,300 in Luxembourg — the two leave you with almost exactly the same to spend. What separates them is what the tax buys back, and this page says plainly that it cannot measure that.
Austria leaves $31 a year more than Luxembourg on the same real income, after income tax and compulsory social contributions.
Austria and Luxembourg leave you with the same thing
The figures on this page are in international dollars, and that choice is the whole reason the comparison means anything. Converting EUR to EUR 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 €75,035 in Austria and €87,300 in Luxembourg. 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 — Austrian take-home is €48,958 and Luxembourg take-home is €56,988. Back in the common unit that is $65,246 against $65,278, which is as close to level as these figures get.
Grey columns are what a year of Austria and a year of Luxembourg 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: €4,080 in Austria and €4,749 in Luxembourg — $5,437 and $5,440 once both are put in the same unit. A difference small enough to disappear into a single month of rent.
Luxembourg takes 34.7% of the gross and Austria takes 34.8%. The two rates are close enough that the difference above comes mostly from the shape of each system rather than its weight.
Income tax is only part of it, and the smaller part in Austria
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.
Austria, on €75,035: income tax €12,029 and compulsory contributions €14,049 — 16.0% and 18.7% of gross. The contributions are social insurance on ongoing pay: health, pension, unemployment, chamber of labour and housing (€11,622), social insurance on the 13th and 14th payments (€1,937), tax on the 13th and 14th payments, at the fixed §67 rate (€490).
Luxembourg, on €87,300: income tax €19,124 and compulsory contributions €11,189 — 21.9% and 12.8%. Made up of assurance maladie, prestations en nature (€2,444), assurance maladie, prestations en espèces (€218), assurance pension (€7,421), assurance dépendance (€1,106).
The base the tax is charged on is not the same thing in the two countries either. Austria taxes laufende Bezüge after social insurance and Luxembourg taxes revenu imposable — which is why comparing headline rates on gross salary gets the answer wrong before any arithmetic starts.
Cheaper in Luxembourg than AustriaDearer in Luxembourg than Austria
Each bar is how far apart Austria and Luxembourg 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.
Neither country hides its contributions inside the income tax figure, so the two lines above are directly comparable: in both, what is labelled income tax is income tax and what is labelled contributions is everything else compulsory.
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 $18,723 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.
One piece of it does exist as a figure, and here it is. Out-of-pocket health spending per person, 2023: $1,358 in Austria against $749 in Luxembourg. That is what households pay directly, after whatever the public system covers — so it is a partial, honest measure of what the tax is not buying. A household in Austria pays $609 a year more directly.
The same figure as a share tells you more than the amount does. Austria spends $8,250 per person on health altogether and 16.5% of it comes straight out of households; Luxembourg spends $8,808 with 8.5% out of pocket. The two split the bill between the public purse and the household in similar proportions, so on this one line the systems are more alike than their tax rates suggest.
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 Luxembourg you would need $99,937
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 Austria takes $99,937 of real income in Luxembourg, which is €87,245 at Luxembourg prices. That is 0.1% less than you earn now — you could take a cut of $63 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 Luxembourg. 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: Austrian and Luxembourg 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 — Austria by $236 a year. Austria keeps $25,295 of it, Luxembourg $25,060; effective rates 15.7% and 16.5%.
On $50,000 — Luxembourg by $1,188 a year. Austria keeps $37,729 of it, Luxembourg $38,917; effective rates 24.5% and 22.2%.
On $75,000 — Luxembourg by $779 a year. Austria keeps $51,962 of it, Luxembourg $52,741; effective rates 30.7% and 29.7%.
On $100,000 — level. Austria keeps $65,246 of it, Luxembourg $65,278; effective rates 34.8% and 34.7%.
On $150,000 — Austria by $2,708 a year. Austria keeps $93,060 of it, Luxembourg $90,352; effective rates 38.0% and 39.8%.
On $250,000 — Austria by $8,263 a year. Austria keeps $149,969 of it, Luxembourg $141,706; effective rates 40.0% and 43.3%.
The direction holds across the whole range — Austria at every level from $30,000 to $250,000 — but the size of the gap does not: it runs from $236 to $8,263.
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:
Austria — top rate 55.0%, reached at €1,000,000, with €13,539 exempt at the bottom. Cold progression abolished by law: every threshold rises each year by two-thirds of measured inflation, automatically.
Luxembourg — top rate 42.0%, reached at €234,900, with €13,200 exempt at the bottom. Twenty-three tariff steps and three separate tax classes, with class 2 being pure income splitting in disguise.
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 about the same in both
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, Austria takes 46.9% and leaves you $531; Luxembourg takes 48.8% and leaves you $512.
The two are within three points of each other, so a pay rise negotiated in either country is worth roughly the same after tax even where the average rates differ.
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.
Austria: contributions take 18.7% of a $100,000 salary and 10.1% of a $250,000 one. They are capped — the share falls away as pay rises, so the Austrian system leans on income tax at the top.
Luxembourg: 12.8% at $100,000 and 10.1% at $250,000. Capped as well, on the same pattern.
Both behave the same way in this respect, so the comparison between them stays fairly stable as the salary grows — the gap changes in size but not in kind.
Total share of gross taken at the two levels: 34.8% and 40.0% in Austria, 34.7% and 43.3% in Luxembourg.
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. Austria and Luxembourg do not have the same salaries to offer.
On the World Bank's index of household prices, where the United States is 100, Austria sits at 84.8 and Luxembourg at 98.6. That is what the conversion on this page corrects for: $100,000 of real income costs an employer €75,035 in one and €87,300 in the other.
Output per person, also in international dollars: $76,778 in Austria and $156,542 in Luxembourg. The gap is large, and it matters for a practical reason: a salary of $100,000 in real terms is a far more ordinary job in one of these two than in the other. Comparing the tax on an identical real salary is the right comparison; assuming the salary is equally available is not.
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, Austria is 22nd and Luxembourg is 21st
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.
Austria sits at $65,246 and Luxembourg at $65,278. The two are near neighbours in that table, which is worth knowing: on take-home alone this is a close call, and the things this page cannot measure will decide it.
Sitting immediately around them: Ireland at $66,201, Portugal at $63,994, The Netherlands at $68,265, Sweden at $62,087. If the difference between Austria and Luxembourg 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 ten years
At $31 a year, 10 years in Austria rather than Luxembourg is worth $314 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 pays for itself inside the first year. That is the figure a per-year comparison hides.
At three horizons: $94 over three years, $314 over 10, $941 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.
Austria vs Canada — Canada by $7,190 a year.
Austria vs Ethiopia — Austria by $3,886 a year.
Austria vs France — France by $3,603 a year.
Austria vs Germany — Austria by $4,182 a year.
Austria vs Hong Kong — Hong Kong by $22,558 a year.
Austria vs India — India by $24,010 a year.
Austria vs Ireland — Ireland by $955 a year.
Austria vs Italy — Austria by $4,925 a year.
Austria vs Jamaica — Jamaica by $7,298 a year.
Or start from one country: every Austria comparison and every Luxembourg 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 Austrian figures:
Austria income tax — from the authority that sets it, with the rates and thresholds on the Austria calculator page.
Austria contributions — Dachverband der Sozialversicherungsträger — Beitragsrechtliche Werte in der Sozialversicherung 2026 (BGBl. II Nr. 263/2025 of 28 November 2025): employee shares for Angestellte of 3.87% health, 10.25% pension, 2.95% unemployment, 0.50% Chamber of Labour levy and 0.50% housing contribution, on a maximum monthly base of €6,930 and a separate annual ceiling of €13,860 for the special payments; the unemployment share is reduced to 0%, 1% and 2% below €2,225, €2,427 and €2,630 a month. Read 2026-09-11. https://www.sozialversicherung.at/cdscontent/load?contentid=10008.806858
Austria contributions — § 67 EStG 1988 — sonstige Bezüge: within the Jahressechstel, special payments are taxed at fixed rates of 6%, 27% and 37.75% after a €620 exemption, and are not taxed at all where the Jahressechstel does not exceed €2,100. Read 2026-09-11. https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/eli/bgbl/1988/400/P67/NOR40105845
The Luxembourg figures:
Luxembourg contributions — Guichet.lu — Paiement des cotisations sociales pour les salariés: employee rates of 2.80% for assurance maladie prestations en nature, 0.25% for prestations en espèces and 1.40% for assurance dépendance, the last with no employer share. Read 2026-09-11. https://guichet.public.lu/fr/entreprises/ressources-humaines/remuneration/cotisations-sociales/payer-cotisations.html
Luxembourg contributions — Chambre des salariés — Le régime général d’assurance pension, avril 2026: the law of 19 December 2025 raised the global pension contribution rate from 24% to 25.5% with effect from 1 January 2026; the State bears one third (8.5%) and the remainder is split equally, so employee and employer each pay 8.5%. Read 2026-09-11. https://www.csl.lu/app/uploads/2026/04/csl_2026_pensions_a4_fr_web.pdf
Luxembourg contributions — Chambre des salariés — Social parameters from 1 June 2026 (index 992.24): the unskilled adult social minimum wage is €2,771.33 a month, so the contributory ceiling for health and pension insurance is five times that, €13,856.63 a month, and the dependency allowance is a quarter of it, €692.83. Read 2026-09-11. https://www.csl.lu/en/your-rights/legal-library/social-parameters/
And what is still not modelled on either side, stated rather than left to be discovered:
— Austria: Fourteen payments a year are assumed, which is what Austrian collective agreements provide. An employee paid in twelve equal instalments pays more tax than shown, because none of the pay would qualify for the fixed §67 rate.
— Austria: Vienna raised its housing promotion contribution to 0.75% for the employee from 1 January 2026; the 0.50% modelled here is the rate elsewhere.
— Austria: Werbungskosten, Sonderausgaben and außergewöhnliche Belastungen all reduce taxable income and are not modelled.
— Luxembourg: The guichet.lu contribution table still shows the pre-2026 pension rate of 8.00% and is dated 2015. The 8.5% in force since 1 January 2026 is used, on the authority of the law of 19 December 2025.
— Luxembourg: Deductions are not applied: professional expenses, commuting, insurance premiums, home loan interest and pension savings all reduce taxable income before the tariff.
— Luxembourg: The social minimum wage, and therefore both the ceiling and the dependency allowance, move with the cost-of-living index. The figures are those in force from 1 June 2026.
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 Austria or Luxembourg?
- On the same real income of $100,000 the two leave you with almost exactly the same amount to spend. What separates them is what the tax buys back, and that is not something this page can put a number on.
- How much do I need to earn in Luxembourg to match Austria?
- $99,937 of real income, which is €87,245 at Luxembourg prices — 0.1% 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 €14,049 in Austria and €11,189 in Luxembourg, on top of income tax of €12,029 and €19,124. 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 €75,035 in Austria and €87,300 in Luxembourg — 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. The one piece that is measured is out-of-pocket health spending per person: $1,358 in Austria against $749 in Luxembourg.
- If I move from Austria to Luxembourg, 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. Austria and Luxembourg 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. Austria leaves $65,246 and Luxembourg $65,278.