Is the 30% ruling actually worth it? Expat tax breaks, decoded.

By Skyler Bissell · Updated August 2026 · 7 min read

A recruiter slides "and you'll qualify for the 30% ruling" into the offer email like it's a signing bonus. You Google it for nine minutes, see "30% of your salary, tax-free," and mentally bank a raise you haven't gotten yet.

Slow down. The 30% ruling is real, and on a high salary it's worth a lot. But "30% tax-free" is not "30% more money." It expires, it's getting smaller, and it does nothing about the thing that actually decides whether the move pays off: the gap between the gross number on the offer and the cash that lands in your account after rent, daycare, and a health-insurance premium you didn't have back home.

So let's do the math people skip.

What an "expat tax regime" is (and isn't)

An expat tax regime is a special, temporary tax status a country offers people it recruited from abroad, usually exempting part of their income from income tax (or applying a flat rate) for a set number of years. The point is to make the country competitive for international talent without cutting taxes for everyone.

Three things people get wrong about them, every time:

1. It cuts income tax, and only income tax. Most of these breaks reduce the base your income tax runs on. They typically leave social contributions (pension, national insurance, the stuff funding the very safety net you're moving toward) sitting on your full salary. In the Netherlands, the 30% ruling shrinks your Box 1 income-tax base; it doesn't make your social-insurance contributions disappear.
2. It expires. Five years here, six there. Year six, your take-home can drop by a five-figure sum overnight, in the same job, for the same work.
3. "30% tax-free" is not "+30% take-home." You were never paying 100% tax on that slice. Exempting 30% of your gross from a ~50% top bracket, plus the tax credits that come back into range once your taxable income drops, works out to about 16% of gross: €24,000 on a €150k salary, by our engine. That's real money, though well short of the €45,000 the phrasing implies.

Worked example: €150,000 in Amsterdam, with and without the ruling

The numbers below come straight from cityparity's tax engine, the same one behind our San Francisco vs Amsterdam page, for a single filer on a €150,000 base. They're income-tax-only (before living costs) and rounded, but real.

Say you land a €150,000 base in Amsterdam. Dutch income tax (Box 1) tops out around 49.5%, and the system has two credits that phase out as you earn more, so your effective rate lands below the headline.

So the ruling is worth about €24,000 a year here: a small car every year, a big chunk of a daycare bill, several flights home. Worth having. But notice three things.

• It's nowhere near "+€45,000." The tax-free slice is taxed at zero instead of taxed at the top rate. The value is the tax you skipped, which is far less than the slice itself.
• It has a shelf life. Five years, then you're the €86,000 person. Plan your rent around the year-six number, because year one won't last.
• It's shrinking. The Dutch rate already steps down to 27% from 2027, with a salary floor and a ~€262,000 cap. The version a 2021 transplant brags about is already gone.

Six regimes, side by side

Annual value at a ~€150k-equivalent salary, from cityparity's engine (income tax only, single filer). Rounded, and rules change yearly, so confirm before you sign anything.

Three of these are the point of the whole section.

The UK's FIG regime is a mirage if you're moving for a job. It exempts foreign income and gains for your first four years of UK residence. Your London salary is UK income. FIG doesn't touch it. If a recruiter implies the FIG regime softens your UK tax bill, they're either confused or hoping you are. We break FIG down in full here, including the one narrow relief that does reach employment income. Check what a London move actually does to your money before you build it into your budget.

Portugal's IFICI is the one that surprises people. It replaced the old NHR in 2024 and it reads generously: a flat 20% IRS rate for ten years. Then you get to who qualifies, and the test turns out to be about your employer. Every route needs a certified or recognised entity behind you: a body in the national science and technology system, a holder of AICEP contractual investment benefits, a SIFIDE II entity, a startup certified by Startup Portugal, or a company exporting more than half its turnover. Take a job at an ordinary Lisbon software house and none of those apply. So our engine hands Lisbon plain Portuguese tax, and you should budget the same way. Poland's 12% ryczałt gets quoted in the same breath and fails from the other side: it's a general self-employment option any Polish local can take on day one, and Polish law voids it for the whole year if you supply your former employer the work you used to do as their employee.

Norway's flat-rate PAYE scheme is the last one to not over-count. New arrivals can use a simplified flat-rate withholding, but it's aimed at the first year (think short stints and your arrival year), it's capped at an income ceiling, and above that ceiling ordinary progressive tax wins, so higher earners routinely leave the scheme. Five years of discount on a big Oslo salary is the wrong picture. For a senior offer, it rarely moves the headline.

The part the tax break can't fix

Here's where the relocation-pitch math and the real math part ways.

A tax regime makes a number on the offer letter bigger. It does nothing about the costs that move when you move. And for the people we built this for (you, probably: a partner, maybe kids, a real offer in hand), those costs swing the answer by tens of thousands.

Run the actual comparison and the break often gets swallowed:

• Childcare. Two kids in US daycare can run $40,000+ a year. In much of Europe it's subsidized down to a fraction of that. That swing dwarfs most tax breaks, and it's invisible on the offer letter.
• Healthcare. A US plan with premiums plus deductibles plus a real out-of-pocket max is a line item that mostly vanishes (or shrinks to a flat premium) under European systems. The tax break doesn't create that; the system does.
• Time. Five-plus weeks of statutory vacation and months of paid parental leave aren't on the W-2, but they're a real raise you'd otherwise buy back with unpaid days and nanny costs.

This is the cityparity thesis in one line: the safety net has a dollar value, and once you price it in, "the gross is higher in City A, plus a tax break" stops being the trump card. A lower European gross, even without a fancy expat regime, can beat a tax-broken US package once daycare and healthcare are on the table. Sometimes the break is the deciding factor. Often it's a rounding error next to the childcare line. You can't know which from the offer email.

So, is the 30% ruling worth it?

If you're a high earner moving to the Netherlands and you qualify: yes, clearly, for as long as it lasts. It's one of the better expat regimes going, even at the reduced 27% rate. Just size it honestly, about €24,000 a year on a €150k base, for a fixed window rather than a permanent raise. Then plan your fixed costs around the post-ruling number so year six doesn't surprise you.

But "is the tax break worth it?" is the wrong question to decide a move on. The right question is whether the whole package comes out ahead: gross, minus real taxes, minus the costs that actually change, plus the safety net you're buying. The tax break is one input, usually not the biggest.

Stop guessing from the offer email. Put in your real salary and your real family, and see the equivalent number you'd actually need:

• Run your own numbers in the calculator →
• The Netherlands 30% ruling, explained: how the tax-free allowance is calculated, the 2026 numbers, and why it's worth about 16% of gross
• Do you qualify for the 30% ruling?: the 150km rule and the 2026 eligibility checklist
• €100k in Amsterdam, with and without the ruling: the net salary worked line by line, and why the gain is about 16% of gross
• When the 30% ruling ends: the year-six net-pay cliff, quantified at €100k and €150k
• The 27% rate from 2027: what the coming rate cut does to the numbers, and who is grandfathered
• Spain's Beckham Law, explained: the flat 24% regime, worth about €20,000 a year on a €150k salary
• Who qualifies for Beckham, and who's excluded: the five-year rule, the six-month deadline, and the self-employed and director carve-outs
• A $150k US salary in Madrid under Beckham: the flat 24% worked line by line, about €16,200 a year on this salary
• Beckham vs the 30% ruling: Spain against the Netherlands on the same salary, and why it's a near tie at €150k
• After Beckham's 6 years end: the expiry cliff and the worldwide-income jump when the regime stops
• Italy's impatriati regime, explained: the 50% exemption, the 2024 reset, and the clawback that makes it the sharpest-edged regime in Europe
• A €90k Milan salary under impatriati: the halved base worked line by line, about €17,875 a year on this salary
• Every expat tax regime ranked by take-home on $150k: all thirteen regimes in one table, the flagship directory for this pillar
• The equivalent salary you'd actually need: the method behind every number here
• What every cost-of-living calculator gets wrong: why a price index and the offer letter both mislead, and the tax break is only the fifth blind spot
• What it really costs to raise kids, US vs Europe: daycare after subsidy, family healthcare, and paid leave, added into one number
• The hidden paycheck: what five weeks of vacation and paid parental leave are worth in dollars, at your salary
• How countries actually tax your salary: the effective-rate map these regimes are discounts against
• Do you still pay US taxes if you move abroad?: what FEIE and the foreign tax credit actually cover, and why double taxation on a salary is rarer than the fear suggests
• San Francisco vs Amsterdam: where the 30% ruling lives
• NYC vs Berlin: high US gross against a deep safety net, no expat regime needed to make it close
• NYC vs Lisbon: Portugal's low cost base carrying the move on its own, with ordinary Portuguese tax on the salary
• What happens to your RSUs abroad: why the equity in a US package mostly doesn't make the move, and how that changes the comparison

FAQ

Is the Netherlands 30% ruling really 30% of your salary tax-free?

Up to 30% of your gross can be paid as a tax-free allowance, but the cut lands on the income-tax base alone and leaves your social contributions sitting on full pay. The rate steps down to 27% from 2027. There's a salary floor and a cap as well: the €48,013 norm is measured on the taxable salary that remains after the 30% comes out, so it takes about €68,590 of gross to clear it, and the tax-free amount stops at €262,000. "Tax-free" describes the slice. The value to you is the tax you avoid on it, about 16% of gross at this salary by our engine, well short of the full 30%.

How long does the 30% ruling last?

Up to five years for new qualifying arrivals. When it ends, your take-home drops in the same job, so budget around the post-ruling figure rather than the year-one one.

Does the UK's FIG regime lower the tax on my UK salary?

No. The FIG (Foreign Income and Gains) regime exempts foreign income and gains for your first four years of UK residence. A UK salary is UK income, so FIG doesn't change it.

Is a lower European salary with a tax break better than a higher US salary?

It depends on your family and your costs, but more often than people expect, the European package wins even without the tax break, once subsidized childcare and capped healthcare are counted. A tax break helps, but it rarely flips a comparison that the safety net hadn't already flipped. Run both salaries through the calculator to see your own number.

Which expat tax regime is the most generous?

By raw annual value at a ~€150k salary, Italy's impatriati is the biggest in our engine at ~€32k a year, with Greece's 50% exemption close behind at ~€30k. On duration, Sweden's expert relief and Greece both run seven years against five for Italy and the Netherlands, and Spain's Beckham Law runs six. Portugal's IFICI advertises ten years at a flat 20%, but every qualifying route gates on your employer holding a certification rather than on you, so we grant it nothing. The full ranking of all thirteen regimes on $150k lays them out side by side. The "best" regime is the one you actually qualify for, in the city whose total cost math already works for you.

Sources. Regime rules come from each country's tax authority, including the Dutch Belastingdienst, Spain's Agencia Tributaria, Italy's Agenzia delle Entrate, and, for the IFICI eligibility gate (art. 58-A EBF), Portugal's Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira. Figures are computed by cityparity's per-city engine; see take-home pay by country.

Tax figures here come from cityparity's per-city engine (income tax, single filer, before living costs) and are rounded; rules change yearly and by personal circumstance, so confirm with an advisor before making decisions. See the methodology.