Compare two job offers in different countries
By Skyler Bissell · Updated July 2026 · runs on cityparity's per-country tax and safety-net engine
Comparing job offers across countries means comparing what each one leaves you after taxes, childcare, and healthcare, not the gross salary on the letter. The gross is the one number that does not survive the border. Two offers can look a mile apart in dollars and land within a rounding error once you count what each government takes and what it hands back. This page shows you how to read them side by side, then drops you into the calculator with a real offer pre-loaded.
Already have both numbers? Skip the reading and put them head to head.
Open the offer comparison →Opens the worked example below. Swap in your own cities and salaries once it loads.
A worked example where the bigger offer loses
Take two working parents with a three-year-old in daycare. One parent has a San Francisco offer of $160,000; their partner earns about $80,000, for a $240,000 household. The competing move is Berlin: a EUR 90,000 offer, with the partner's $80,000 converting to about EUR 70,000 at today's rate, so a EUR 160,000 household. On paper the San Francisco offer is far bigger.
Run both through their real tax codes and daily costs and the gap closes, then reverses:
| Household of three, one child in daycare | San Francisco offer | Berlin offer |
|---|---|---|
| Household gross | $240,000 | EUR 160,000 |
| Effective tax + payroll | 26% | 37% |
| Childcare, one child | $31,680 | EUR 720 (Kita meal fee) |
| Healthcare | Employer premiums + deductibles | Universal, small out-of-pocket |
| Child benefit paid to you | $2,200 | EUR 3,108 |
| Net cash kept per year | $48,778 | EUR 63,929 (~$74,077) |
Berlin leaves the family about $25,299 a year ahead, and it taxes them harder doing it: 37% against San Francisco's 26%. The difference is everything sitting under the salary. A San Francisco daycare spot runs about $31,680 a year; Berlin's public Kita bills EUR 720 of lunch money. Universal healthcare replaces the employer premiums and deductibles, and the state pays EUR 3,108 of Kindergeld straight to the parents. Those three lines outrun both the higher tax bill and the bigger paycheck.
That is Berlin's real tax bill, joint filing for couples already baked in. What decides the move is the part no offer letter prints: the daycare you don't pay for, the health plan you don't buy, the child benefit that lands in your account every month.
This is not an argument that Europe always wins. Flip the household to a single earner with no kids and the math flips too: with no childcare to offset and high rents, a lower European salary can trail a US one badly. That is exactly why you run your own numbers instead of trusting a rule of thumb.
If this is your first offer, rent decides it
The example above turns on childcare, and if you have no kids none of it applies to you. So here is the same question for one person with no partner and no children, renting a one-bedroom, at the salary an entry-level offer actually pays. Two of the three cities are in the same country on the identical offer.
| One person, no kids, 1BR | Austin | New York City | Berlin |
|---|---|---|---|
| The offer | $95,000 | $95,000 | EUR 60,000 |
| Effective tax + payroll | 20% | 28% | 37% |
| Housing, all in | $21,384 | $49,465 | EUR 15,354 |
| Net cash kept per year | $41,754 | $796 | EUR 14,634 |
Austin and New York are the same offer, in the same currency, under the same federal tax code. Austin keeps $41,754 of it and New York keeps $796, because a New York one-bedroom bundle runs $49,465 a year against Austin's $21,384. Berlin taxes the hardest of the three at 37% and still keeps EUR 14,634, for the same reason: the rent.
So the first lesson of a first offer is that the city decides more than the country does. Comparing a New York number to an Austin number as though the only difference is the employer will mislead you further than comparing across an ocean.
Two honest caveats on that table, because a career-services reader deserves both. It prices a solo one-bedroom, and plenty of people take the New York job and three roommates, which is a real answer the model does not show. And an entry-level offer is the point in a career where a raise compounds longest, so the number worth improving is the one in front of you: the equivalence is the floor you negotiate up from, and the scripts for holding that floor are worth reading before you reply to the recruiter.
One line to keep in view whichever way your comparison lands: an equivalent salary is not a job offer. It is the bar an offer has to clear in the destination city, and whether anyone there will pay it is a separate question that depends on your role, your experience and your right to work.
How to compare your two offers in four steps
- Enter the first offer as your source city. Gross salary, your partner's salary if they will work, and your kids' ages. This is the baseline the second offer is measured against.
- Enter the second city and type in the real salary. Put in the actual salary you were offered. The calculator then compares your two real numbers head to head, instead of estimating a matching salary.
- Add the facts that move the answer. How many kids are in daycare, whether your partner works in each place, rent versus own. These swing the result far more than the small stuff.
- Read the net cash line. That is what each offer leaves after tax, payroll, childcare, healthcare, and the local child benefit. Compare that, and let the gross salaries argue among themselves.
Related reading
Common questions
Why can't I just compare the gross salaries of two job offers?
Because two countries tax, subsidize, and charge for daily life differently. A $160,000 San Francisco offer and a EUR 90,000 Berlin offer keep a different share of every dollar and euro once income tax, payroll, childcare, and healthcare come out. Compare what each offer leaves you, called net cash.
Can a lower foreign salary ever beat a higher US one?
Yes, most often for families with young kids. The worked example above has a Berlin household on a smaller offer end up about $25,299 ahead, because near-free daycare, universal healthcare, and child benefit outweigh a higher tax bill.
What is an equivalent salary, and how is it different from my real offer?
An equivalent salary is the gross you would need in city B to keep the same net cash you keep in city A. It sizes an offer you do not have yet. It is a modeling result, not a promise that such an offer exists. When you already hold a real number, just enter it and compare the two actual offers.
Which costs actually change the answer between countries?
In order of impact for the typical relocating professional: childcare (free or capped by law in much of Europe, and $11,400 to $36,000 per child per year across US metros depending on the city and the child's age), the second earner's tax treatment, healthcare (employer premiums and deductibles in the US versus universal coverage elsewhere), income tax and payroll rates, housing, and statutory vacation and parental leave.
What does the comparison leave out?
One-time moving costs (visas, shipping, brokers on both ends), currency risk, and everything unpriceable: weather, language, distance from family, career path. Figures are nominal, in each data point's last-updated year. Treat any single number as a strong estimate.
Figures come from cityparity's per-city engine, computed from official sources with a per-value audit trail; currency conversions use rates that drift daily. The two-earner tax treatment for separate-filing countries is being refined and currently runs on the conservative side. See the methodology.