The UK leaves you with more at every salary level. What matters is how fast that advantage disappears. At the equivalent of £50,000 the gap is 16.1 percentage points. At £120,000 it is 6.8. At £250,000 it is 1.6.
Germany taxes the middle hard and the top barely harder, because its social contributions are capped. The UK does the reverse. If you are moving on a senior salary, the tax difference is much smaller than the reputation suggests.
Gap at £50,000
16.1 pts
UK keeps 79.0%, Germany 62.9%
Gap at £120,000
6.8 pts
UK 63.5%, Germany 56.6%
Gap at £250,000
1.6 pts
almost level
Run your actual German offer through Tax Class I.
Open the Germany salary calculatorThe gap narrows by ten points between £50,000 and £250,000
This is the share of gross you keep after tax and social contributions in each country. It does not depend on the exchange rate, which is why it is the more durable way to compare the two systems.
| Equivalent salary | UK keeps | Germany keeps | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| £50,000 | 79.0% | 62.9% | 16.1 pts |
| £80,000 | 71.2% | 58.8% | 12.4 pts |
| £120,000 | 63.5% | 56.6% | 6.8 pts |
| £180,000 | 59.5% | 56.3% | 3.2 pts |
| £250,000 | 57.7% | 56.1% | 1.6 pts |
Germany's column moves only 6.8 points across that entire range. The UK's moves 21.3. That is the whole comparison in two numbers.
Why German deductions stop growing
German social insurance is not a percentage of everything you earn. Pension, unemployment, health and long-term care contributions each stop at a ceiling, the Beitragsbemessungsgrenze, and the pension and unemployment ceiling sits higher than the health one. Once your salary clears them, those lines are fixed in absolute terms and shrink as a share of a larger salary.
Above the ceilings only income tax keeps rising, and the German top rate arrives at a relatively low income and then stays flat. The result is a system that is expensive to enter and cheap to climb.
The UK is built the other way round. National Insurance drops to a lower rate above the upper earnings limit but never stops, the personal allowance tapers away between £100,000 and £125,140 at an effective 60% marginal rate, and the additional rate applies above £125,140. The UK's effective rate is therefore still climbing hard in the band where Germany's has flattened.
Two things that move the German column a lot
These figures are Tax Class I: single, childless, no church tax. A married couple using classes III and V, or the factor method, keeps materially more, so a move with a non-working spouse looks better than this page suggests. In the other direction, registering as a member of a taxed religious community adds 8% or 9% of your income tax as church tax, which new arrivals sometimes trigger without realising.
The same three salaries in cash
Converted at £1 = €1.1635, European Central Bank reference rates, 23 September 2026. Check the live rate before relying on the cash figures; the percentages above do not move with it.
| UK gross | German gross | UK net | German net |
|---|---|---|---|
| £50,000 | €58,174 | £39,520 (£3,293/mo) | €36,624 (€3,052/mo) |
| £80,000 | €93,078 | £56,957 (£4,746/mo) | €54,793 (€4,566/mo) |
| £120,000 | €139,616 | £76,157 (£6,346/mo) | €79,069 (€6,589/mo) |
Note the last row. At £120,000 the German net is numerically larger in euros than the UK net is in pounds, which is purely the exchange rate at work and tells you nothing about the tax systems. It is exactly why the percentage table above is the one to reason from.
How these figures were produced
PayMetric Labs' own calculations with our UK and German tax engines at 2026 rates. Germany is Tax Class I, single, childless, no church tax, with statutory health insurance. The UK is a single taxpayer with the full personal allowance where applicable, no pension contributions, no salary sacrifice and no student loan. The solidarity surcharge is excluded. Percentages are the share of gross kept after income tax and employee social contributions.
What the percentages do not settle
Two levers can outweigh the whole tax gap. UK pension salary sacrifice reduces both income tax and National Insurance and has no close German equivalent, so a UK employee contributing heavily narrows or erases the difference in disposable income while building a pension. Against that, a large part of the German deduction is buying a statutory pension entitlement and health cover, which is not the same as tax disappearing.
If you are weighing an actual pair of offers, compare the employer cost on each side as well. Our guide to German church tax and health insurance covers the two lines that most often surprise people on the first German payslip.
Compare your own two offers
Put the real numbers in rather than reading off a table built on someone else's assumptions.
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Frequently asked questions
Does the UK or Germany leave you with more of your salary?
The UK, at every salary level, but by a shrinking margin. On the equivalent of £50,000 a UK employee keeps 79.0% of gross against 62.9% in Germany, a gap of 16.1 percentage points. By £120,000 the gap is 6.8 points, and by £250,000 it is 1.6 points. Germany taxes the middle hard and the top barely harder.
Why does the gap close as salaries rise?
Because German social insurance is capped and UK tax is not. Pension, unemployment, health and long-term care contributions all stop at their respective Beitragsbemessungsgrenzen, so above those ceilings only income tax keeps rising. The UK does the opposite: the personal allowance tapers away above £100,000 and the additional rate keeps climbing, so the UK's effective rate rises steeply in exactly the range where Germany's has levelled off.
Does Germany ever overtake the UK?
Not on these assumptions. The curves converge but do not cross, and at £250,000 Germany is still 1.6 points behind. What changes the answer in practice is everything around the headline: a German employer's contribution to health insurance, the value of the pension entitlement being bought, and UK pension salary sacrifice, which is a large lever with no close German equivalent.
What is Tax Class I and does it apply to me?
Steuerklasse I is the class for single people without children, and it is what these figures assume. A married couple can use classes III and V, or the factor method, which changes withholding substantially. If you are moving with a non-working spouse, the German figures on this page understate what you would keep, sometimes by a lot.
What about church tax?
These figures exclude it. If you register as a member of a taxed religious community you pay an additional 8% or 9% of your income tax, depending on the federal state. It is avoidable by formally leaving the church, which is a routine administrative act in Germany, but it is not automatic and new arrivals sometimes register without realising the tax consequence.
Is German health insurance comparable to the UK's NHS funding?
Not structurally. In Germany health insurance is a named contribution split with your employer, capped at its own ceiling, and above a certain income you may opt into private cover instead. In the UK it comes out of general taxation and National Insurance with no separate line and no opt-out. Comparing the two payslips without that context overstates how much more Germany takes.
How reliable is the currency conversion on this page?
Treat it as illustrative and check the live rate. The percentages are the durable part of this comparison, because the share of gross you keep does not depend on the exchange rate at all. The rate used is stated and dated beside the cash table above, and comes from the European Central Bank's daily reference rates.
What does this comparison leave out?
UK pension salary sacrifice and student loan repayments, both of which move UK net pay significantly. German children, marriage and the Kinderfreibetrag, which cut German tax. Regional cost of living on both sides. And the solidarity surcharge, which now only affects high earners but is not in these figures.
Figures are PayMetric Labs' own calculations using our UK and German tax engines at 2026 rates, for a single taxpayer in Tax Class I with no church tax, children, pension contributions or student loan. Currency conversions use £1 = €1.1635, European Central Bank reference rates, 23 September 2026 and will drift; the percentages do not depend on the rate. General information only, not personal tax advice.