Guide

Minimum wage in Europe: the 2026 table, from Eurostat

By Covered Abroad Research Desk · Last verified July 2026

Eurostat publishes every EU minimum wage twice a year. For the second half of 2026 the monthly span runs from €2,771 in Luxembourg to €825 in Romania. Of the destinations this site covers: Germany €2,343, the Netherlands €2,338, Belgium €2,234, France €1,867, Spain €1,425, Greece and Portugal €1,073 each, Malta €994. Italy and Austria set no statutory minimum — wages there come from collective agreements.

The table, and how to read it

Eurostat's minimum-wage series (earn_mw_cur) is the one comparable source: national statutory minimums converted to monthly amounts, updated each January and July. The second-half 2026 figures for our destinations: Germany €2,343 · Netherlands €2,338 · Belgium €2,234 · France €1,867 · Spain €1,425 · Greece €1,073 · Portugal €1,073 · Malta €994. The EU's bookends are Luxembourg at €2,771 and Romania at €825; Ireland sits at €2,391.

Two of our ten destinations are missing from that list for a reason worth knowing before a job search: Italy and Austria have no statutory minimum wage. Pay floors there are set sector by sector through collective agreements, which are near-universal in Austria and widespread in Italy — a different mechanism, not an absence of protection.

Source: Eurostat, earn_mw_cur — monthly minimum wages, 2026-S2, read 4 September 2026.

Monthly figures hide different months

Countries define the minimum differently: France sets an hourly rate the monthly figure is derived from; the Netherlands has been hourly-only since 2024, with the monthly conversion depending on your sector's working week; Germany's Mindestlohn is hourly; Spain's SMI is paid in fourteen annual instalments, which makes its monthly-equivalent look lower than the payslip of a month with a paga extra. Our per-country pages carry the national tables from the national sources: the Dutch amounts by age and the SMIC's gross and net figures.

For what people actually take home above the minimum, the companion metric is net earnings — our Spain and Portugal pages carry Eurostat's net-earnings figures for the average worker.

60-second check

Not sure the policy you have meets your destination's written rule? Run it through the policy check now, before you build the rest of the file around it.

Check my policy

What this means for a work-visa move

Minimum wages matter to movers twice. Directly: several work and residence routes peg their income requirements to the national minimum or to a multiple of it — the income-requirement tool quotes each route's actual bar from the government source. Indirectly: employer-sponsored visas at modest salaries land exactly in this bracket, and the difference between a Dutch and a Portuguese pay floor is a factor of two before rent enters the picture.

The insurance line in a work-visa file follows its own rule per country — some employment routes enrol you in the public system from day one, others want private cover for the entry period. Each country hub documents which; when your route is clear, a specialist can price the cover side:

Get a quote for the move

Get the moving-paperwork checklist

The month-by-month timeline so the insurance certificate is ready before your appointment, not after.

Get a certificate that meets the published rule

Tell us your destination, visa, and who’s moving. Our team reviews it against the current requirement and calls you with a quote — no obligation.

Cover underwritten by Regency Assurance · every rule on this site cited and dated · a person calls back within one business day.

Before you request a quote: cover is worldwide but excludes treatment in the United States, and pre-existing conditions are not covered — including conditions you did not know about. We say this up front so a quote is worth your time.

Common questions

Which European country has the highest minimum wage in 2026?

Luxembourg, at €2,771 a month in Eurostat's second-half 2026 series. Among this site's destinations the top three are Germany (€2,343), the Netherlands (€2,338) and Belgium (€2,234).

Which European countries have no minimum wage?

Italy and Austria set no statutory minimum; pay floors come from sector collective agreements instead. Denmark, Sweden and Finland work the same way.

Why do monthly minimum-wage figures differ from payslips?

Countries define the minimum differently — hourly rates in Germany and the Netherlands, a 14-instalment annual structure in Spain, an hourly-derived monthly figure in France — so Eurostat's monthly conversion is comparable between countries but not identical to any one payslip.