France vs Hong Kong
$100,000 of real income is €73,250 in France and HK$576,759 in Hong Kong. After income tax and every compulsory contribution, Hong Kong leaves you $18,955 a year more to spend than France — and what each tax buys back is the half of the question no dataset prices.
Hong Kong leaves $18,955 a year more than France on the same real income, after income tax and compulsory social contributions.
Hong Kong leaves you $18,955 a year more to spend than France
The figures on this page are in international dollars, and that choice is the whole reason the comparison means anything. Converting EUR 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 €73,250 in France 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 — French take-home is €50,432 and Hong Kong take-home is HK$506,420. Back in the common unit that is $68,850 against $87,804, a difference of $18,955 a year and $189,547 over 10 years.
Grey columns are what a year of France 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: €4,203 in France and HK$42,202 in Hong Kong — $5,737 and $7,317 once both are put in the same unit. The $1,580 a month between them is the figure worth carrying into a negotiation.
France takes 31.2% of the gross and Hong Kong takes 12.2%.
Income tax is only part of it, and the smaller part in France
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.
France, on €73,250: income tax €7,749 and compulsory contributions €15,068 — 10.6% and 20.6% of gross. The contributions are assurance vieillesse, capped portion (€3,316), assurance vieillesse, uncapped portion (€293), agirc-arrco supplementary pension, tranche 1 (€1,514), contribution d’équilibre général, tranche 1 (€413), csg, deductible portion (€4,894), csg, non-deductible portion (€1,727), crds (€360), agirc-arrco supplementary pension, tranche 2 (€2,176), contribution d’équilibre général, tranche 2 (€272), contribution d’équilibre technique (€103).
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. France taxes revenu net imposable 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 FranceDearer in Hong Kong than France
Each bar is how far apart France 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.
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 $20,571 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 $77,163
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 France takes $77,163 of real income in Hong Kong, which is HK$445,045 at Hong Kong prices. That is 22.8% less than you earn now — you could take a cut of $22,837 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: French 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 $4,685 a year. France keeps $23,748 of it, Hong Kong $28,433; effective rates 20.8% and 5.2%.
On $50,000 — Hong Kong by $8,276 a year. France keeps $38,028 of it, Hong Kong $46,304; effective rates 23.9% and 7.4%.
On $75,000 — Hong Kong by $13,211 a year. France keeps $53,843 of it, Hong Kong $67,054; effective rates 28.2% and 10.6%.
On $100,000 — Hong Kong by $18,955 a year. France keeps $68,850 of it, Hong Kong $87,804; effective rates 31.2% and 12.2%.
On $150,000 — Hong Kong by $30,442 a year. France keeps $98,863 of it, Hong Kong $129,304; effective rates 34.1% and 13.8%.
On $250,000 — Hong Kong by $59,512 a year. France keeps $152,792 of it, Hong Kong $212,304; effective rates 38.9% 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 $4,685 to $59,512.
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:
France — top rate 45.0%, reached at €181,917, with €11,600 exempt at the bottom. The scale is applied to income divided by the household’s parts, so a child is worth more the more you earn — up to a cap.
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, France takes 40.0% and leaves you $600; Hong Kong takes 17.0% and leaves you $830.
That is a gap of 23.0% 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.
France: contributions take 20.6% of a $100,000 salary and 20.1% 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: 31.2% and 38.9% in France, 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. France 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, France sits at 82.8 and Hong Kong at 74. That is what the conversion on this page corrects for: $100,000 of real income costs an employer €73,250 in one and HK$576,759 in the other.
Output per person, also in international dollars: $63,975 in France and $80,423 in Hong Kong. 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, France is 18th 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.
France sits at $68,850 and Hong Kong at $87,804. They are 15 places apart.
Sitting immediately around them: Spain at $68,934, The Netherlands at $68,265, India at $89,256, Thailand at $90,352. If the difference between France 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: $189,547
At $18,955 a year, 10 years in Hong Kong rather than France is worth $189,547 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 1 for the move to pay for itself. That is the figure a per-year comparison hides.
At three horizons: $56,864 over three years, $189,547 over 10, $568,642 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 France — Australia by $5,075 a year.
Austria vs France — France by $3,603 a year.
Canada vs France — Canada by $3,587 a year.
Ethiopia vs France — France by $7,489 a year.
France vs Germany — France by $7,785 a year.
France vs India — India by $20,406 a year.
France vs Ireland — France by $2,649 a year.
France vs Italy — France by $8,528 a year.
France vs Jamaica — Jamaica by $3,695 a year.
France vs Japan — Japan by $3,549 a year.
Or start from one country: every France 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 French figures:
France income tax — from the authority that sets it, with the rates and thresholds on the France calculator page.
France contributions — Urssaf — Taux de cotisations, secteur privé, updated 1 January 2026: employee assurance vieillesse at 6.90% within the plafond and 0.40% on the whole salary; CSG at 6.80% deductible and 2.40% non-deductible and CRDS at 0.50%, each on 98.25% of gross up to €192,240. Read 2026-09-11. https://www.urssaf.fr/accueil/outils-documentation/taux-baremes/taux-cotisations-secteur-prive.html
France contributions — Agirc-Arrco, Circulaire 2025-16 SG-DRJ of 30 October 2025 — 2026 supplementary pension contributions: employee share 3.15% on tranche 1 and 8.64% on tranche 2, CEG 0.86% and 1.08%, CET 0.14% where pay exceeds tranche 1; plafond de la Sécurité sociale €4,005 a month and €48,060 a year. Read 2026-09-11. https://reglementation.agirc-arrco.fr/home/baremes/listes-area/baremes-1/cotisations-au-regime-agirc-arrco-en-2026.html
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:
— France: The Apec contribution of 0.024% applies to cadres only and is not included.
— France: Employees in Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin and Moselle pay an additional 1.30% health contribution under the local regime, which is not applied.
— France: The contribution exceptionnelle sur les hauts revenus is charged on top of income tax at the highest incomes and is not modelled.
— 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 France or Hong Kong?
- On what you keep, Hong Kong: $18,955 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 France?
- $77,163 of real income, which is HK$445,045 at Hong Kong prices — 22.8% 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 €15,068 in France and HK$18,000 in Hong Kong, on top of income tax of €7,749 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 €73,250 in France 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 France 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. France 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. France leaves $68,850 and Hong Kong $87,804.