Countries that tax couples jointly, and what the same EUR 138,000 keeps as one salary or two
By Skyler Bissell · September 28, 2026 · 10 min read
A Berlin couple earning EUR 138,000 from one salary keeps €91,110 of it. The same couple earning the same EUR 138,000 as two salaries of EUR 69,000 keeps €84,122. A London couple on the equivalent GBP 118,500 keeps £75,587 from one salary and £89,845 from two. Germany taxes the couple as one taxpayer and Britain taxes each person alone, and the two rules point in opposite directions for the same money. This page lists which countries do which, then prices both households in eight cities so you can find the row that is you.
Joint taxation means a married couple's incomes are added together and taxed as one unit, through a tariff built for two: Germany halves the sum, taxes it and doubles the result (Ehegattensplitting), France divides it by two "parts" and multiplies back (the quotient familial), the United States and Switzerland run it through married brackets roughly twice as wide as the single ones, and Ireland gives the couple a wider standard-rate band. Individual taxation means each spouse is taxed on their own income with their own allowance and bands, and marriage changes nothing about a salary. Social contributions are charged per person under both rules.
The rule is the same one that decides how hard a second, smaller salary is taxed, which its pair page, the second earner tax rate comparison, ranks across nine cities. This page reads the rule from the household's side: one salary or two, equal or not, and which countries give you a choice.
TL;DR
- Five of the countries our engine models tax the couple jointly (Germany, France, Switzerland, the United States, Ireland); four more let a couple opt in or attribute part of one income to the other; the rest tax each person alone. The list, with the statute for each.
- In Paris and Austin one salary and two equal salaries keep the same amount to the euro and the dollar; in Amsterdam two equal salaries keep €97,103 against €79,758 from one. Both households, eight cities.
- Berlin is the one city where one salary keeps more than two, and the reason is contribution ceilings rather than the splitting tariff. Why the German rows run backwards.
Which countries tax couples jointly
Read from the tax files behind our engine, where each city carries a filing basis, and checked against the statute or the tax authority's own page for every country named.
- Germany: joint, by splitting. Spouses assessed together pay "das Zweifache des Steuerbetrags" on half their joint taxable income, section 32a Abs. 5 EStG. Individual assessment can be elected and almost never is, because splitting is never worse for the couple in total.
- France: joint, by parts. A married or PACS couple "a droit à 2 parts de quotient familial": income divided by two, taxed, multiplied by two, per service-public.fr. Children add half-parts, capped.
- Switzerland: joint, by tariff. Spouses are taxed together on their combined income under a married tariff at the federal level and a married tariff or a splitting divisor in each canton; Zurich pairs its married tariff with a deduction for the second income.
- United States: joint, by doubled brackets. The 2026 married-filing-jointly bracket edges in IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 are exactly twice the single edges through the 35% band, and the standard deduction is doubled, so a joint return taxes the couple as two singles on half each. Filing separately is allowed and rarely better.
- Ireland: joint, by band. Joint assessment gives a one-income couple EUR 53,000 at 20% and a two-income couple up to EUR 35,000 more, capped at the lower income, per Revenue; the married credit is double the single one and the employee credit stays per person.
- Spain: individual by default, joint on request. "Con carácter general, la declaración del IRPF se presenta de forma individual," and a family unit may opt for a joint return with a reduction of EUR 3,400 in the base, per the Agencia Tributaria's IRPF manual. Worth taking only when one spouse earns little. Portugal and Poland have optional joint returns of the same shape, which our engine does not model.
- Belgium: separate, with an attribution. Spouses file one return and are taxed separately on their own earned income (the decumul); where one spouse earns little or nothing, up to 30% of the other's earned income, capped at EUR 13,800 for 2026 income, is attributed to them and taxed on a second ladder (the quotient conjugal), which Belgium starts phasing out from the 2027 assessment year.
- United Kingdom: individual since 1990. The only transfer is the Marriage Allowance, GBP 1,260 of personal allowance, and only to a basic-rate partner, per GOV.UK.
- Netherlands: individual. Employment income is assessed per person in Box 1; the general tax credit is no longer paid out to a non-earning partner born after 1962, per the Belastingdienst.
- Sweden: individual since 1971. Each spouse pays municipal and state tax on their own income.
- Denmark: individual, with one transfer. Spouses are taxed alone, and an unused personal allowance moves to the other spouse: "Ægtefæller kan overføre uudnyttede personfradrag til hinanden," per Skattestyrelsen's legal guide.
Most of the rest of the 70 countries our engine covers tax each person alone: Canada, Australia, Japan, Italy, Austria, Norway, Finland, Singapore and the whole of Latin America among them. Austria and Poland carry open items in our tax worklist and are named here without a figure.
The same household income two ways, in eight cities
One household income, USD 150,000, restated in local currency at a fixed ratio (EUR 138,000, GBP 118,500, SEK 1,575,000, CHF 120,000), no children, renting two bedrooms, nothing deferred into a pension. First earned by one person with the partner at home; then earned as two equal salaries of USD 75,000 each. The four joint cities come first, then the four individual ones.
| City, who files | Household income | One salary keeps (rate) | Two equal salaries keep (rate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin, joint | €138,000 | €91,110 (34.0%) | €84,122 (39.0%) |
| Paris, joint | €138,000 | €92,681 (32.8%) | €92,681 (32.8%) |
| Zurich, joint | CHF 120,000 | CHF 97,288 (18.9%) | CHF 100,097 (16.6%) |
| Austin, joint | $150,000 | $123,185 (17.9%) | $123,185 (17.9%) |
| Brussels, individual | €138,000 | €68,324 (50.5%) | €81,165 (41.2%) |
| Amsterdam, individual | €138,000 | €79,758 (42.2%) | €97,103 (29.6%) |
| London, individual | £118,500 | £75,587 (36.2%) | £89,845 (24.2%) |
| Stockholm, individual | SEK 1,575,000 | SEK 968,633 (38.5%) | SEK 1,158,429 (26.4%) |
Engine figures, 2026 rules. Take-home is gross less income tax and mandatory employee contributions; the rate is the share taken. The Brussels one-salary figure is lower than a real return would show, because the quotient conjugal attribution is not modelled. Copenhagen is left out because the engine does not move an unused personal allowance to the earning spouse, and Dublin because the Irish data carries the two-income band only.
Start with the individual half of the table.
The four individual cities read the way the rule predicts. Two salaries of GBP 59,250 each get two personal allowances and two basic-rate bands, and London keeps £89,845 against £75,587 when the same money arrives as one salary with its allowance tapered away. Amsterdam is the widest gap on the page, €97,103 against €79,758, because the general and labour tax credits are per person and both shrink to nothing on one EUR 138,000 income. Stockholm's state tax starts on each person's income separately, so the even split pays far less of it. Brussels, the steepest ladder of the four, still keeps €81,165 as two salaries against €68,324 as one.
Paris and Austin read the way the rule predicts too, from the other side: to the euro and to the dollar, one salary and two equal salaries keep the same, €92,681 in Paris and $123,185 in Austin, because the quotient and the joint return see one household income and the contributions at these salaries are uncapped or under their ceilings for every earner. Zurich and Berlin are the two joint cities where the rows differ, and they differ in opposite directions.
Why the German rows run backwards, and the Swiss ones forwards
Berlin's one-salary household keeps €91,110 and its two-salary household €84,122. The splitting tariff sees EUR 138,000 either way, so the reason lies elsewhere, in the contribution ceilings, which are per person. One earner on EUR 138,000 clears the 2026 pension and unemployment ceiling and the health and care ceiling, and pays contributions only up to them: €46,890 of tax and contributions in total. Two earners on EUR 69,000 each sit under both ceilings and pay contributions on every euro, which is why the even split's total bill is €53,878. Those larger contributions are deductible, so the two-earner couple pays less income tax than the one-earner couple on the same splitting tariff, and the net effect is still the one-salary household ahead. In Germany, at this income, the ceiling matters more than the tariff.
Zurich is the mirror image.
Zurich runs the other way: CHF 97,288 from one salary, CHF 100,097 from two. The married tariff sees CHF 120,000 either way, the old-age contribution is uncapped so it cannot favour one earner, and the canton and the Confederation both grant a deduction for a second working spouse, so two salaries are taxed on a slightly smaller base than one. The reader who wants the tax on one specific second salary, rather than the household's total, should go to the pair page; the whole household's effective rate, both earners in, is what take-home pay by country ranks, and how these rules sit inside each country's system is on the pillar, how countries tax your salary.
How to read your own household into the table
- Find the destination's rule in the list above. Joint, optional joint, or individual. If it is optional, assume individual unless one of you will earn little; the option is worth EUR 3,400 of base in Spain and nothing at all when both incomes are similar.
- Decide which household you are in year one. One salary for a while, because the partner's job does not move with them, is the common case on a relocation, and it is the household the joint countries treat best: read the one-salary column. Two similar salaries from the start: read the two-salary column, and prefer an individual country if the salaries are close.
- If the second salary will be the smaller one, use the pair page instead. The table here splits the money evenly, which is the best case for two earners everywhere. An unequal split in a joint country taxes the smaller salary at the household's marginal rate from its first euro, and that rate ranges from 18.3% in Zurich to 47.6% in Berlin on a 100/60 split.
FAQ
Do unmarried couples get joint taxation?
Almost never. Germany's splitting, France's two parts, the American joint return and Irish joint assessment all require a marriage or a registered civil partnership (France includes PACS). Belgium extends its rules to legal cohabitants. The Netherlands has a fiscal partnership that covers unmarried couples who share a home under certain conditions, but it does not stack their earned income, so it changes little for two salaries. A couple that moves to Berlin unmarried is taxed as two single people until they marry.
Is there a marriage penalty in these countries?
In the individual-filing countries there is neither a penalty nor a bonus on earned income, because marriage does not change how a salary is taxed. In the joint-filing countries there is a bonus for unequal incomes, largest for one-earner couples, and a penalty is possible only where the married brackets are narrower than two single ladders, which in the United States begins at the 37% bracket in 2026 and in Switzerland is the reason parliament adopted a switch to individual taxation in 2025. At USD 150,000 none of the eight cities on this page penalises the couple for being married.
Which rule is better for a couple moving abroad?
It depends on which household you are, which is why this page prints two rows per city. A couple where one partner will not work for a few years, or will earn much less, keeps more under splitting or a quotient, and the German row shows one salary keeping more than two. A couple with two similar salaries keeps more where each is taxed alone, because two allowances and two sets of low bands are worth more than one, and the London and Amsterdam rows show the size of that. Read the row that matches you, then check the second-earner page for what happens when the second salary is the smaller one.
Why is Dublin missing from the table?
Ireland assesses married couples jointly and gives a one-income couple EUR 53,000 at the 20% rate and a two-income couple up to EUR 35,000 more, capped at the lower earner's income. Our Irish data carries the two-income band only, which is correct for two earners and gives a one-earner couple EUR 35,000 too much of the lower band. Rather than print a one-salary Dublin figure that is too low, the page leaves Dublin out until the data carries both bands.
Run your own two salaries, or one, through the Austin to Paris comparison or the New York to Berlin comparison for a family: add a partner, give them a salary or leave it at zero, and the tax line moves the way the table above says it will.
Sources. Germany, the splitting method: Bundesministerium der Justiz, section 32a EStG. France, two parts for a married couple: service-public.fr, quotient familial d'un couple marié. United States, the 2026 joint and single rate tables: IRS, Revenue Procedure 2025-32. Ireland, the 2026 bands and credits: Revenue, tax rates, bands and reliefs. Spain, individual filing as the general rule and the EUR 3,400 reduction for a joint return: Agencia Tributaria, tributación individual y opción por la tributación conjunta. Belgium, the 30% attribution, its 2026 ceiling and the phase-out: Securex, quotient conjugal. United Kingdom, the Marriage Allowance: GOV.UK, Marriage Allowance. Netherlands, the general tax credit and partners born after 1962: Belastingdienst, heffingskortingen laten uitbetalen. Denmark, transfer of the personal allowance between spouses: Skattestyrelsen, Den juridiske vejledning C.F.1.6.5. All pages retrieved 28 September 2026. Every figure in the table is computed by cityparity's engine; per-field provenance is in data/_meta.json, per the methodology.
Figures here come from cityparity's per-city engine and were current at publication; tax rates, contribution ceilings and exchange rates move, so treat any single number as a strong estimate and run your own inputs. Where our comparison pages quote an equivalent salary, it is the bar an offer has to clear in the destination city and it is not a job offer. See the methodology.