Every expat tax regime ranked by take-home on $150k

By Skyler Bissell · Updated August 2026 · 10 min read

Every country with an expat tax break sells it the same way: a headline rate that sounds unbeatable in isolation. The only fair way to rank them is to stop reading the brochures and run the same salary through each one. So that is what this is. Thirteen destinations, one $150,000 salary, each in the city its regime is built around, all taxed by the same engine, ranked by what a single filer keeps.

The surprise is how tightly the good ones cluster, and how two famous "low tax" destinations land at the bottom once you check who is allowed to claim the break. Portugal finishes thirteenth of thirteen.

The ranking

Same $150,000 salary in every row, converted to the local currency, taxed as a single filer on income tax plus employee social contributions, before living costs, with the regime applied wherever our model can grant it. Take-home is converted back to dollars so the thirteen line up directly. "Added vs ordinary" is what the regime hands back against paying that country's normal tax, and it reads "none" wherever the break turns on a condition we cannot test.

Take-home is after income tax and employee social contributions, before living costs and before any US tax. The percentage is the share of the $150k gross that survives. Figures are engine-computed and rounded; see the method note at the end for the exact basis.

The top of the table: four regimes between 22% and 25% tax

The best inbound deals in Europe do not spread out. Greece's 50% exemption and Italy's impatriati finish first and second at 77.8% and 76.4% of gross kept, with the Netherlands 30% ruling and Sweden's expert relief within three points behind. Different mechanics, same landing zone: a half-off taxable base in Athens and Milan, an exempt slice of pay in Amsterdam and Stockholm, all landing between a 22.1% and a 25.0% effective rate at this income.

Three footnotes on the leaders. Greece and Italy win partly because their ordinary taxes are steep, 42.0% in Athens and 44.5% in Milan on the same salary with no regime, so halving the base clears far more ground than a 25 to 30% slice does. That is also why they hand back the two largest figures in the last column. Italy carries the sharpest edges in the set: a four-year stay commitment with a full clawback if you leave early, a five-year term against Greece's seven, and a 60% exemption if you move with a minor child (the €90k Milan line by line is here). And the Dutch rate drops to 27% from 2027, which shaves the Netherlands slightly without moving its rank.

One thing the Amsterdam row hides: the 30% ruling's salary floor is tested on the 70% of pay that remains after the carve-out, so the 2026 norm of €48,013 works out to about €68,590 of gross. A $150k package clears it with room to spare. A €60,000 one does not clear it at all.

The middle: Spain, Belgium, Denmark

Spain's Beckham Law keeps 73.0% at this salary, its flat 24% dragged up about three points by social security that runs on full pay to its own ceiling. The flat rate itself now stops at €600,000, with 47% above that, a line no salary on this page comes near. It is a strong six-year deal and the one with the deepest coverage here: the head-to-head with the 30% ruling, a full worked $150k example, and what happens when the six years end.

Belgium's regime does the heaviest lifting on the page. Its 35% expense allowance lost the old ceiling for income year 2025 and picked up a hard €70,000 salary floor in exchange, and at this salary it takes Brussels from a 50.0% ordinary rate down to 31.2%. That is 68.9% kept, out of the steepest ordinary tax in the whole set. Denmark's researcher scheme is a 27% flat that becomes 32.8% once the 8% labour-market contribution comes off first, and keeps 67.2%. Both sit a clear step below the leaders, and both beat their own country's ordinary tax by a wide margin.

The honest no's: six countries with nothing for a salaried arrival

Six of the thirteen give a $150k salaried arrival no usable break, and it is worth being precise about why, because each one fails differently.

• UK, the FIG regime. The 2025 foreign-income-and-gains regime relieves foreign income and gains for four years, and does nothing for a UK salary. A London earner pays ordinary UK tax, and at this salary the personal-allowance taper above £100k is already biting: 65.2% kept. The full FIG breakdown, including the 62% marginal band.
• Norway, the PAYE scheme. Norway's 25% flat PAYE is real, and it is capped at NOK 725,050, which a $150k salary clears by more than 700,000 kroner. The ceiling is a cliff: earn one krone over it and the entire income reverts to ordinary rules, so Oslo here keeps 65.1%. The scheme helps modest new arrivals.
• Ireland, SARP. SARP exempts 30% of salary above €125,000, a floor Finance Act 2025 raised from €100,000 for arrivals from January 2026. It is a genuine relief, but we model it conservatively as a footnote rather than a rate, so Dublin here shows ordinary Irish tax at 60.5% kept. At €150k the break is worth roughly €3,000 a year, because so little income sits above that threshold. Treat the Dublin figure as the conservative end.
• Poland, the 12% ryczałt. The famous lump-sum is a general self-employment option, open to a Polish local on day one and closed to anyone taxed as an employee. Claiming it means registering as a B2B contractor, giving up paid leave, employer sick pay, notice protection and the employer pension, then paying tax on revenue with no cost deduction and no PLN 30,000 allowance. Art. 8 ust. 2 also voids it for the whole year if you supply your former employer the same services you performed as their employee, which shuts the convert-my-job route. Warsaw here shows ordinary Polish tax: 58.4% kept.
• Germany, nothing. There is no inbound regime for ordinary employees, so Berlin is full ordinary tax and social insurance from day one, at a 43.3% effective rate that leaves 56.7%. What you buy with it is public services: free Kita in Berlin at any income, statutory health cover that adds no premium for a spouse or children, and 20 vacation days plus 10 public holidays. What the missing regime costs, city by city.
• Portugal, IFICI in name only. The NHR successor is a flat 20% for ten years, and every qualifying route gates on your employer rather than on you: a body inside the national science and technology system, a holder of AICEP contractual investment benefits, a company exporting more than half its turnover, a SIFIDE II entity, or a startup certified by Startup Portugal. An engineer at an ordinary Portuguese company qualifies for none of it. Lisbon therefore shows ordinary Portuguese tax, 54.4% kept, the lowest take-home on this list.

The paradox: the size of the break doesn't set the rank

Read the last column and the ordering loosens. Italy hands back the most against ordinary tax at $31,296 a year, with Greece close behind at $29,816. Belgium returns $28,219, the third-largest discount on the page, and Brussels still finishes sixth. Stockholm and Madrid hand back about $19,000 apiece and both finish ahead of it.

A break is only as good as the tax it discounts. Belgium's ordinary rate is 50.0%, the steepest here, so even a 35% exclusion lands at 68.9% kept, behind what Sweden reaches from a 37.5% base with a handback worth $9,500 less. Portugal makes the sharper version of the same point: a headline 20% that nobody on an ordinary payroll can claim is worth exactly zero, and Lisbon finishes thirteenth. The lesson for anyone comparing offers is to ignore the size of the discount and read the take-home, which is the only number that ends up in your account.

So which regime is "best"?

The top four are close enough that the tax rate should not pick your country. Portugal and Poland are the reminder underneath that: both advertise a headline in the teens or twenties, both sit in the bottom three here, and the reason in each case is eligibility. The best regime is the one you qualify for, in a city whose whole cost math already works: rent you can live with, childcare that is not a second mortgage, healthcare you are not privately insuring. A regime is a discount on one line of the ledger. The ordinary tax it discounts is another, and the safety net that decides a family move is a third. This table settles the first line; it is not meant to settle the move.

One caveat that overrides everything for Americans: US citizens are taxed on worldwide income, and a lower foreign rate shrinks the foreign tax credit against the US bill, so some of a regime's saving can come back home. The ranking above is the local-tax half only. Put your own salary and family through the full picture:

• Run your salary through any city in the calculator →
• Expat tax breaks, decoded: the pillar this table belongs to, on how much each regime moves take-home
• Italy's impatriati regime, the Netherlands 30% ruling, and Spain's Beckham Law: the three regimes with full explainers
• How countries actually tax your salary: the ordinary-rate map every regime is a discount against
• NYC vs Milan and NYC vs Amsterdam: a US salary against the leaders, whole package counted

FAQ

What is the best expat tax regime in 2026?

By engine-computed take-home on a $150,000 salary, the half-off regimes lead: Greece's 50% exemption keeps 77.8% of gross (about $116,800) and Italy's impatriati 76.4%, just ahead of the Netherlands 30% ruling at 75.0% and Sweden's expert relief at 75.0%. The headline rate is the wrong tiebreaker. The best regime is the one you qualify for, in a city whose whole cost math (housing, childcare, healthcare) already works for you.

Which country lets expats keep the most on a high salary?

On a $150k salary with the regime applied, the top four land between a 22% and a 25% effective rate: Greece keeps 77.8%, Italy 76.4%, the Netherlands 75.0%, and Sweden 75.0%. Spain's Beckham Law sits at 73.0%, Belgium's inbound regime at 68.9%, and Denmark's researcher scheme at 67.2%. Six of the thirteen give a salaried arrival no usable break at all: the UK keeps 65.2%, Norway 65.1%, Ireland 60.5%, Poland 58.4%, Germany 56.7%, and Portugal 54.4%.

Does Spain's Beckham Law beat the Netherlands 30% ruling?

They are close, and it flips by salary. At $150k-equivalent both land near the top, with the Netherlands slightly ahead on take-home. At a round €100k the 30% ruling wins more clearly, while at €150k the two nearly tie and Spain edges ahead from 2027 once the Dutch rate drops to 27%. Neither is a runaway; the deciding factor is usually the rest of the cost of living.

Does Germany have an expat tax regime?

No. Germany has no inbound tax regime for ordinary employees, so a new arrival pays full ordinary tax and social insurance from day one. On a $150k-equivalent salary in Berlin that is a 43.3% effective rate, leaving 56.7% of gross, about $85,000. That ranks twelfth of thirteen here, ahead of Lisbon only. What the German rate buys is public services: free Kita in Berlin at any income, statutory health cover that adds no premium for a spouse or children, and 20 vacation days plus 10 public holidays.

Do these expat tax regimes help US citizens?

On the local-tax side, yes. But US citizens are taxed on worldwide income, and a lower foreign tax rate means a smaller foreign tax credit against the US bill, so part of a regime's saving can be clawed back at home. A flat 24% in Spain or a big exemption elsewhere can leave more US tax to settle than an ordinary-rate country would. Model both sides with someone who does expat returns; this ranking is the local half only.

How is this expat tax regime ranking calculated?

Each regime's flagship city is run through cityparity's per-city engine on the same salary: $150,000 converted to the local currency at the site's build FX rate, taxed as a single filer on income tax plus employee social contributions, before living costs, with the regime applied where the engine can grant it. The resulting take-home is converted back to US dollars so the thirteen are directly comparable. Five regimes turn on conditions our model cannot test (UK FIG, Norway PAYE, Ireland SARP, Poland's ryczalt, Portugal's IFICI) and are carried as notes with no salary relief. It is the local-tax picture only, and excludes US tax and cost of living.

Sources. Regime rules come from each country's tax authority, including the Dutch Belastingdienst, Spain's Agencia Tributaria, and Italy's Agenzia delle Entrate. The two eligibility calls that decide the bottom of this table are Portugal's IFICI (art. 58-A EBF, whose certification routes run through FCT, AICEP, ANI and Startup Portugal), published by the Autoridade Tributaria e Aduaneira, and the Polish lump-sum exclusion at art. 8 ust. 2 of the ryczalt act, published by Ministerstwo Finansow. The ranking is computed by cityparity's per-city engine; see take-home pay by country.

Method: each figure is $150,000 converted to the flagship city's currency at the site's build FX rate of 27 July 2026 (€0.878, £0.75, DKK 6.55, SEK 9.70, PLN 3.79, NOK 9.58 to the dollar), run through cityparity's per-city engine as a single filer (income tax plus employee social contributions, before living costs, regime applied where the engine can grant it), with take-home converted back to dollars. It excludes US tax and cost of living. Regime rates and durations are current at publication from official and firm sources. Five regimes are carried as notes with no salary relief, because our model tests salary and each of them turns on something we cannot test: UK FIG, Norway PAYE, Ireland SARP, Poland's ryczałt, and Portugal's IFICI. Confirm your own case with an adviser. See the methodology.