$225,000 in New York City ≈ €182,724 in Amsterdam
Software engineer pay: New York City vs Amsterdam
Equivalence is solved so household net cash matches across both cities, with taxes, housing, childcare, healthcare, food, and travel all included.
What changes: New York City → Amsterdam
- ▴ 5 more vacation days per year in Amsterdam (statutory)
The headline math
| New York City household gross | $225,000 |
| New York City taxes (30.8%) | −$69,316 |
| New York City living costs | −$80,715 |
| New York City net cash | $74,969 |
| ≈ | |
| Amsterdam household gross needed | €182,724($209,066) |
| Amsterdam taxes (39.0%) | −€71,336 |
| Amsterdam living costs | −€45,865 |
| Amsterdam net cash | €65,523 |
Computed at the city-median tech-worker salary, New York City (a senior software engineer) · effective tax rates: 30.8% vs 39.0%
These numbers use one scenario's assumptions. Plug in your own salary, family size, and lifestyle.
Open the interactive calculator to run your own →No signup. Your salary stays in your browser — we never see it.
Moving from New York City to Amsterdam for a software engineer
$225,000 in New York City requires €182,724 in Amsterdam to match on household net cash. The gap is real, but it is smaller than the nominal numbers suggest once taxes run their course. Progressive brackets compress the after-tax difference faster than a compensation benchmarking site would lead you to believe, because those sites show gross and stop there.
The effective tax rate goes from 30.8% in New York City to 39.0% in Amsterdam. That 8.2-point jump is what the equivalence solver is working against when it finds the matching gross salary.
Unvested equity changes this calculation entirely. RSU value is not modeled in the defaults above, but if you are mid-cycle at your current employer, leaving means forfeiting grants you have already been working toward, and that difference can be larger than the annual take-home delta that drove the comparison in the first place. The Advanced section's "RSU / stock annual value" field is where you plug that number in. Equity-heavy comp favors lower-tax cities at vesting; the after-tax discount gets larger the bigger the grant.
Both cities require private health insurance. New York City runs $3,705; Amsterdam runs €2,485.
Amsterdam engineers get 20 vacation days per year. New York City averages 15. That 5-day gap is real money at a senior IC's daily rate, and it does not show up on the offer letter.
No kids, employer healthcare, and a single high-bracket income: this is the configuration that makes New York City look best in a head-to-head comparison. It is also the configuration most likely to change. The family scenario page (linked below) models what shifts once childcare and a second earner enter the picture.
Common questions
How much do you need to earn in Amsterdam to match a $225,000 salary in New York City?
About €182,724. cityparity solves for the Amsterdam gross salary whose net cash (after taxes, housing, childcare, healthcare, and the rest) equals what you keep in New York City. It's an equivalence, not a raw conversion.
Is healthcare free in Amsterdam?
Amsterdam does not have universal healthcare, so out-of-pocket costs are modeled the same way as in New York City.
How much vacation and parental leave do you get in Amsterdam?
Amsterdam has about 31 paid days off a year (vacation plus public holidays) and 9 weeks of parental leave. cityparity surfaces these as deltas rather than dollars, because time off is part of the real comparison.
Run your own numbers in the interactive calculator →