NetPayMap
The OECD tax wedge by country: how much of your total labour cost becomes take-home pay.
The tax wedge is the share of total labour cost that never reaches a worker — income tax plus employee and employer social-security contributions, as a percentage of what it costs to employ them. NetPayMap maps it for all 38 OECD countries across 6 regions. The OECD average for a single worker is 34.9%; the heaviest is Belgium (52.7%) and the lightest is Colombia (0%). Every figure is real OECD Taxing Wages data (2023) for a representative average worker — a model, not personal tax advice.
Source: OECD Taxing Wages. Data as of June 2026 (OECD Taxing Wages, 2023 data year).
Popular countries
Tax wedge 29.9% · keeps 75.8% of gross
GermanyTax wedge 47.9% · keeps 62.6% of gross
United KingdomTax wedge 31.3% · keeps 76.3% of gross
FranceTax wedge 46.8% · keeps 72.5% of gross
SpainTax wedge 40.2% · keeps 77.9% of gross
AustraliaTax wedge 29.2% · keeps 75.1% of gross
What you can look up
- Tax wedge per country — a page for every OECD country with the full breakdown: income tax, employee & employer social security, net take-home pay, and family-type figures.
- Rankings — highest tax wedge, lowest tax wedge, highest employer social security and best net take-home pay.
- Country vs country — side-by-side comparisons like US vs Germany and UK vs France.
- Estimator — a labour-cost to net-pay tool that applies any country's wedge components to a salary.
Highest tax wedge
Lowest tax wedge
- Colombia — 0%
- Chile — 7.2%
- Mexico — 20%
- New Zealand — 21.1%
- Israel — 23.2%
Guides
The tax wedge is the share of total labour cost lost to income tax and social security before it reaches the worker. Here's what it measures, why it includes employer contributions, and how to read it.
2026-06-29 Employer social security: the hidden half of your tax wedgeEmployer social-security contributions never appear on your payslip, but they can be the biggest part of the tax wedge. Here's where they're highest, and why they matter for wages and hiring.
2026-06-28 US vs Europe: how different is the tax wedge really?American workers face a far lighter tax wedge than most of Europe — but the gap is mostly social security, not income tax, and it isn't uniform. Here's the data.
2026-06-27 Tax wedge vs take-home pay: why they don't matchA country can let you keep most of your gross wage while still having a high tax wedge. Here's why the two measures diverge — and which one you should care about.
2026-06-26 How much does having children cut your tax wedge?In most OECD countries a one-earner family with two children faces a far lower tax wedge than a single worker. Here's where the family discount is biggest — and where it barely exists.
2026-06-25 Highest and lowest tax wedge countries in the OECDBelgium tops the OECD tax-wedge table at about 53%, while Colombia and Chile sit near the bottom. Here's the full picture of where labour is taxed most — and least.
2026-06-24Where the data comes from
Every figure is from OECD Taxing Wages, the OECD's annual study of the labour-tax burden on average workers, accessed through the keyless OECD Data Explorer SDMX API (2023 data year). OECD data is licensed CC BY 4.0. These are modelled averages for a representative worker, not effective tax for any individual, and nothing here is tax advice — see our methodology and disclaimer.
Last updated: 2026-06-29