Looking at salaries after tax is completely meaningless, what is even this article trying to infer.
You have to take in to account the cost of living and also quality of services you get for it.
France & Sweden is close in the numbers but France is notably cheaper to eat out and Healthcare quality can't even be compared (to French favor). But if you're wealthy you'd probably prefer Sweden still because of the low taxes around wealth.
I recently compared (by actually going there) Switzerland vs Sweden when I passed a FAANG tech interview in Zurich, but even with 4-5x Salary of what I have now, I would probably end up living poorer if I had kids (if more than 2, it's for certain) in Zurich.
In addition (I'm European), I object to the use of per-hour wages instead of monthly salaries. It's less informative in Europe. Most jobs are full-time, salaries are typically advertised and talked about in monthly terms, and the length of the work week varies as well. Per month is just more useful as a comparison point.
Oh and Sweden is slightly ahead of France on the latest EHCI. Sweden scores near the bottom on accessibility (as is tradition, same thing 10 and 15 years ago even) but ranks highly overall and especially on outcomes, so I take issue with the assertion that French healthcare is much better.
I live in a country from the bottom of this ranking and can confirm from personal experience. Nothing works, people die, and still it's very expensive.
Taxes in Switzerland are generally quite a bit lower than in other European countries. However mandatory health insurance is not included as a tax in Switzerland and is one of the highest expenditures for regular folks and yes, cost of living is also generally very high. Specifically in urban areas (Geneva, Zürich etc.) but also in tax haven cantons (Zug, Schwyz etc.), because you pay a premium for housing/rent there.
Child tax credits are varied as well and generally too low (IMO), maternity/paternity leave and especially child support are much weaker than in Nordic countries.
From my perspective the strongest case for Switzerland is the decentralized and half-direct democratic process, political stability due to consensus. But you only get that as a citizen, which is not easy to achieve (takes a decade and you have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops). But the Swiss are very happy with their governmental structure in comparison and cherish direct democracy especially.
I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest. A smaller percentage of a larger salary is often more optimal than the reverse.
This is why for example working in a high COL city with a high salary is ultimately better; your 10% going to savings will be higher. It might not matter if you never leave the high COL city, but ceteris paribus I’d rather have a larger number in the bank account.
>I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest
It's largely meaningless, because some of what people are saving for in one country can be included in tax and social security contributions in another country - e.g. pensions and university tuition.
Vacation is also never mentioned in those discussions or comparisons. 10 days in the US vs. 20-30 (+ 8-14 public holidays, depending on the state) in Germany is much more important for _me_ than the net income.
Can't you take days off without pay in the US? The numbers that usually come up are twice the income compared to France. Taking 20 more days off without pay means losing a month of salary, which doesn't come close to making up the difference.
There are no special privilieges for the rich, as everyone has the same rules. It's actually better for the poorer in a sense as everyone is exempt to pay tax on profits on stock and dividends below a certain amount, 300000 SEK.
In Sweden you can invest your money in a special investment account which charges a certain fixed percentage each year on the amount you have in this account (cash and stocks). The percentage is based on the central bank interest rates (a special formula based on that) so it changes each year. In the past 10 years it has been around between 0.5-1% of the total amount you have in this account. Then all the profits you make are tax free as well as no tax on dividends and interest. You can't deduct losses though.
In Sweden there is no wealth tax and no inheritance tax.
EDIT: And for completeness, if you invest outside of the above mentioned type of account you have to pay 30% on profits and 30% on dividends and interests.
The ISK rules and taxes are relevant for a middle class I think. This was a question about the really rich.. then we need to look at taxes on capital gains, dividends, corporate tax et.c.
So a path to wealth for a normal person is being invested in capital markets but only through a "special" account and assuming that real estate rental or purchase will not eat every leftover from highly taxed monthly salary. This "special" account gives access to all major capital markets?
I'm not sure what you are after with you comment, but this account, of which the rules are decided by the authorities, is not that special as every bank and internet trader offers it and it is free and provides low cost Internet trading. And contrary to special pension accounts which exist in many countries, you can take out your money (and add) anytime you want. You just have to pay the tax percentage which is due. So you cannot really add and remove money too often as then you trigger this tax, but once a year is fine.
It's pretty universal in the developed world to have some type of long term savings tax-scheme.
In us it's 401k/roth. In canada it's tfsa. in uk it's isa.
isa/401k/roth has pretty low caps. tfsa and isk has no cap.
But yea, considering I pay close to 50% tax it's remarkable at the same time I can speculate in the market, make 500% and pay 1% tax on it. Or that people with actual money pay so little.
"everyone has the same rules" and "no special privileges" seems disingenuous to say. In both directions! Progressive tax codes are "the same" for "everyone", but obviously will mean the rich pay more. Now you can argue that's unfair or that it's extremely fair, but it's at least different!
But there is no progressive tax in this account. It is a percentage of what you have in the account. Same percentage for everyone. It's just that starting in 2026 they decided to make it tax free for the first 300000 SEK (about 30000 USD) you have in this account.
We have no wealth tax, no inheritance tax. If most of your income is a salary, the tax burden is high, but if you're living off investments, properties or generational funds, it's quite advantageous.
Isn't this article just plain wrong? These are nowhere near the after tax salaries, an average working Dutch person (even when excluding unemployed) is not grossing 9-10k a month with 6k euros net as this suggests. I think the article is confusing employer-side hourly labour costs with net earnings.
If you click the link to Eurostat in the article, you can see the numbers are "Wages and salaries (total)". So yes, that's the cost to the employer, which is much higher than the employees net income.
I don't know the exact situation in the Netherlands, but if it's anything like in Belgium the employer pays taxes on top of the employee's gross income. The total cost to the employer is therefore significantly higher than what the employee gets, even gross.
The choice of countries seems arbitrary. I thought the list was limited to EU nations, but Iceland and Norway are there. Then I thought it was EFTA countries, but Switzerland is missing. Then noted Belgium is also missing... I give up!
The article is based on recent Eurostat publications. Eurostat is no longer receiving data from the UK Office of National Statistics.
But as sibling comments noted, the whole article is a giant slop, confusing employee costs for employers (this is what the linked Eurostat chart is about) and net salaries.
I don't know whether this is AI slop or what. The first chart definitely doesn't show average salary AFTER tax, maybe it's a total cost to employer on hourly basis before any taxes or SSC.
And the second chart titled "Where do taxes weigh the most on employers and employees?" doesn't actually show what it purports to show.
It only shows a small slice of the social security contributions that employers pay. It shows: 100% * (Employer SSC / Total cost to employer), but:
Total tax = Tax + Employer SSC + Employee SSC.
Total cost to employer = Gross salary + Employer SSC + "benefits/costs" (vary by country)
Paid out to employee = Gross salary - Tax - Employee SSC + "benefits/costs"
See Table 3.1 on page 71 for a summarized overview of "total tax wedge vs total employer cost" in various living situations (single, with children, low/average/high wage).
Note that this still doesn't tell the full story because it ignores some benefits and entitlements that depend on your living situation ("Non-standard tax relief").
I was wondering the same thing. The data comes from Eurostat, and Eurostat does generally cover Switzerland. There's even a row in the original table[1] but for some reason it's blank.
Ah yes you choose Switzerland. The country that is famously so affordable to live in.
Last time I have been there food has costed literally double than in my home country which is also in the Alps, also has that standard of living, etc.
But hey, you moderately save on taxes if you finally manage to settle there, which csn be a bit of a challenge since switzerland isn't the most easy country to get permanent residence in.
As a European who has traveled to nearly all European countries and lived in 6 different ones, the idea to only look at the taxrate when chosing your future home country sounds so ridiculously simplistic and money-focused that it could only have come from an American author.
The point of having more money is to lead a happy live. In some countries you need more money to do that than in others. And depending on your character, hobbies and goals in life some countries will make it much more expensive than others.
For example if you like enjoying a beer in the sun and you start living in Island because of the tax rate, your first winter depression will make you question how smart that really was. Or you will just travel to southern Europe on a regular basis, but then why not live there in the first place.
The first chart is labeled "Hourly wage after taxes (€)" and links to a specific table in official Eurostat[0]. This Eurostat table is "Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity" - afaict Eurostat defines[1] "labour cost" as:
core expenditure borne by employers for the purpose of employing staff. They include employee compensation, with wages and salaries in cash and in kind, employers' social security contributions and employment taxes regarded as labour costs minus any subsidies received, but not vocational training costs or other expenditure such as recruitment costs and spending on working clothes
In other words, this doesn't whatsoever represent "hourly wage after taxes" and this article is complete slop.
Even from a pure financial perspective, given one benefit of these countries is you generally actually get useful benefits out of your tax dollars unlike the USA, wouldn't a better way of looking at this be some sort of weighted metric?
Imagine there's country A where i get a net salary of X and Y units of value out of my tax money. And country B where my net Salary is (X-M) and I get (Y+N) out of my tax money. Depending on the values of M & N, country B could be a clear winner at the end of the day.
You'd have to break this down into "archetypes" because like 90% of what you pay for is specific:
- retirement
- healthcare: negligible expense for most young people (for instance, about 80% goes to the 65+ in France)
- unemployment (a little more universal, with some large variations still)
Then there's everything to do with children (from direct subsidies to public schools or kindergarten slots), education (not everyone goes to university, for instance), and other subsidies that are income-dependent (two common ones in France are rent subsidy and a salary top-up for low-but-not-too-low incomes).
Plus, ultimately, 100% of what comes in goes out (modulo administrative costs) at the global scale, so you can't just average this or everywhere looks the same.
As someone that moved a bit through the EU, that's actually a pretty complex calculation, that's hard to distill into a single number.
My second biggest recurring expense is childcare. Having a child is something you are in control of, so the weight you might give to childcare benefits is something that wildly depends on your life plans.
Same with unemployment benefits. Would you rather a strong safety net and 8% unemployment (Like France), or a weaker net and 4% unemployment, like the Netherlands?
I think that depends on one's definition of disposable income. I think technically it's more or less what I was calling "net". But many people use it to mean "after I pay my mortgage, and my utilities, and my other thing". The further we go in that second direction the more it captures what I'm getting at.
As an example, if I have kids who need daycare and one country provides free daycare and another does not, then we need to account for the cost of daycare in our equation. And that may or may not fall under one's definition of disposable income.
The further you go in that direction, the more you have to include personal circumstances and values and the less useful it is for general comparison. Of course, the whole premise of looking at just average net income is a bit odd, so looking at expected quality of life makes more sense anyways.
100%. To use my daycare example, if someone didn't have kids, they're not realizing any value out of that.
So sure, there's an even more nebulous "value to society" concept, but since TFA is trying to get to dollars and cents I was trying to focus it on overall personal value. But even then one needs to not treat tax dollars equally.
My thought as well. If you have a kid and one country offers free daycare and the other does not, you ought to also do the math on how much you would have to pay for that for example. Or lets say one country has dirt roads and no public wster system and the other has top noch public infrastructure. One is going to be cheaper for the state.
The truth is that the tax rste alone is utterly meaningless.
Because you know where you don't have to pay taxes? If you live as a hermit in a desert cave. But that also means you won't benefit from the society around you. If you ignoring culture and which countries style of living you prefer (a werod idea, but ok), wouldn't it be wise to consider both the tax rate and what kind of society and surrounding it offers you in return?
It does not matter. I'd rather live in a country I like to live in, based on culture, food, society, etc. than earn slightly more.
Or phrased differently: what are you going to buy with the extra money that is gonna offset you living in a country you dislike?
Choosing a country in Europe is not like choosing a state in the US. The systems, culture, people, food and so on differ much more wildely. Choosing that over a minor tax difference thst could change with the next government is downright unhinged.
The numbers for Norway aren't plausible at all. Full time 45€ after tax would be a yearly net income of 95000 euros. At a ~50% marginal tax rate that's be a yearly income of over 2 million kroner. No way that's the average.
According to Statistics Norway the monthly average salary in Norway was 62070kr in 2025, so 744840kr per year.
you posted this twice, probably accidentally in context of some connectivity issues or accidental navigation (at least that way it happened to me before)
Looking at salaries after tax is completely meaningless, what is even this article trying to infer. You have to take in to account the cost of living and also quality of services you get for it.
France & Sweden is close in the numbers but France is notably cheaper to eat out and Healthcare quality can't even be compared (to French favor). But if you're wealthy you'd probably prefer Sweden still because of the low taxes around wealth.
I recently compared (by actually going there) Switzerland vs Sweden when I passed a FAANG tech interview in Zurich, but even with 4-5x Salary of what I have now, I would probably end up living poorer if I had kids (if more than 2, it's for certain) in Zurich.
So like, who is this article for.
In addition (I'm European), I object to the use of per-hour wages instead of monthly salaries. It's less informative in Europe. Most jobs are full-time, salaries are typically advertised and talked about in monthly terms, and the length of the work week varies as well. Per month is just more useful as a comparison point.
Oh and Sweden is slightly ahead of France on the latest EHCI. Sweden scores near the bottom on accessibility (as is tradition, same thing 10 and 15 years ago even) but ranks highly overall and especially on outcomes, so I take issue with the assertion that French healthcare is much better.
> EHCI
I live in a country from the bottom of this ranking and can confirm from personal experience. Nothing works, people die, and still it's very expensive.
Taxes in Switzerland are generally quite a bit lower than in other European countries. However mandatory health insurance is not included as a tax in Switzerland and is one of the highest expenditures for regular folks and yes, cost of living is also generally very high. Specifically in urban areas (Geneva, Zürich etc.) but also in tax haven cantons (Zug, Schwyz etc.), because you pay a premium for housing/rent there.
Child tax credits are varied as well and generally too low (IMO), maternity/paternity leave and especially child support are much weaker than in Nordic countries.
From my perspective the strongest case for Switzerland is the decentralized and half-direct democratic process, political stability due to consensus. But you only get that as a citizen, which is not easy to achieve (takes a decade and you have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops). But the Swiss are very happy with their governmental structure in comparison and cherish direct democracy especially.
I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest. A smaller percentage of a larger salary is often more optimal than the reverse.
This is why for example working in a high COL city with a high salary is ultimately better; your 10% going to savings will be higher. It might not matter if you never leave the high COL city, but ceteris paribus I’d rather have a larger number in the bank account.
>I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest
It's largely meaningless, because some of what people are saving for in one country can be included in tax and social security contributions in another country - e.g. pensions and university tuition.
Vacation is also never mentioned in those discussions or comparisons. 10 days in the US vs. 20-30 (+ 8-14 public holidays, depending on the state) in Germany is much more important for _me_ than the net income.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
Can't you take days off without pay in the US? The numbers that usually come up are twice the income compared to France. Taking 20 more days off without pay means losing a month of salary, which doesn't come close to making up the difference.
What exactly are the tax privileges for rich in Sweden? Because indeed in wealth inequality rankings they are next to Russia and USA.
There are no special privilieges for the rich, as everyone has the same rules. It's actually better for the poorer in a sense as everyone is exempt to pay tax on profits on stock and dividends below a certain amount, 300000 SEK.
In Sweden you can invest your money in a special investment account which charges a certain fixed percentage each year on the amount you have in this account (cash and stocks). The percentage is based on the central bank interest rates (a special formula based on that) so it changes each year. In the past 10 years it has been around between 0.5-1% of the total amount you have in this account. Then all the profits you make are tax free as well as no tax on dividends and interest. You can't deduct losses though.
In Sweden there is no wealth tax and no inheritance tax.
EDIT: And for completeness, if you invest outside of the above mentioned type of account you have to pay 30% on profits and 30% on dividends and interests.
The ISK rules and taxes are relevant for a middle class I think. This was a question about the really rich.. then we need to look at taxes on capital gains, dividends, corporate tax et.c.
So a path to wealth for a normal person is being invested in capital markets but only through a "special" account and assuming that real estate rental or purchase will not eat every leftover from highly taxed monthly salary. This "special" account gives access to all major capital markets?
I'm not sure what you are after with you comment, but this account, of which the rules are decided by the authorities, is not that special as every bank and internet trader offers it and it is free and provides low cost Internet trading. And contrary to special pension accounts which exist in many countries, you can take out your money (and add) anytime you want. You just have to pay the tax percentage which is due. So you cannot really add and remove money too often as then you trigger this tax, but once a year is fine.
It's pretty universal in the developed world to have some type of long term savings tax-scheme. In us it's 401k/roth. In canada it's tfsa. in uk it's isa. isa/401k/roth has pretty low caps. tfsa and isk has no cap.
But yea, considering I pay close to 50% tax it's remarkable at the same time I can speculate in the market, make 500% and pay 1% tax on it. Or that people with actual money pay so little.
"everyone has the same rules" and "no special privileges" seems disingenuous to say. In both directions! Progressive tax codes are "the same" for "everyone", but obviously will mean the rich pay more. Now you can argue that's unfair or that it's extremely fair, but it's at least different!
But there is no progressive tax in this account. It is a percentage of what you have in the account. Same percentage for everyone. It's just that starting in 2026 they decided to make it tax free for the first 300000 SEK (about 30000 USD) you have in this account.
That's literally a progressive tax.
We have no wealth tax, no inheritance tax. If most of your income is a salary, the tax burden is high, but if you're living off investments, properties or generational funds, it's quite advantageous.
Sounds like in Sweden it's critical to pick the right parents.
Foundations and Family Offices. Only available to the rich.
You think they pay 56% tax on income like the idiotic peasants?
"You don't have to move out of Sweden if you're a billionaire today. And actually, some billionaires are moving here" - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68927238
Isn't this article just plain wrong? These are nowhere near the after tax salaries, an average working Dutch person (even when excluding unemployed) is not grossing 9-10k a month with 6k euros net as this suggests. I think the article is confusing employer-side hourly labour costs with net earnings.
If you click the link to Eurostat in the article, you can see the numbers are "Wages and salaries (total)". So yes, that's the cost to the employer, which is much higher than the employees net income.
The median salary is around 48k in the Netherlands. That's 4k gross per month, no company is paying 5 to 6k of charges per employee per month.
I don't know the exact situation in the Netherlands, but if it's anything like in Belgium the employer pays taxes on top of the employee's gross income. The total cost to the employer is therefore significantly higher than what the employee gets, even gross.
No UK? Last time I checked it was in Europe. I imagine it's right near the bottom...
The choice of countries seems arbitrary. I thought the list was limited to EU nations, but Iceland and Norway are there. Then I thought it was EFTA countries, but Switzerland is missing. Then noted Belgium is also missing... I give up!
The article is based on recent Eurostat publications. Eurostat is no longer receiving data from the UK Office of National Statistics.
But as sibling comments noted, the whole article is a giant slop, confusing employee costs for employers (this is what the linked Eurostat chart is about) and net salaries.
No Belgium either, which I would have expected since tax rates here...
We were ashamed to send our 2025 stats ;-)
The salaries in UK are fixed at 25k GBP annually forever in every industry.
I don't know whether this is AI slop or what. The first chart definitely doesn't show average salary AFTER tax, maybe it's a total cost to employer on hourly basis before any taxes or SSC.
And the second chart titled "Where do taxes weigh the most on employers and employees?" doesn't actually show what it purports to show.
It only shows a small slice of the social security contributions that employers pay. It shows: 100% * (Employer SSC / Total cost to employer), but:
Here's where you can actually find a half-decent comparison: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/taxing-wages-2025_b3a95...See Table 3.1 on page 71 for a summarized overview of "total tax wedge vs total employer cost" in various living situations (single, with children, low/average/high wage).
Note that this still doesn't tell the full story because it ignores some benefits and entitlements that depend on your living situation ("Non-standard tax relief").
If you decide to live in Iceland instead of France (for example) for the tax benefits, you get exactly what you deserve
Surely the climate and the solitude would be too much for someone from the Mediterranean, for example.
[dead]
This article is surprisingly missing Belgium, which I expected to see at the top of the employee costs.
why is switzerland not there but norway and iceland are
I was wondering the same thing. The data comes from Eurostat, and Eurostat does generally cover Switzerland. There's even a row in the original table[1] but for some reason it's blank.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/LC_LCI_LEV__c...
Belgium's not there either, and that's definitely in the EU.
Because it wouldn't look good for the EU
Ah yes you choose Switzerland. The country that is famously so affordable to live in.
Last time I have been there food has costed literally double than in my home country which is also in the Alps, also has that standard of living, etc.
But hey, you moderately save on taxes if you finally manage to settle there, which csn be a bit of a challenge since switzerland isn't the most easy country to get permanent residence in.
As a European who has traveled to nearly all European countries and lived in 6 different ones, the idea to only look at the taxrate when chosing your future home country sounds so ridiculously simplistic and money-focused that it could only have come from an American author.
The point of having more money is to lead a happy live. In some countries you need more money to do that than in others. And depending on your character, hobbies and goals in life some countries will make it much more expensive than others.
For example if you like enjoying a beer in the sun and you start living in Island because of the tax rate, your first winter depression will make you question how smart that really was. Or you will just travel to southern Europe on a regular basis, but then why not live there in the first place.
Switzerland is not a member of the European Union.
Neither are Norway and Iceland
(but are part of European Economic Area)
Neither are Norway and Iceland.
The title says: "European countries" not "EU" which both are different.
The first chart is labeled "Hourly wage after taxes (€)" and links to a specific table in official Eurostat[0]. This Eurostat table is "Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity" - afaict Eurostat defines[1] "labour cost" as:
core expenditure borne by employers for the purpose of employing staff. They include employee compensation, with wages and salaries in cash and in kind, employers' social security contributions and employment taxes regarded as labour costs minus any subsidies received, but not vocational training costs or other expenditure such as recruitment costs and spending on working clothes
In other words, this doesn't whatsoever represent "hourly wage after taxes" and this article is complete slop.
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/LC_LCI_LEV__c...
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/de/lc_lci_lev_e...
This should be the top comment and shame on Euronews for the slop!
Even from a pure financial perspective, given one benefit of these countries is you generally actually get useful benefits out of your tax dollars unlike the USA, wouldn't a better way of looking at this be some sort of weighted metric?
Imagine there's country A where i get a net salary of X and Y units of value out of my tax money. And country B where my net Salary is (X-M) and I get (Y+N) out of my tax money. Depending on the values of M & N, country B could be a clear winner at the end of the day.
You'd have to break this down into "archetypes" because like 90% of what you pay for is specific: - retirement - healthcare: negligible expense for most young people (for instance, about 80% goes to the 65+ in France) - unemployment (a little more universal, with some large variations still)
Then there's everything to do with children (from direct subsidies to public schools or kindergarten slots), education (not everyone goes to university, for instance), and other subsidies that are income-dependent (two common ones in France are rent subsidy and a salary top-up for low-but-not-too-low incomes).
Plus, ultimately, 100% of what comes in goes out (modulo administrative costs) at the global scale, so you can't just average this or everywhere looks the same.
As someone that moved a bit through the EU, that's actually a pretty complex calculation, that's hard to distill into a single number.
My second biggest recurring expense is childcare. Having a child is something you are in control of, so the weight you might give to childcare benefits is something that wildly depends on your life plans.
Same with unemployment benefits. Would you rather a strong safety net and 8% unemployment (Like France), or a weaker net and 4% unemployment, like the Netherlands?
You could look at disposable income. That’s a more objective measure.
I think that depends on one's definition of disposable income. I think technically it's more or less what I was calling "net". But many people use it to mean "after I pay my mortgage, and my utilities, and my other thing". The further we go in that second direction the more it captures what I'm getting at.
As an example, if I have kids who need daycare and one country provides free daycare and another does not, then we need to account for the cost of daycare in our equation. And that may or may not fall under one's definition of disposable income.
The further you go in that direction, the more you have to include personal circumstances and values and the less useful it is for general comparison. Of course, the whole premise of looking at just average net income is a bit odd, so looking at expected quality of life makes more sense anyways.
100%. To use my daycare example, if someone didn't have kids, they're not realizing any value out of that.
So sure, there's an even more nebulous "value to society" concept, but since TFA is trying to get to dollars and cents I was trying to focus it on overall personal value. But even then one needs to not treat tax dollars equally.
My thought as well. If you have a kid and one country offers free daycare and the other does not, you ought to also do the math on how much you would have to pay for that for example. Or lets say one country has dirt roads and no public wster system and the other has top noch public infrastructure. One is going to be cheaper for the state.
The truth is that the tax rste alone is utterly meaningless.
Because you know where you don't have to pay taxes? If you live as a hermit in a desert cave. But that also means you won't benefit from the society around you. If you ignoring culture and which countries style of living you prefer (a werod idea, but ok), wouldn't it be wise to consider both the tax rate and what kind of society and surrounding it offers you in return?
It does not matter. I'd rather live in a country I like to live in, based on culture, food, society, etc. than earn slightly more.
Or phrased differently: what are you going to buy with the extra money that is gonna offset you living in a country you dislike?
Choosing a country in Europe is not like choosing a state in the US. The systems, culture, people, food and so on differ much more wildely. Choosing that over a minor tax difference thst could change with the next government is downright unhinged.
The numbers for Norway aren't plausible at all. Full time 45€ after tax would be a yearly net income of 95000 euros. At a ~50% marginal tax rate that's be a yearly income of over 2 million kroner. No way that's the average.
According to Statistics Norway the monthly average salary in Norway was 62070kr in 2025, so 744840kr per year.
https://www.ssb.no/en/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkos...
<deleted>
you posted this twice, probably accidentally in context of some connectivity issues or accidental navigation (at least that way it happened to me before)
Exactly one delivery semantics don't exist
Thanks
How coincidental given your nickname /s