Equity compensation, Europe vs US: should your RSUs count when you compare offers?

By Skyler Bissell · October 20, 2026 · 10 min read

A Seattle engineer on $160,000 of salary and $40,000 a year of vesting stock would need €176,796 in Berlin to keep the life they have. Without the stock the figure is €132,206. The $40,000 of stock therefore adds €44,590 to the salary a Berlin offer has to clear, which is 125% of what the stock is worth. That last figure is what this page is about. In all seven European cities I ran, replacing a dollar of Seattle stock with salary costs more than a dollar.

A restricted stock unit (RSU) is a promise of company shares that vest over time, typically over four years, and are taxed as wages when they vest, in the US and in most of Europe. Under typical plan terms you forfeit unvested units when you leave, so stock your employer has granted does not follow you to a new employer abroad. In an offer comparison, US equity counts on the side that pays it, at what it keeps after tax, and replacing it with European salary costs between about 108% (Zurich) and 153% (Paris) of the stock's face value.

TL;DR

Your stock belongs in the comparison as part of what staying pays you, and nowhere else. The short answer.
Seattle keeps about 70 cents of every vested dollar, so European salary has to work harder to replace it. Seven cities ranked.
Listed-company RSUs are taxed at vest across most of Europe; start-up options have their own rules in the UK, Germany and France. European equity.

The person in every figure here is one software engineer, single, renting a one-bedroom flat, putting nothing into a pension and flying home to nobody. $200,000 of total pay is a senior big-tech package, which is where this question gets asked at this size; the logic holds for a smaller grant, and the figures scale with it.

The short answer: count it once, on the side that pays it, after tax

A move abroad is a choice between staying and leaving, and staying pays your salary plus the stock that keeps vesting (along with the refresh grants that replace it, if your employer makes them every year). That makes the stock part of the bar any European offer has to clear. Leaving pays whatever the new offer says. If the European employer grants no equity, the destination side carries none; if it does, the grant is wages in that country too, and you add its annual value to the salary.

Our calculator is built that way. It counts RSUs on the city you are leaving and sets them to zero in the city you are moving to, because grants do not follow you across employers. Our older page on what happens to your RSUs when you move abroad warns against assuming the stock stream continues, and the two pages agree: the stream continues only if you stay, which is exactly why it belongs on the staying side and only there. That page also covers the internal-transfer case, where grants keep vesting and two countries split the tax.

What a $40,000 vest keeps in Seattle

The IRS treats restricted stock and RSUs as wages, taxed on the shares' value when they vest. In Seattle that means federal income tax and payroll taxes and no state income tax, since Washington levies none on wages. On a $160,000 base the vest lands in the 24% federal bracket. Social Security applies only to the first $24,500 of it, because the 2026 wage base is $184,500. Medicare takes 1.45% of all of it, and the 0.9% surtax starts above $200,000, which this example sits exactly on. Washington's long-term-care and paid-leave premiums take a little more.

Add it up and the $40,000 vest pays $12,129 in tax and leaves $27,871 in your account. The 22% that employers typically withhold from a vest is a flat supplemental rate, set by IRS Publication 15, and it sits below the 24% bracket this vest falls in, so a small bill arrives at filing time; the figures here are the final tax rather than the withholding.

What it takes to replace that stock with salary

I put one question to the engine in seven cities: what salary leaves this person as much money after tax, rent, healthcare and everyday costs as Seattle does, first with the stock and then without it? The stock is worth the difference between the two answers, in that city's salary. Here they are, ranked by that difference as a share of the stock's $40,000 face value:

Zurich: CHF 35,624 more salary ($43,181), 108% of the stock's value. The Zurich bar rises from CHF 139,528 to CHF 175,152.
Berlin: €44,590 more ($50,045), 125%. The Berlin bar rises from €132,206 to €176,796.
London: £39,335 more ($52,588), 131%. The London bar rises from £135,766 to £175,101.
Amsterdam, without the 30% ruling: €49,175 more ($55,191), 138%. The Amsterdam bar rises from €156,874 to €206,049.
Stockholm: SEK 558,549 more ($56,362), 141%. The Stockholm bar rises from SEK 1,403,439 to SEK 1,961,988.
Dublin: €51,954 more ($58,310), 146%. The Dublin bar rises from €155,935 to €207,889.
Paris: €54,431 more ($61,090), 153%. The Paris bar rises from €141,549 to €195,980.

Engine figures, 2026 rules, at the exchange rate in our build. Each bar is the salary that leaves the same net cash after tax, rent, healthcare, transit, food and everyday spending as Seattle does, for one person aged 35 to 44 renting a one-bedroom flat with no pension contribution; the destination side carries no equity. The Amsterdam figures leave out the 30% ruling, which a recruited mover usually qualifies for and which would lower both of its bars.

Every share is above 100%.

The reason is the gap between two tax rates. Seattle charges the vest the federal 24% plus Medicare and a slice of Social Security, with no state income tax, so you keep about 70 cents of each vested dollar. The salary that replaces it in Europe lands on top of an already large salary, so the destination taxes it at its top marginal rate: 42% plus the solidarity surcharge in Berlin with social insurance already capped out, 45% plus 2% National Insurance in London, where both bars sit above the £125,140 at which the additional rate starts, 49.5% in Amsterdam, more than half in Paris and Dublin once you add the social charges. To hand you the same 70 cents after tax, a Berlin employer has to pay well over a dollar. Zurich comes closest to one-for-one because its federal, cantonal and communal rates at this income are the lightest of the seven.

Two cautions keep the list honest. The bars are high, because a Seattle salary with no state income tax and moderate rent buys a lot, and they describe what keeps your current life whole rather than what any employer in those cities pays. And the share depends on the tax rates at the margin, so a smaller grant on a smaller salary moves less: the shape holds, the percentages shift. For Amsterdam with the ruling switched on, the equivalent salary with the 30% ruling solves the same question on that basis, and take-home pay by country shows how hard each country taxes a $150,000 salary before any of this.

How Europe taxes equity

If the European offer includes equity, value it the same way: at what it keeps after tax in that country, as part of the annual package. For RSUs at a listed company, which is what the European office of a US multinational usually grants, the tax point across most of Europe is the same as in Seattle, the day the shares are delivered to you:

United Kingdom: HMRC taxes the shares' value at vest as employment income, through PAYE with National Insurance.
Ireland: Revenue charges income tax, USC and PRSI on the market value at vesting, through payroll. The 2024 change that moved equity into payroll was for share options; RSUs were already there.
Germany: the shares count as wages under section 19 of the income tax act on the day they reach your account, with wage tax and social insurance up to the ceilings.
Netherlands: the shares count as wages when you receive them; for options, the tax point since 2023 is the day the shares become tradable, and you can elect to pay at exercise instead.
Switzerland: the Federal Tax Administration's circular 37 on employee participations taxes the units as income when they convert into shares.
France: depends on the plan. A non-qualified RSU counts as salary at vest; a French-qualified plan moves the tax to the sale and halves part of the gain, per BOFiP. Many US multinationals run a French sub-plan for exactly that reason, so ask which one you would be on.

Start-up equity is where Europe differs. In the UK, options granted under the Enterprise Management Incentives scheme carry no income tax or National Insurance at exercise if the exercise price was at least the shares' market value at grant, per GOV.UK, and the gain can qualify for Business Asset Disposal Relief at 18% from April 2026. Germany's section 19a lets a qualifying start-up's employees defer the tax on shares until they sell, leave, or reach the statutory time limit. France taxes the gain on BSPCE warrants at a flat 12.8% plus 18.6% social levies for holders with three years at the company, and 30% plus the levies below that. The engine computes none of these. They change what a grant keeps, and a grant at a private company has a second problem, which is that its value is a guess until there is a buyer.

The grant you leave behind

The annual stream is one question. The unvested balance is another, and it is a one-off. Under typical plan terms the unvested portion of a grant will "terminate automatically and be forfeited" when you resign (that wording is from Amazon's global RSU agreement, filed with the SEC), so a move in the middle of a four-year grant walks away from whatever has not vested. That loss does not belong in an annual comparison. It belongs in the negotiation: European employers hiring from US big tech do sometimes offer a sign-on payment or a replacement grant to cover it, and they cannot offer what you have not asked for. Put the forfeited amount, after the tax you would have paid on it, in writing when you ask. How to frame that ask without naming a number first is on negotiating salary when you move abroad.

Equity is one line on a wider sheet that also carries tax, healthcare, paid days off and leave. The total compensation comparison for a US and a European offer builds that sheet in order, and every figure on this page measures against the equivalent salary abroad.

FAQ

Do European companies give RSUs?

The European offices of US multinationals usually do, under the same global plan their US staff are on, and the country you work in taxes the units when they vest. Listed European companies more often use a bonus or an employee share purchase plan, and start-ups grant options, which is where the special regimes in the UK, Germany and France apply. Ask the recruiter for the grant in shares or in currency, the vesting schedule and whether refresh grants are routine.

Should I count stock I have been promised but not yet granted?

Count only what the grant documents put in writing, since that is the part an employer is bound by. A refresh grant you expect next spring is a reasonable guess on the staying side if your employer grants them every year, but it is a guess, and a European offer that says 'equity to be discussed' is worth nothing on the sheet until it has a number of units and a schedule. If you do count an expected refresh, count it at the share price you are willing to bet on, after tax.

Are RSUs taxed again when I sell the shares?

Only on the gain since they vested. The value at vest has already been taxed as wages, and any rise after that is a capital gain, which the country where you live when you sell will tax. A US citizen stays inside the US tax system abroad as well, so the IRS can be owed something on the same sale, usually reduced by the foreign tax already paid.

What happens to shares that have already vested when I move?

They are yours and they stay yours, in your brokerage account, whoever employs you next. Moving does not trigger a sale. What changes is who taxes the future gain and how your new country treats a US brokerage account, which in some countries brings reporting duties of its own. Check that before the move rather than at the first sale.

To run your own grant, open the Seattle to Berlin comparison, put your salary in the salary field and your annual vesting in the RSU field, and the Overview prints the Berlin salary that keeps you even with the stock counted. Clear the RSU field and run it again, and the gap between the two answers is what your stock is worth in Berlin pay. Any other pair starts from the calculator.

Sources. RSUs as wages subject to withholding and FICA: IRS, Information Letter 2024-0010; the 2026 Social Security wage base and the supplemental withholding rate: IRS, Publication 15 (2026); the Additional Medicare Tax: IRS, questions and answers. UK: HMRC, ERSM20192, GOV.UK, Enterprise Management Incentives and GOV.UK, Business Asset Disposal Relief. Ireland: Revenue, restricted stock units. Germany: section 19 EStG and section 19a EStG. Netherlands: Belastingdienst, Handboek Loonheffingen 2026. Switzerland: ESTV, Kreisschreiben Nr. 37. France: BOFiP, free shares, BOFiP, BSPCE and impots.gouv.fr, employee shareholding. Forfeiture wording: Amazon.com, global restricted stock unit award agreement (SEC exhibit). All pages retrieved 19 October 2026. cityparity's engine computes every salary figure; per-field provenance is in data/_meta.json, per the methodology.

This is general information, not tax advice: cross-border equity taxation depends on your plan, your workdays and the treaty between the two countries, so talk to a cross-border accountant before you sign. Figures here come from cityparity's per-city engine and were current at publication. Where our 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.