How it works
Overview
This site lets you compare any salary with official statistics from eight European countries. Enter a gross or net monthly salary to see its position in the salary distribution and how it compares with salaries nationally, by sector, and by region. All data comes directly from national statistics offices, not surveys.
How salary position is estimated
Countries publish salary data in different formats, so the precision of the salary position varies:
- Bracket-based (Latvia): Exact income brackets with employee counts — the most precise estimate, with the position estimated within the relevant bracket.
- Decile-based (Estonia, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Poland): D1–D10 cut-offs — the position is estimated between decile bands.
- Quartile- or cut-off-based (Lithuania, Sweden): Q1/Q2/Q3 or P10/P25/P75/P90 cut-offs — broader bands make the estimate less precise but still useful.
Country details
Each country uses its own official statistics office and publishes data differently. Here is what the checker can use for each country:
Latvia
Monthly gross-income brackets with exact employee counts. The checker estimates the salary position within the relevant bracket. Data is available by sector (all, private, or public) and by region, using a six-month rolling window.
Estonia
Quarterly average wages by economic activity with decile cut-offs (D1–D9). The salary position is estimated between decile bands. Data is available by NACE activity.
Lithuania
Quarterly average and median earnings by county and sector. Quartile cut-offs (Q1/Q2/Q3) are available for estimating a salary-position band. Both gross and net data are available.
Norway
Annual monthly earnings by decile (D1–D10), with breakdowns by sex and industry. The salary position is estimated from the full decile distribution. NOK is converted to EUR for display.
Finland
Annual earnings data with decile cut-offs (D1/D9) by sector, region, sex, and occupation. The salary position is estimated between decile bands.
Sweden
Annual salary statistics with distribution cut-offs (P10/P25/P75/P90) by sector, occupation, and region. SEK is converted to EUR for display.
Denmark
Annual earnings statistics with a decile distribution by sector and region. DKK is converted to EUR for display.
Poland
Monthly gross-wage distribution with deciles by sex, age, sector (PKD/NACE), and region. PLN is converted to EUR for display.
Available statistics
Beyond the salary checker, the site provides detailed statistics for each country:
- Salary trend: median and average wages over time (from 1990 for Latvia, with different starting years for other countries).
- By region: average and median wages across statistical regions or counties.
- By sector: average wages by economic activity (NACE sections) — see which industries pay more.
- Gender pay gap: average wages for men and women, and the gap between them over time.
- By age and education: wage distribution across age groups and education levels (Latvia).
Data methodology
Data is imported directly from official statistics APIs on a regular schedule. The checker uses a six-month rolling average to smooth seasonal variation, while historical data is preserved so salary changes can be followed over time. There are no user accounts, surveys, or self-reported figures — only official statistics covering the employees included in each country's source data.
Crawler policy
This site makes official salary data available to search engines and user-directed AI agents while opting out of AI training use. The policy is separated into two categories:
Allowed: Search and retrieval crawlers
These bots are explicitly permitted to access and index the site's public content:
- Googlebot (Google Search)
- Bingbot (Bing Search)
- OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI Search)
- ClaudeBot (Anthropic Search)
- PerplexityBot (Perplexity AI)
Disallowed: AI training bots
These bots are blocked from using the site's content for AI model training:
- GPTBot (OpenAI training)
- CCBot (Common Crawl training)
- anthropic-ai (Anthropic training)
- ChatGPT-User (ChatGPT training)
The full policy is available in robots.txt.