How to match EU income to US salary?

Question

I'm a software engineer in Europe, and my firm is about to offer me a position in the US to bring up a team (In San Francisco or New York, it's still not decided yet)…

Looking at the job market in the US, salaries do not match at all European ones: they look way higher than in Western Europe. It somehow looks like a €50-55k salary in Western Europe equals a $100-120k there. I know there are many things (like retirement, healthcare…) that are included in European salaries that are not in US ones.

So is there any way, any rule of thumb, that could help me match US salaries with Western European ones?

NB: as a western European, I'm mostly talking about France, UK, Germany, Belgium, for which the difference between net and gross salary is about 75% on average. And I'm comparing salaries in the IT market in metropolitan areas, of course.

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Edit:

After a mail I got from a user asking if I found a way, I found that there's still no good calculation in the answers. Let's consider the calculation from the answer I originally accepted as an example. Let's consider the wage for an engineering job in Paris with a gross income of €50,000 a year. And let's consider moving to SF, NY and Denver:

First let's make that income net of all taxes:

• 50,000*0.77 = 38,500 gross/net difference in France: 0.77
• 38,500-3600 = 34,500 net after income tax in France: 0.09

Then convert it to US dollars, at today's rate €1 = $1.22:

• €34,500 * 1.22 = $42,021

Now, let's take the cost of living ratios (from expatistan.com):

• Paris: 231
• SF: 261
• NY: 263
• Denver: 180

So the adapted wages from Paris to target city are:

• SF: $47,063 x1.12
• NY: $47,483 x1.13
• Denver: $32,356 x0.77

Then add income tax and gross/net ratio:

• SF: $50,828.04 1.08, gross: $65,314.03 1.285
• NY: $50,331.98 1.06, gross: $64,424.93 1.280
• Denver: $34,297.36 1.06, gross: $43,214.67 1.26

Which looks quite wrong to me!

In France, the engineering job market ranges from €30k to €60k (rarely more).

When I look at job offers in SF or NY (I didn't look very thoroughly in other places), I found out the range of the offers were from $80k to $120k (rarely more). Usually, those almost always include medical care and retirement.

So I ended up considering a non-scientific approach: take the European value in euro, double it, and you've got the matching wage in dollar:

• €30k/€40k → $75k-$80k
• €50k → $100k
• €60k → $120k

Though that "method" won't adapt well when the Euro/dollar exchange rate will change (which is very likely to be in 2015 with the recent fall of oil prices). It looks closer to reality than the former calculation. So either engineers are better paid in the US than in Europe, or I'm missing a quite important cost in the former calculation!

Answer 1

For a general idea, I recommend this formula:

CurrentSalary EUR * (EUR/USD Rate) * CostOfLivingIndexValue of SF or NY.

If you make 50k EUR, that's about 57k USD as of December 2021 (with EUR = 1.15 USD). SF and NY are about 1.6 times more expensive than the average urban city in the US, so you would need $91k.

This doesn't really take into account differences in quality of life (vacation, healthcare, etc.) If you really include those (which are hard to calculate a value of), then you would need a lot more US salary. Also, "retirement"... your retirement plan is for you to put a % of each month's income into a 401K or other long term pre-tax investment vehicle. There is no pension system like you may be accustomed to.

True you will be taxed less in the US, but you'll get less as well - less availability of public services, transportation, etc.

I went the opposite direction, using roughly the reverse calculation; and I can say I'm getting more from my income here than I did in the US (not counting the extra weeks of vacation).

Answer 2

Of course, the salaries you're talking about here are gross (as in pre-tax), so obviously first step would be to calculate net salary. In US you have to components of the income tax, first the federal tax, then in some cases state tax (California is one of these states, and actually has the highest state tax of all). BTW. what's generally called net income in Europe, in US goes by name of take-home payroll. Example of take-home calculator for California.

You can get rough idea how far given amount of net salary will get you on sites such as Numbeo or Expatistan, which compare cities on cost on living index. Both sites offer option to directly compare two cities in details. Neither gives you complete view, and should be taken with a grain of salt, as it's based on basket of goods and services which don't necessarily reflect your spending. According to cost of living in SF rough similar to Paris — actually SF is 3%-4% cheaper according to comparison by Expatistan and Numbeo. Note, that in this case it really depends on your rent vs. other spending ratio.

In Europe you're usually under some public healthcare plan, in case of US it's private insurance, so that's something that you have to take in account. But in case of Software Engineering jobs you're probably in luck and employer most likely provides that for you, maybe even (at least partially) for your whole family.

As far as days off go, in Europe you have your vacation days, depending on country and your work experience that's anywhere between 18 to 30 days and it's usually regulated by law. You have also right to sick leave that is completely independent of your vacation days. It's not unusually to be whole month off in the summer. On the other hand in most companies in US they have single concept called PTOs (payed days off), which are both vacation and sick days. It probably depends on company culture, but typically you're not expected to use all PTOs (contrary to Europe, where you're expected and even obliged to use all your vacation days). It's also not very typical to have very long vacations.

Retirement founds in US are private, there is 401(k) scheme which makes that tax deferred (i.e. you pay tax on your pension while receiving it, not while investing). IMO for any highly skilled worker with reasonably high salary is actually a good thing compared to European public retirement systems, as in public retirement systems ROI is absolutely terrible, few times less than the worst of private funds.

As far as public transport, don't know about NYC, but SF and whole Bay Area has excellent system with Caltrain, BART, metro, trams and buses. I find it to be relatively inexpensive comparing to for example Amsterdam. For example single bus fare is $2 in SF, €2.80 ($3.90) in Amsterdam, SF Muni & BART monthly pass is $76, roughly equivalent 3-zone Amsterdam GVB monthly pass is €119.50 ($167).

Answer 3

I do not exactly understand what you want to know, if you want to estimate the salary you need or you can expect in the US (which are 2 different things).

But I can still give you clues about the differences of budget between these two situations. I spent some time in SF and live in France. The things I noticed when it comes to comparing salaries and budgets between the two countries are that:

• food has overall the same cost
• rent is easily higher in large US cities than in France, and France has higher rents than Germany. Rent represents a large part of a base budget
• going out is in the same range of cost, maybe a bit more expensive in the US
• "culture" is more expensive in the US because not as subsidized
• transit cost (commutes) are more expensive in the US: depending on where you live, you will require a car (which is not cheap) or pay for a transit pass that is relatively more expensive than in Western Europe (in the hundreds of dollars, not in the tens of euros as in many French cities)

But overall, the main difference is about the "package". Your net salary in the US includes less aid than you can expect in Europe: in particular less health coverage, less education subsidy, less child aid, less retirement pension. These expenses are very dependable on any person and can represent a large amount. If you have to pay for your family to live with you, the cost is way higher in the US than in Western Europe. You should pay attention to these costs.

So overall, to compare a Western European salary and a US salary, you should be careful to the rent, commute, and your family situation. If you have a need for education (for you or a family member), for health coverage, for things related to kids, the cost is very different so a US salary might not give the same benefits.

Answer 4

Here is how much a hypothetical above average (1.5x) software developer could save/invest after expenses and taxes in New York and Berlin. I think it is important to also include what your level of spending is, since this can greatly influence the amount you can invest for later.

Be aware that this kind of calculation naturally comes with a lot of caveats and assumptions, and must be adapted if your assumptions deviate!

In particular, I calculated the savings in absolute values, implicating that after you quit working, you have a high degree of freedom to choose where you want to live and spend your money. Keep in mind that this may not be true.

Also I didn't include a fine-grained analysis of possible tax optimizations, social (retirement) benefits, etc. Inform yourself and adapt. For the US salary, I calculated the employee contribution to health insurance with 340$/month, depending on whether you have a group plan or not this may be too low. I used 1 EUR = 1.09 USD (rate as of 7/2015), and monthly expenses of 1500 EUR for Berlin. I estimated tax, income, living costs from the indicated sources.

Here comes the calculation:

C_de = Cost of living Berlin / EUR / Year = 1500 * 12 = 18000

C_us = Cost of living NYC / USD / Year = C_de * 1.77 * 1.09 = 34727 [1]

I_de = Income Berlin / EUR = 72000 [2]

I_us = Income NYC / USD = 120649 [3]

T_de = ratio of tax, social security, healthcare per I_de = 0.426 [4]

T_us = ratio of tax, social security, healthcare per I_us = 0.400 [5] [6]

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absolute savings NYC / USD

= I_us * (1 - T_us) - C_us

= 120649 * 0.6 - 34727 = 37662

savings ratio NYC: 37662 / (120649 * 0.63) = 0.495

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absolute savings Berlin / USD

= (I_de * (1 -T_de) - C_de) * 1.09

= (72000 * 0.574 - 18000) * 1.09 = 25427

savings ratio Berlin: 25427 / (72000 * 0.574 * 1.09) = 0.564

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=> 48% more in NYC absolute after expenses, slightly lower savings ratio after taxes in NYC

=> Note that in the US, any social security benefits can only be claimed at retirement age if contributed to more than 10 years!

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[1] http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/index

[2] “Software Developer/Berlin 48000 EUR” * 1.5 = 72000 EUR

[3] “Software Developer/NYC 80433 USD” * 1.5 = 120649 USD http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/berlin-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,6_IM1020_KO7,24.htm

[4] Includes health insurance, retirement and other contributions:

http://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/

[5] Includes social security contributions:

[5a] http://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/salary/

[5b] http://www.moneychimp.com/features/fica.htm

[5b] I estimated NY City tax with 3% http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/a/New-York-City-taxes.htm

New York State + City + Federal + Social Security + health insurance: (7240 + 3619 + 23969 + 9096 + 4320) / 120649 = 0.400

[6] health insurance with group plan, estimated based on personal conversation with friends living in US

Answer 5

There is a huge difference missed by all the answers here - in the US your employment is generally high risk; i.e. you can be fired at any time and will receive no more than two week's of pay or notice. Whereas in France, employees often have 60 or 90 days of notice period. So the lower French salary can in fact be much more stable.

In Europe your largest costs are likely transportation and food; whereas in NYC or SF your largest costs might be rent and health care. So, be sure total up all the expenses including taxes, and shop in advance for suitable living accommodation. In the USA, you should expect to pay no more than 33% of your net salary on rent. The quality of the apartment you can thus afford (adding up housing costs and transportation costs for each option) will give you an idea whether this will be a comfortable life for you or not.

Answer 6

As a European who's currently living in North America, I feel that there's a lot of confusion over salary comparisons between different markets. Lets break it down step by step:

Currency

First of all, think in one currency, even if the two currencies are close in value. 1 Euro is currently 1.15 US dollars. Or conversely 1 US dollar is 0.87 Euros. Convert all the numbers you see into one currency to get an objective measure of your expected personal income. Forgetting about currency conversion is especially prevalent for countries who's currencies are "dollars" - a Canadian dollar is worth merely 0.73 US dollars, regardless of what its called, but Canadians often make the mistake of comparing the two as if they have the same value.

Location

Remember that the US is a huge country just like the EU, so there are more cities to choose from than just NYC or SF. Just like there's more cities in the EU than London or Paris. It becomes especially important when you add taxation into the mix, as different US states have different tax levels, just like different EU states.

Benefits

If you're employed as a software engineer at a major company, you get many of the government benefits your European colleagues get. Healthcare is always covered and is usually more accessible in the US than the "free" healthcare in Europe. For example, a person with a good health plan can usually get an appointment with any specialist within a couple of weeks, compared to waiting for several months at European clinics. It gets more difficult if you contract a long-term disease such as cancer, but as a European this is of very little concern as you can always pack up and move back to your home country.

Vacation days are a little worse than what you get in Europe. The average software engineer would have around 21 vacation days per year, compared to an average of 28 days in Europe. There are also a bit more public holidays in European countries. So you should deduct 1 week's worth of wages from your US salary to get the vacation-adjusted version.

Retirement benefits are theoretically better in Europe, but in practice you're extremely likely to get screwed by the time you retire as birth rates remain too low to support Europe's current pension system. In comparison, the US offers you numerous retirement saving options that are more reliable than your home country's pension fund, as long as you save up a healthy amount each year.

Moving with a family

If you have children, there are a couple of additional variables to add into the mix. Kindergarten is usually free in Europe (if you can get a spot), but costs a lot of money in the US. Elementary and high school are free in both countries and university education costs a crazy amount of money in the States. As a European, your only concern is with regards to kindergarten costs, as you can always send your kid back to Europe to get his free university degree if necessary. There are also public universities in the US which cost a more reasonable amount of money than places like MIT and are generally comparable in quality to second-tier European colleges.

Salary after tax

Its very important to completely forget about gross salaries and focus on net (after tax) salaries. This makes a big difference as the total tax rate can range from 10% to 50%, depending on the country.

Let's compare net salaries at the same company in two cities across the ocean: Zurich and Seattle. Both are second-tier cities and are less influenced by real estate bubbles than places like SF or London. Likewise both have relatively lower taxation levels.

• Google Seattle pays out an average of $148k in base salary and $68k in stocks per year, for a total compensation of $216k per year. This comes out to $158k per year after tax.

• Google Zurich pays out a base salary of CHF 146k and 30k in stock bonuses, for a total compensation of CHF 176k, for a net pay of CHF 124k or $138k per year after tax.

Now let's deduct your real estate costs, as they form the biggest difference in living costs. Prices on food, electronics, dining, etc, are usually a small part of your budget and are comparable across all Western countries. You can also ignore differences in transportation costs if you compare real estate prices in the downtown area, as this way you can just walk to work in both countries.

• A 3 bedroom apartment in downtown Seattle costs around $3.9k per month or $47k per year, leaving you $111k per year after real estate costs.

• A 3 bedroom place in downtown Zurich will set you back $4.2k per month or $50k per year, leaving you $88k per year.

Generally speaking your net income will be 25% lower while working for a multinational company such as Google or Facebook in Switzerland, which has some of the lower taxes in Europe. The difference will be even more in favor of the US if you work for a local European company, as European businesses can rarely afford to pay comparable salaries to their IT personnel. It will be even bigger if you work in a country like France with higher taxes. And finally, the more talented you are, the more of a difference moving will make. A Principal Engineer in Silicon Valley can earn up to $600k/year - a sum completely unimaginable anywhere in Europe.

Once again note how important it is to compare two very specific locations rather than "EU" against "USA". Moving the comparison from Seattle to NYC will make you lose 12% on state income tax. Moving from Zurich to Berlin will make you lose 10% of your salary due to higher taxes in Germany. Sometimes it might pay out to simply move to Switzerland (if you're an EU citizen) or pick a different city in the US for immigration purposes.

Conclusion

Use the above methodology to obtain the precise amount of money you will earn living in each location, taking into account your personal situation and living expenses. Using "rules of thumb" is unnecessary and can lead to incorrect assumptions. And as we all know, assumption is the mother of all screw ups.

Answer 7

I work in PR/marketing in the fashion industry. I literally started as an intern at 21 and worked up to an account manager at 26. Making $65k. That would never happen in france. I live in paris now and my level gets around $44k max.

In LA, I was an assistant at an ad agency making $55k... in paris same role gets 35k in Euros.

BIG difference just in terms of now much people get paid in france vs US.

This is not consider cost of living or conversion of currency. You generally make A LOT less in paris. The industries just dont seem to be booming as much here in paris. There is so much many thrown around even to assistants in LA and NYC

BUT in the US i got hardly no vacation days and here in paris i get the whole of August off and I live in a city where everyone is not burned out from work..

So... you have to weigh it up I guess!

I'm dual btw, british pakistani with american residency from my dad. My MOTHER makes only 40k in pounds and has been at her job just outside of london, and she's been there for 10 years! so the brits pay NOTHING too.

Just my experience for you, after living in London, NY, LA and now Paris in my 28 years:)

Hope it helps!

Answer 8

I lived in SF for 20 years. I live in Paris currently, now for 2 years 2016-2018. Agreed, the salaries are half in Paris. It’s pitiful!!! I made more in Fast Food at minimum wage with no degree. Paris they require a Masters to work handing out bread! My starting salary 20 years ago as an admin assistant was 40K. When I left, 4 years ago, I was making 65K for a office recruiter type position. The economy is bad, less jobs, less creativity, little room to move up in Paris. Conservative, formal hierarchy environments.

The only major expense I had was rent in SF. Much higher in SF, But if you want to buy an apartment, the prices are not drastically different (around 10k per meters square both cities).

Job security is a problem in US I agree. You can usually qualify for 1.5 years of unemployment however.

Other main difference is vacation time. However, SF is amazing, things always changing on the cutting edge, young people doing cool start-ups, weather is awesome & there is so much nearby(Hiking, nature, ocean, skiing, etc) You dont need as much holiday as you do in Paris!! Paris is always cold & gray (except August when everything is closed) . I always want to escape Paris, its so dirty, noisy, polluted, gray and no green spaces unless you travel! The gardens are dirt paths mainly....You get used to less holiday. Better tech companies are offering more (5 weeks) in SF. If you work in tech.

My healthcare insurance was $60 per month in SF (pre-taxed) as a single, and my employer did a 401K retirement plan match. So whatever you contribute, they match that amount. I am fairly young & healthy, so I went to a GP once per year, as well as dentist, specialist.

Basic costs of living are a bit cheaper in SF than Paris (Groceries, clothing, beer). I lived & worked in the city so I did not ever need a car.. Most people in the city dont. My employer paid our transport pass at 100%. For in-city travel, the pass is $70 per month I believe (not including Caltrain outside of SF)

There are certain things that are a matter of opinion/priority (which culture is more fun, happy, the weather, entertainment activities, stimulating work). Plenty of free museum days every month, lots of green parks in every SF neighborhood, charming colorful Victorian architecture, amazing variety of food and just in general, more innovative culture) Just My humble opinion. Paris is a drag. Parisians make it particularly horrible: rude, unwilling to speak English, lazy, complaining constantly. There is less convenience in Paris. Less options & variety in grocery stores...

So Other than holidays & healthcare (and probably childcare/education if u have kids)... I MUCH prefer SF & coastal West coast cities. Especially the friendly warm people!!! Cannot wait to move back!!!

Answer 9

I had similar question recently. Since EUR/USD are so close and the end result will anyway be approximate and not precise I excluded the CCY effect all together and took the USD as EUR one to one.

To be honest I didn't even know of such place as www.expatistan.com so I went with what I did know: GDP per capita and PPP figures that I could find for US and my country. I also gathered the range of salaries and number of offers per salary amount form indeed.com

Took min, max and average values from the salary data and used GDP and PPP differences as ratios (e.g. (US GDP per Capita)/(My country GDP per capita) and same for PPP)

Whole aim was to get how much EU salary is worth in US (or other way in my case actually) based on GDP and PPP differences.

Why those two seemed most relevant to me - PPP replicates what the money is worth in the country, what I can buy for it. That's pretty relevant to me, I need to know how much more money I would need to have the same standard of living. And the GDP per capita represents how well the economy is doing in global. Both of them should illustrate what I need to get on the other end so that the quality of life remains similar.

Answer 10

In case nobody mentioned it: If your company wants you to relocate to the USA, you don’t want an equivalent salary, you want a salary that is significantly higher. You should get a generous offer or stay where you are.