The Wealth of Perspective: A Comparison of Wages, Taxes, and Purchasing Power in Belgium and Spain

When Europeans consider relocating for work, Belgium and Spain often appear as opposite poles of the same Union: a high-wage, high-tax, high-price economy in the north, and a lower-wage but lower-cost lifestyle in the south. But how large are these differences once taxes and prices are taken into account? And which country actually offers greater real purchasing power for workers and their families?

Drawing on official figures from Belgium’s statistical office Statbel, Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), Eurostat and the OECD, this article compares average and minimum salaries, taxation, price levels and overall purchasing power in both countries.

Average salaries: Belgium clearly ahead on paper

On headline figures, Belgium is a clear high-wage economy. According to Statbel’s earnings survey, full-time employees received an average gross monthly salary of €4,076 in 2022, with a median salary of €3,728. These data are summarised in Statbel’s news release “The average gross monthly salary is 4,076 euros”, based on information from more than 184,000 employees. Annualised, this corresponds to roughly €48,900 a year in gross wages for a typical full-time worker, excluding bonuses such as a 13th month or double holiday pay. The Belgian figures underline a high overall level of pay, but also significant dispersion: half of employees earn less than the median. In Spain, the latest official data come from the INE’s Encuesta Anual de Estructura Salarial for 2023. According to this survey, the average annual gross salary was €28,049.94 per worker, 4.1% more than in 2022. The same note highlights strong sectoral differences, with energy workers at the top of the scale and hospitality workers at the bottom. A more detailed breakdown is available in the INE’s statistical series on wages and labour costs in INEbase. In practice, this Spanish average corresponds to around €2,337 per month if salaries are expressed in 12 equal payments, although many employment contracts in Spain still use 14 payments (12 monthly salaries plus two extra “pagas”). Purely in nominal terms, then, the average full-time worker in Belgium earns roughly 70–75% more gross pay than the average worker in Spain. Eurostat’s pan-European data on average gross annual earnings of full-time employees confirm that Belgium is above the EU average while Spain sits slightly below it.

Minimum wages: different legal floors

Average pay only tells part of the story; minimum wages reveal how each state protects its lowest-paid workers. Spain sets a unified national minimum wage, the Salario Mínimo Interprofesional (SMI). For 2025, the Spanish government fixed the SMI at €1,184 per month in 14 payments, or €16,576 per year. This is explained in detail in the Ministry of Labour’s note on the SMI published by the government’s communication service La Moncloa and in the information sheet of the public employment service SEPE. Belgium, by contrast, does not rely on a single national minimum wage. Instead, it applies a Guaranteed Average Minimum Monthly Income (GAMMI), supplemented by sector-specific minima negotiated collectively. Eurostat’s overview of minimum wage statistics and its 2025 news release “Now available: first 2025 data for minimum wages” place Belgium among the EU member states with minimum wages above €2,000 per month for a full-time worker, while Spain lies in the group between €1,000 and €1,500. At the very bottom of the wage ladder, then, Belgian workers benefit from a higher legal or collectively guaranteed pay floor than their Spanish counterparts. However, this nominal advantage must still pass through the filter of taxation and prices.

Taxation and social security: Belgium’s heavy “tax wedge”

Belgium is well known for its heavy tax burden on labour income. The OECD’s comparative study Taxing Wages 2025 shows that, in 2024, Belgium recorded the highest tax wedge in the OECD for a single worker without children earning the average wage, at 52.6% of total labour costs. The figures are also summarised in the OECD press release “Labour taxes edge up in the OECD as real wages recover in 2024”. The tax wedge measures all compulsory deductions on labour (personal income tax plus employee and employer social contributions, minus family benefits) as a share of total labour cost. Put simply, it shows how much of what an employer spends on a worker is absorbed by the tax and social security system. Spain’s tax wedge for the same type of worker is much lower. The OECD’s country data indicate a figure of around 40.6%, placing Spain close to the OECD average and far below Belgium. Although Spain combines a progressive personal income tax with substantial social security contributions, its overall burden on labour income remains significantly lighter than that of Belgium. For individual workers this means that a Belgian employee loses a much larger portion of each euro of gross salary to taxes and social contributions than a comparable Spanish employee. As a result, the impressive difference in gross wages is trimmed back considerably when looking at net pay.

Cost of living: Spain’s price advantage

Net salary still does not tell the whole story, because price levels for goods and services differ widely between member states. To compare what a salary actually buys, economists adjust incomes using purchasing power parities and price level indices. Eurostat’s news article on household consumption price levels in 2024 summarises the latest results for household expenditure across the EU. The underlying data are presented in the Statistics Explained article on comparative price levels and in the database table with the code prc_ppp_ind. These Eurostat materials show that Belgium is among the relatively expensive EU member states, with overall price levels for household consumption above the EU-27 average. Spain, by contrast, is in the group of countries where prices are below the EU average. Independent cost-of-living comparisons support this pattern. The crowd-sourced database Numbeo estimates that the general cost of living in Belgium is more than 30% higher than in Spain (excluding rent), and still substantially higher even when rent is included. While such tools are not official statistics, they provide a useful sense of everyday price gaps faced by consumers.

Purchasing power: how far does a salary go?

Putting these elements together – nominal wages, tax wedges and price levels – allows a more realistic comparison of living standards.

• • On paper, Belgium pays much more: the average full-time gross salary is roughly 70–75% higher than in Spain.

• • After taxes and social contributions, the gap narrows: Belgium’s very high tax wedge means that its workers keep a smaller share of their gross income than Spanish workers.

• • After adjusting for prices, Spain closes the gap further: lower consumer prices and cheaper housing give Spanish salaries more purchasing power than the raw numbers suggest.

For a worker on an average salary, a Belgian job will usually still yield higher real income, but the advantage is far smaller than a simple comparison of €4,076 versus €2,337 per month might imply. High taxes and high prices eat into Belgium’s lead. Around the minimum wage, the situation is more nuanced. Spain’s SMI has risen very rapidly over the last decade, but Eurostat’s overview of minimum wage statistics shows that Spain is still in the mid-range of the EU in nominal terms, with a relatively large proportion of workers paid at or near the minimum. Belgium’s higher minimum wage and dense system of sectoral collective agreements may reduce in-work poverty, but they also contribute to higher labour costs and strong incentives for automation or offshoring in low-productivity sectors.

Internal disparities within each country

National averages also hide large internal disparities. Statbel’s data on Belgian wages and salaries show that workers in Brussels and certain Flemish provinces enjoy significantly higher salaries than those in many Walloon districts. Sectoral differences are particularly pronounced: petrochemicals, finance and head-office activities sit at the top of the wage scale, while hospitality, care services and retail tend to lag behind. In Spain, the INE press release on the 2023 wage structure surveys highlights similarly strong regional and sectoral contrasts. Autonomous communities such as Madrid, the Basque Country and Navarre register substantially higher wages than the national average, while others remain well below. High-paid sectors include energy and financial services, whereas hospitality and personal services remain at the bottom despite increases in the SMI. For highly qualified professionals, these differences matter as much as national averages. An IT specialist or engineer in Brussels, Antwerp, Madrid or Bilbao may experience very different salary levels and living costs from the average worker in their country.

Beyond salaries: quality of life and broader context

Even after adjusting for taxes and prices, many workers base their choices on broader quality-of-life factors: climate, language, work-life balance, housing conditions and the perceived quality of public services. Spain’s milder climate, outdoor lifestyle and relatively affordable housing – especially outside Madrid and Barcelona – attract workers from across Europe, including remote professionals paid according to international rather than local salary scales. Belgium, by contrast, offers proximity to EU institutions, dense transport connections at the heart of the Single Market, and robust social protections, but at the price of high taxes and expensive urban life. These trade-offs fit into a wider European debate about wages, productivity and resilience. Recent analysis of labour-market dynamics, such as the European Central Bank speech “Beyond hysteresis: resilience in Europe’s labour market”, examines how real wages, employment and participation have evolved in response to energy shocks and inflation. Reporting in The European Times has also underlined how these macro trends translate into everyday realities for workers across the continent.

Conclusion: high wages versus high prices

The comparison between Belgium and Spain shows why it is misleading to focus on gross salary figures alone. Belgium is clearly a high-wage economy, with average and minimum salaries well above Spain’s. Yet this advantage is moderated by one of the heaviest tax wedges in the OECD and by consumer prices that are significantly higher than the EU average. Spain, meanwhile, remains a medium-wage economy within the EU, but one where average and minimum wages have risen substantially in recent years. Combined with lower taxes on labour and a noticeably cheaper cost of living, this gives Spanish workers more purchasing power than the headline salary gap might suggest, especially in regions where housing remains affordable. For policymakers, the lesson is clear: Belgium faces the challenge of lowering the tax burden on work while preserving a strong welfare state, whereas Spain needs to continue improving productivity and wage levels without sacrificing its cost-of-living advantage. For workers and companies, the message is equally straightforward: gross salary is only the starting point. Net pay, local prices, sectoral opportunities and quality-of-life factors all play a decisive role in determining where a euro goes furthest.