Countries with tax breaks for expats: 13 regimes ranked by how easily the door opens
By Skyler Bissell · September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
A person arriving in Amsterdam on €68,590 of gross salary gets the 30% ruling; on €68,000 they get nothing. A person arriving in Brussels on €70,000 gets Belgium's 35% exclusion; one euro under it, nothing. A person arriving in Athens on €60,000 pays 21.2% instead of 36.3%, because Greece asks no salary question at all. Every guide to expat tax breaks ranks the discounts. This one ranks the doors, because the discount is worth nothing to the majority of movers who never get through one.
An inbound tax regime is a statutory discount on income tax offered to people who move to a country for work, for a fixed number of years, on conditions the law sets. Thirteen European countries our engine covers carry one, or carry a scheme that is often described as one. Seven of them reduce the tax on an ordinary local salary and our engine computes the effect: the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Italy and Spain. Six turn on something a salary calculator cannot see, and we carry those as notes rather than numbers: Ireland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Norway, Poland and Germany.
TL;DR
- Three regimes test no salary: Greece, Italy and Spain turn on where you lived before the move, and all three work at €60,000. The open doors.
- Four regimes have a salary floor, and the first euro over it is worth between €10,385 in Amsterdam and SEK 132,468 in Stockholm. The four floors.
- Six schemes are called expat tax breaks and leave a local salary alone, or nearly so. The six that are not about your salary.
The ranking: from no salary test to a €125,000 one
The table orders the thirteen by the door, from regimes anyone in the right circumstances can use at any salary, through the four with a salary floor in rising order, to the five where the gate is something other than pay. The "worth a year" column is what the regime is worth in our engine at the salary shown in the door column, so it is the value on the first euro inside rather than at some high salary everyone clears. Each open-door regime is priced at €60,000, a salary the Dutch and Belgian floors turn away.
| # | Country, regime (city priced) | The door | Rate with it | Worth a year | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Greece, article 5C exemption (Athens) | No salary test; 5 of the last 6 years abroad | 21.2% at €60,000 | €9,036 | 7 |
| 2 | Italy, impatriati (Milan) | No salary test; 3 prior tax years abroad | 20.8% at €60,000 | €10,492 | 5 |
| 3 | Spain, Beckham regime (Madrid) | No salary test; 5 prior tax years abroad | 30.3% at €60,000 | €3,031 | 6 |
| 4 | Netherlands, 30% ruling (Amsterdam) | €68,590 of gross | 14.4% at the floor | €10,385 | 5 |
| 5 | Belgium, inbound taxpayer regime (Brussels) | More than €70,000 of gross | 24.0% at the floor | €12,207 | 5 (+3) |
| 6 | Sweden, expert tax relief (Stockholm) | SEK 1,065,612 of gross, or an expertise assessment | 20.3% at the floor | SEK 132,468 | 7 |
| 7 | Denmark, researcher scheme (Copenhagen) | DKK 786,000 of gross | 32.8% at the floor | DKK 32,204 | 7 |
| 8 | Ireland, SARP (Dublin) | €125,000 of basic salary, and a group transfer | Not computed | Not computed | 5 |
| 9 | Portugal, IFICI (Lisbon) | A certified employer or activity | Not computed | Not computed | 10 |
| 10 | United Kingdom, FIG regime (London) | 10 years abroad; foreign income only | Unchanged on salary | Nothing on salary | 4 |
| 11 | Norway, PAYE scheme (Oslo) | A ceiling of NOK 725,050, first year | Not computed | Not computed | 1 |
| 12 | Poland, B2B lump-sum tax (Warsaw) | Self-employment; closed to employees | Unchanged on salary | Nothing on salary | Open-ended |
| 13 | Germany, no regime (Berlin) | None exists | Unchanged | Nothing | 0 |
Single filer, no children, renting, 2026 rates in each city's own currency. "Rate with it" is the effective rate on the whole salary, income tax plus employee contributions, with the regime applied at the salary in the door column. Ireland's floor is €125,000 for arrivals from 2026; Norway's scheme is yearly and has no fixed term; Belgium's five years extend by three on application.
Three doors that open at any salary: Greece, Italy, Spain
Greece, Italy and Spain ask where you lived, and nothing about what you earn. Greece's article 5C halves the taxable base of Greek employment and business income for seven tax years, for someone who spent five of the previous six years outside Greece, arrives from an EU or EEA state or one with a cooperation agreement, takes a new job or starts a business, and declares an intention to stay two years. Italy's impatriati regime halves the base for the year of transfer and the four after it, capped at €600,000 of exempt base, for someone with three prior tax years abroad who commits to four years of Italian residence, and the exemption rises to 60% for a parent moving with a minor child. Spain's Beckham regime replaces the ladder with a flat 24% to €600,000 and 47% above it, for six tax years, for someone with five prior tax years outside Spain whose move was caused by a job.
Priced at €60,000, a salary two floors on this page turn away, the three regimes separate. In Athens the exemption is worth €9,036 a year and moves the rate from 36.3% to 21.2%. In Milan it is worth €10,492, from 38.3% to 20.8%, the largest of the three because Italian ordinary rates at this level are the steepest. In Madrid the flat 24% is worth €3,031, from 35.4% to 30.3%, because Spain's ordinary rate on €60,000 is already close to the flat one. The Beckham regime is built for high salaries; at ordinary ones it is a small discount with a long list of conditions, which who qualifies for the Beckham Law goes through clause by clause.
Open doors have their own catches. Italy's is the clawback: leave before four tax years are complete and the relief is repaid with interest. Greece's is origin, since a move from a non-cooperating state does not qualify however long you were away. Spain's is the trigger, since the regime requires that the move to Spain was caused by the employment rather than the other way round.
Four salary floors, and what the first euro inside is worth
The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark each publish a salary line, and the interesting number is what happens on the first euro that clears it. Our engine bisects each floor out of the regime's own eligibility rule and prices the relief there.
Netherlands, €68,590. The published norm for 2026 is €48,013 of taxable salary, and it is tested after the 30% has been carved out, so the gross package has to be about €68,590. At that salary the ruling is worth €10,385 a year in Amsterdam and moves the rate from 29.5% to 14.4%. It runs five years, drops to 27% from 2027 for anyone whose ruling started in 2024 or later, and adds a distance test: more than 150 km from the Dutch border for 16 of the 24 months before starting. The mechanics are in the Netherlands 30% ruling, explained.
Belgium, more than €70,000. The inbound regime lets the employer pay 35% of the package as tax-free costs, with no ceiling since 2025, for five years plus three on application. At the floor it is worth €12,207 a year in Brussels, about $14,144, and moves the rate from 41.5% to 24.0%. The same 150 km rule applies over 60 months, and the employer has three months to file. Belgium's expat tax regime, explained with numbers works the floor from both sides.
Sweden, SEK 1,065,612, or an assessment. The automatic route is a monthly salary above one and a half times the price base amount, SEK 88,801 a month for work starting in 2026. Below it there is a second door, a case-by-case assessment as an expert, researcher or key person. Either way the relief exempts a quarter of salary for seven years, and at the salary line it is worth SEK 132,468 a year in Stockholm, about $13,944, from 32.7% to 20.3%.
Denmark, DKK 786,000. The researcher scheme is a flat 27% on gross plus the 8% labour market contribution, 32.84% all in, for up to seven years, for someone paid at least DKK 65,400 a month in 2026 (our engine's annual figure adds the small ATP pension share the statute counts). It is the least generous floor regime on this page: at the line it is worth DKK 32,204 a year in Copenhagen, from 36.9% to 32.8%, because Denmark's ordinary rate on that salary is already moderate once its employment deductions are counted. The scheme also carries the longest look-back in Europe: no Danish tax liability of any kind in the previous ten years.
Read the four together and the order of the doors and the order of the discounts are different lists. Sweden's door is the highest of the four in local terms and its first euro inside is worth the most; Denmark's door is the second highest and its first euro is worth the least. The reason is always the ordinary rate the regime discounts, and where that layer sits country by country is in take-home pay by country.
Ireland: a door only a transfer can walk through
Ireland's Special Assignee Relief Programme disregards 30% of income between €125,000 and €1,000,000 for income tax, for up to five consecutive tax years, for arrivals from 2026 to 2030. The salary floor is the highest on this page, and it is the smaller of the two conditions. The person must have been a full-time employee of the same employer, or a group company, outside Ireland for at least six months immediately before arriving, at the employer's request. Someone who finds a Dublin job on the open market and moves for it cannot use SARP however much they earn. Revenue's own manual adds that the disregarded income remains fully subject to the universal social charge and PRSI, and that an employer who certifies late, after 90 days but within 180, cuts the term to four years. Our engine carries SARP as a note because a calculator cannot see who your employer was six months ago.
The six that are not about your salary
Five schemes turn up in every list of expat tax breaks and do not reduce the tax on an ordinary local salary, or do so only in circumstances a mover rarely meets. Germany is the sixth entry, carried so the zero is visible.
- Portugal, IFICI. A flat 20% on Portuguese employment and self-employment income for ten years. The door is not a salary but an employer: the job must sit with a certified start-up, a research body, a company with recognised investment benefits, or an exporter in a listed activity, and the employer files. Most software jobs clear the profession test and fail the employer test, which IFICI Portugal, explained sets out with the annex codes.
- United Kingdom, FIG. Four years of relief on foreign income and gains for anyone arriving after ten consecutive tax years abroad. A London salary for London work is UK income and is taxed in full from the first payslip. What FIG does not do for your salary is the whole of that page.
- Norway, PAYE. A flat 25% including social contributions, available only in the first year of work and only below NOK 725,050 of income, with every deduction switched off. It is a door that closes above a salary rather than opening above one, and anyone earning real money in Oslo usually opts out.
- Poland, the B2B lump sum. A 12% flat rate on revenue for software work done as a self-employed contractor. It is a general self-employment option a Polish local can take on day one, closed to anyone on a payroll, so it is not an inbound regime at all, whatever the recruiter's slide says.
- Ireland, SARP. Listed above with its floor, and repeated here because the transfer condition, not the salary, is what most people fail.
- Germany. No inbound regime exists, none was added in 2025, and a Berlin salary is taxed on the ordinary ladder from day one. What that costs against Amsterdam, Milan and Madrid is priced on €90,000.
How to read this beside the take-home ranking
This page and every expat tax regime ranked by take-home on $150k rank the same thirteen regimes and put them in different orders, on purpose. That page holds one salary constant, high enough to clear every floor, and asks what each regime leaves you. This page asks whether you are inside at all, and prices the first euro of each. A reader on €65,000 with an Amsterdam offer and a Milan offer learns from the first page that the Netherlands outranks Italy by a point on $150,000, and from this one that the Dutch door is shut at their salary while the Italian one is open and worth €10,492 a year at €60,000. Both are true. The one that applies is the one at your salary.
How long each of the thirteen lasts, and what a year of each is worth, is the third ordering, in regime durations ranked from four years to ten. The reasoning behind the split between the seven regimes we compute and the six we carry as notes is in expat tax breaks, decoded. And to see the door at your own salary, put your package into the New York to Amsterdam comparison or New York to Copenhagen and switch the regime toggle. If the toggle changes nothing, you are on the wrong side of the line, and the page will say so.
FAQ
Which European country has the easiest expat tax break to qualify for?
Greece, Italy and Spain test no salary at all. Each turns on residence history instead: Greece wants five of the previous six years spent outside Greece and a move from an EU, EEA or cooperating state, Italy wants three prior tax years abroad and a four-year commitment to stay, Spain wants five prior tax years outside Spain and a job that caused the move. Of the three, Italy's clawback is the sharpest edge, since leaving before the four years are up means repaying the relief with interest.
Do expat tax regimes apply to US citizens?
They reduce the host country's tax, and the United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live. A regime that cuts Belgian or Dutch tax raises the share of income the US may tax after the foreign tax credit, so part of the saving can move from one treasury to the other. Whether it does depends on the foreign earned income exclusion, the credit and the salary level, which is a separate calculation from anything on this page.
Can you use an expat tax regime more than once?
Each regime tests the years before arrival, so a second use requires leaving for long enough to reset the test. The Netherlands and Belgium look back over 60 months and add a distance rule, Spain and Ireland look back five tax years, Italy three, Greece five of six, Denmark ten years of no Danish tax liability. Changing employer inside the same country is a different question: the Dutch and Belgian regimes can continue with a new employer who applies, Sweden requires a fresh application for the new job.
Why does Germany have no expat tax regime?
Germany has never legislated one, and the 2025 coalition agreement and the 2025 tax amendment act did not add one. A person moving to Berlin or Munich is taxed on the ordinary ladder from the first day, with the ordinary allowances. We carry Germany in this ranking so that a reader comparing offers sees a truthful zero rather than a blank.
Sources. Netherlands: Business.gov.nl, the expat scheme (30% ruling), with the 2026 salary norm from the Belastingdienst. Belgium: FPS Finance, inpatriate taxpayers and researchers and circular 2026/C/51 of 1 April 2026. Sweden: Forskarskattenamnden, About tax relief. Denmark: Skattestyrelsen, tax scheme for researchers. Italy: Agenzia delle Entrate, lavoratori impatriati. Spain: Agencia Tributaria, article 93 of the personal income tax law. Greece: article 5C of Law 4172/2013, as summarised on AADE's tax incentives page. Ireland: Revenue, Tax and Duty Manual Part 34-00-10, updated March 2026. Portugal: Portaria 352/2024/1, Diario da Republica. United Kingdom: HMRC, RFIG41000. Norway and Poland are cited to the statutes recorded in data/_meta.json. All pages retrieved 9 September 2026. Every computed figure is from cityparity's engine, and our price lines split between official and crowdsourced sources as described in the methodology.
Equivalent salaries solve for equal net cash after tax, housing, childcare, healthcare and the cash value of statutory benefits, and they are the salary an offer has to clear rather than a salary any employer is obliged to pay. See the methodology.