Equivalent salary: the lower number that keeps the same life
By Skyler Bissell · Updated August 2026 · 10 min read
$150,000 in New York is a good salary. Here's the part that trips people up: you'd match it in Berlin on about €84,043. Not because Berlin is cheap. Because the number on the offer and the money you actually keep are two different things, and the gap between them grows when you cross a border.
That gap is the whole game. So let's name the number that actually decides a move, then build it from the receipts.
Equivalent salary: the gross pay in another city that leaves you the same net cash you have now, after that city's taxes and the living costs that change when you move. It matches your take-home. A currency conversion and a cost-of-living index both skip that step.
TL;DR
- An equivalent salary is the gross you'd need in another city to keep the same net cash you have now, after taxes and the costs that change when you move.
- It is not a currency conversion and it is not a cost-of-living index. Both ignore the things that move the answer: progressive taxes, childcare after subsidies, healthcare, and the cash value of time off.
- On our engine, $150,000 in New York comes out to about €84,043 in Berlin, €96,792 in Lisbon, or €114,846 in Amsterdam. Same life, three different numbers.
- Match the cash and the comparison is only half done. The other half is the stuff cash can't buy back: healthcare, vacation, parental leave. Run your own pair and weight what matters to you.
What "equivalent salary" means
An equivalent salary is the gross pay in City B that leaves you with the same net cash you have in City A, once you subtract real taxes and the cost lines that change when you move.
That last part is where every other tool quits. A currency conversion tells you $150,000 is roughly €131,700 today. Useless: it says nothing about what you keep. A cost-of-living index tells you groceries are 12% cheaper in Lisbon. Almost as useless: groceries are a rounding error next to taxes, rent, and daycare. The question you're actually asking is simpler and harder. What would I need to earn over there to live the way I live now?
That is one number, in money, and it's the headline on every comparison we run.
Where $150,000 goes
Numbers settle this faster than adjectives. Here is that New York salary next to its Berlin equivalent, line by line, for a single person renting a two-bedroom in each city. Same household, run through each country's real taxes and prices.
| Where it goes | New York | Berlin |
|---|---|---|
| Gross salary | $150,000 | ≈ €84,043 |
| Income and payroll tax | −$46,607 | −€31,849 |
| Rent, two-bedroom | −$57,816 | −€20,856 |
| Healthcare you actually pay | −$4,490 | −€610 |
| Food, transit, the rest | −$13,538 | −€6,893 |
| Net cash left over | $27,549 | €23,774 |
Single filer, two-bedroom rental, 6% to retirement, one trip home a year. Engine figures. $27,549 and €23,774 are the same money at today's rate.
Two very different stacks, the same money at the bottom. New York hands you a bigger gross and takes most of it straight back in rent and tax. Berlin hands you less, taxes a steeper share of it, then asks almost nothing for healthcare and about a third of the New York rent for the apartment. The leftover is what we match across the border, and that leftover is your standard of living. The number on the offer letter never was.
Why one salary maps to three different numbers
Run that same New York salary against three European cities and you get three different equivalents:
| Move | Equivalent salary | Why it lands there |
|---|---|---|
| New York → Berlin | ≈ €84,043 | Rent about a third of New York's and a €610 healthcare bill. Tax takes 37.9% and the safety net still leaves Berlin the cheapest of the three to match. |
| New York → Lisbon | ≈ €96,792 | Rent runs €2,388 above Berlin's, and Portugal takes 42.1%, the steepest cut in this table. Both lines push the same way. |
| New York → Amsterdam | ≈ €114,846 | Rent runs €38,100 against Berlin's €20,856. Amsterdam's tax is the lightest of the three at 36.3%; the apartment is what pushes the number up. |
Same standard of living, three numbers spanning €33,600. A currency converter would have given you one wrong answer for all three. The spread is tax and rent pulling against each other in a different ratio in every city.
Berlin reads as the bargain, and the reason is almost dull. Rent runs €20,856 against New York's $57,816, and public insurance leaves a €610 healthcare bill where New York leaves $4,490. Less to cover means less gross to earn.
Lisbon is the one that surprises people. The cheap-city instinct says it should undercut Berlin. On our numbers it does the opposite: rent runs €3,228 higher, and Portugal's 38.4% tax curve is the steepest of the three. Both lines push the same way, so Lisbon needs about €9,400 more gross than Berlin to leave you the same money. If you've heard that Portugal's IFICI regime fixes that for new arrivals, read the qualifying rules before you plan around it. Our engine credits an ordinary salaried employee with nothing from it.
What the usual calculators get wrong
The classic cost-of-living index (Numbeo, Expatistan, the one your relocation packet links to) compares a basket of prices. Rent, a cappuccino, a transit pass. It is blind to four things that decide the actual answer:
- Real taxes. Progressive brackets plus payroll, computed on your number, not a national average rate. In the budget above, New York takes 31% and Berlin takes 38%, and that gap alone is worth tens of thousands. The country-by-country map is in how countries actually tax your salary.
- Childcare net of subsidy. US daycare for two kids can run $30,000 to $50,000 a year, paid with after-tax dollars. Much of Europe knocks that to a fraction. That single line can swing the equivalent salary by tens of thousands once you have kids. The whole family picture is added up in what it really costs to raise kids.
- Healthcare you actually pay. In the budget above it's about $4,500 a year of premiums and out-of-pocket in New York against roughly €610 in Berlin. A price index never sees it.
- The cash value of time. Berlin gives you 20 statutory vacation days plus 10 public holidays and more than a year of job-protected parental leave. New York guarantees none of it. That time is pay you'd otherwise buy back with unpaid days off. We put dollar figures on the whole category in the hidden paycheck.
Leave those out and your "Oslo is 8% more expensive" verdict is just wrong. Put them in and the comparison often flips. We took each of these blind spots apart, with the receipts, in what every cost-of-living calculator gets wrong.
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The levers that move your number
The three figures above are for one specific person: single, no kids, renting. Change the person and the equivalent salary moves, sometimes by a lot. These are the levers that move it most, roughly in order of force:
- Kids. Childcare is the biggest swing on the board. A single person and a family of four solving for the same city can land €20,000 or more apart, because European subsidies absorb a cost that US parents pay in full. See the same move run for a family of four and watch the number change.
- Renting versus owning. Housing is the largest single line on most budgets, so the answer shifts when you stop renting and carry a mortgage and property tax instead. The calculator has a toggle for it.
- An expat tax regime. If you'd qualify for something like the Dutch 30% ruling, your Amsterdam figure drops hard for a few years. We sorted which expat tax breaks are real and which are mirages, and the New York to Amsterdam page shows the move with and without it.
- A working partner. A second income changes the tax (some countries tax couples jointly) and the childcare math at the same time, since that income can be eaten whole by US daycare while a subsidized system leaves it standing.
- Equity. If a big slice of your pay is RSUs, most of it does not follow you to a new employer abroad. The calculator treats equity as source-only so the move never looks better than it is on stock you wouldn't keep. It matters most for tech offers, where stock is half the package. We dig into whether engineers come out ahead and what the move does to your equity.
Four companion pieces point the equivalent salary at a specific decision. The break-even salary asks how low a European offer can go before it costs you money. Is moving to Europe worth it? weighs the whole call, cash and all. If you work in tech, Levels.fyi vs what you keep turns a gross offer into take-home. And once an offer is on the table, how to negotiate a relocation salary turns this number into a walk-away floor, with the scripts to hold it.
The number isn't the whole story
Match the cash and you've answered half the question. The other half is everything the cash can't equalize: how good the healthcare is, how many days off you actually take, what happens to your pay when you have a baby. cityparity scores every comparison on five weighted dimensions and lets you decide how much each one counts. Here is New York against Berlin at the equivalent salary, so the money is already a tie:
Financial is a tie here by design, because we matched the cash. So the gap is entirely in what's left. Weight healthcare, time off, and the safety net heavily and Berlin pulls away. Weight them at zero and the two cities are even. Childcare is the fourth lever and it's flat for a single person, but add two kids and it becomes the biggest line on the page, which is why the family version tilts even harder. The weights are yours to set. Move the sliders in the calculator and the totals move with them.
The method, in one paragraph
We take your City A gross, subtract the real income tax and the cost lines that move (housing, childcare net of subsidy, healthcare, transit, food, travel home), and land on your net cash. Then we solve for the City B gross whose net cash matches it, running B's own taxes and costs. That solved number is the equivalent salary. No price index, no purchasing-power hand-wave, just take-home matched on both sides. It's also why the answer changes the moment you add a kid or switch from renting to buying: the costs that move are different for your situation than for anyone else's. If you want the line-item version of any comparison, every city pair page shows the full breakdown.
FAQ
What is an equivalent salary?
The gross pay in another city that leaves you the same net cash you have now, after taxes and the living costs that change when you move. It's a take-home match, not a currency conversion or a price index.
How is the equivalent salary different from purchasing power parity (PPP)?
PPP scales prices by a national basket of goods, so it tells you what a dollar buys. The equivalent salary tells you what you keep. It runs each country's real income tax and the household costs that actually move (housing, childcare, healthcare) and solves for the gross that matches your net cash. Taxes and childcare are exactly the lines PPP leaves out.
Does the equivalent salary include rent and groceries?
Yes. The match is net of housing, food, transit, healthcare, childcare, and a trip home, on top of income tax. That's why the number moves when you change bedrooms or switch from renting to owning.
Why is the Berlin number so much lower than the Amsterdam one?
Both are net-cash matches to the same New York salary, but the cost structures differ. Berlin has cheaper housing and stronger family subsidies, so you need less gross to net the same. Amsterdam's housing and lower single-filer support push its number up.
Isn't this just a cost-of-living adjustment?
No. A cost-of-living adjustment scales your salary by a price index. This solves for take-home after each country's actual taxes, childcare, and healthcare, the lines a price index can't see, and usually what decides the move.
What if my partner works too?
Add their income and it changes both the tax (some countries tax couples jointly) and the childcare math, because a second income can be swallowed whole by US daycare while Nordic subsidies leave it intact. The equivalent salary shifts to match.
Can a lower salary really leave me better off?
Often, yes. When the lower-paying city covers childcare, healthcare, and time off that you'd pay for yourself in the higher-paying one, a smaller gross can net the same or more. The only way to know your number is to run your own.
How current are these numbers?
Tax tables and rents are dated per city in the methodology, and currency conversion uses a rate that is refreshed regularly. Figures were current at publication. Rates and tax rules drift, so treat any single number as a strong estimate and run your own inputs.
Run your salary and your family through the calculator →
Sources. Income-tax brackets come from each country's authority, including the Dutch Belastingdienst and Germany's Bundeszentralamt für Steuern. The equivalence solver is described in the methodology; compare take-home pay by country.
Equivalent-salary and budget figures come from cityparity's per-city engine and were current at publication; currency rates and tax rules move, so treat them as a strong estimate and run your own inputs. See the methodology.