Italy vs Poland for employees 2026

Every rule below is real and is left out on purpose. Modelling it would need information this form does not ask you for, or a mechanism we have not built yet. What matters is not that something is missing, but which way it moves your number, so that is what we tell you.

• May not apply to you: Italy: Five regions and their capital cities are covered: Lombardy (Milan), Lazio (Rome), Campania (Naples), Emilia-Romagna (Bologna) and Piedmont (Turin). The regional and municipal surcharges of whichever you pick are included in the figure. Italy has fifteen more regions and about eight thousand municipalities, each setting its own rate. Regions choose between 1.23% and 3.33%. Municipalities may add up to 0.8 percentage points (art. 1, comma 3, D.Lgs. 360/1998), but the capitals of metropolitan cities carrying a large per-head deficit are allowed by statute to go above that ceiling (art. 1, commi 567 and 572, lett. a, L. 234/2021), and three of the five cities here do: Rome charges 0.9%, Naples 1.0% and Turin up to 1.2%. So do not read 0.8% as a national maximum. Across the five, the combined surcharge runs from about 2.0% of taxable income (Milan, lower incomes) to about 4.5% (Turin, above EUR 50,000). If you live somewhere else, pick the closest of the five and read the two surcharge lines as an indication rather than as your own town's rate. Applies to: Residents of any other region or municipality.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Only the personal tax credits of a single employee with no dependants are applied: the employment credit of art. 13 TUIR (up to EUR 1,955 plus EUR 65), the extra employee credit of L. 207/2024 (up to EUR 1,000), and the two reliefs paid as tax-free cash rather than as credits - the EUR 1,200 trattamento integrativo and the low-income payment worth 4.8% to 7.1% of pay. Any other detrazione you are entitled to is not modelled, and every one of them would lower the tax further. Applies to: Anyone entitled to family or itemised credits.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Family tax credits are not modelled: EUR 950 per child aged 21 to 29, up to EUR 800 for a dependent spouse, EUR 750 per cohabiting dependent parent or grandparent, each tapering with income. We model a single taxpayer with no dependants. Applies to: Taxpayers with a dependent spouse, children aged 21 or over, or dependent ascendants.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Itemised credits and deductions are not modelled: the 19% credits for health costs, mortgage interest, education and similar expenses, complementary pension contributions deductible up to EUR 5,300, and building-renovation credits. Applies to: Anyone with deductible or creditable expenses.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The 2026 substitute taxes for employees are not modelled: 5% on pay increases from collective-agreement renewals for private-sector workers who earned up to EUR 33,000 in 2025, 15% on up to EUR 1,500 of night, holiday and shift allowances for those under EUR 40,000, and 1% on productivity bonuses up to EUR 5,000. Each replaces IRPEF and both surcharges on the amount concerned. Applies to: Private-sector employees receiving those specific payments.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: The 10% surtax on variable pay in the financial sector is not modelled. Bonuses and stock options paid to employees with manager (dirigente) status in the financial sector, and to coordinated and continuous collaborators in that sector, carry an additional 10% tax on the amount exceeding the fixed component of their pay (art. 33, D.L. 31 maggio 2010, n. 78, text in force 1-1-2026 to 31-12-2026). This calculator has no input for sector, job status or the fixed/variable split of pay, so it never applies the surtax. It does not apply at all where the payer instead donates at least twice the surtax to a Third Sector entity (comma 2-ter). Applies to: Financial-sector managers and collaborators whose bonus exceeds their fixed pay.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The employee's 0.30% wage-guarantee (CIGS) contribution is not modelled. An employer that averaged more than fifteen employees owes an ordinary CIGS contribution of 0.90% of the social-security pay base, and 0.30 of those points are withheld from the worker, not from the employer (art. 23, commi 1 and 1-bis, D.Lgs. 148/2015). This calculator has no input for the size of your employer, so it leaves the 0.30% out altogether rather than charge it to the many employees of smaller firms who never owe it. If your employer is above that threshold, about 0.30% more of your gross pay goes to INPS than shown, and because that contribution is deductible your taxable income and your tax are slightly lower than shown. Applies to: Employees of employers averaging more than fifteen employees.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: The pension contribution ceiling of EUR 122,295 applies only to workers with no Italian contribution record before 1 January 1996. Someone who was already insured in Italy before then pays contributions on the whole salary, so on a high salary their contributions are higher and their taxable income lower than shown. Applies to: High earners first insured in Italy before 1996.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The employer cost shown covers the pension contribution only. Unemployment, wage-guarantee, sickness, maternity and accident insurance take the real employer charge to roughly 30% of gross pay, varying by sector, company size and job category. Applies to: Employers (affects the employer-cost figure, not the employee's tax).
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Under the inbound-worker regime we model the standard 50% exemption. Workers who move with a minor child, or who have or adopt a child while in the regime, get a 60% exemption instead, and some 2024 arrivals who bought a home in Italy get three extra years. Applies to: Inbound workers with a minor child, and 2024 arrivals who bought an Italian home by the end of 2023.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Under the teachers and researchers regime we model the basic six tax periods. The 90% exemption runs for eight tax periods instead if you have one minor or dependent child, or if you become the owner of a residential property in Italy after the move or in the twelve months before it; for eleven with at least two children; for thirteen with at least three. A child born or adopted while you are in the regime extends it the same way, so someone in year seven or later may still be paying the reduced tax while this calculator already shows the full one. Applies to: Teachers and researchers with dependent children, or who buy a home in Italy.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Italy: The teachers and researchers exemption covers only the pay for the teaching or research activity carried out in Italy, not everything you earn. This calculator takes a single salary figure and exempts 90% of all of it, so if part of your pay is for something other than teaching or research, your real tax is higher than shown. Applies to: Teachers and researchers whose pay is not entirely for teaching or research.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Campania grants two credits against the regional surcharge, neither applied here. (1) Having at least two dependent children is the ELIGIBILITY CONDITION; the credit itself is 30 EUR for EACH dependent child counted from the first, so a taxpayer with two children gets 60 EUR, not 30 EUR. (2) Separately, 40 EUR for each dependent child with a disability under art. 3 legge 104/1992, with no two-child condition. Both require taxable income of at most 28 000 EUR for surcharge purposes, are apportioned by percentage and months of dependency under art. 12 TUIR, and cannot produce a refund. Applies to: Campania residents earning up to 28 000 EUR with at least two dependent children, or with a dependent child with a disability.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Campania or to Naples during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Emilia-Romagna or to Bologna during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Lazio or to Rome during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Lombardy or to Milan during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Piedmont grants 100 EUR per dependent child to taxpayers with more than two dependent children, and 500 EUR per dependent child with a disability, against the regional surcharge. These credits are not applied here. Applies to: Piedmont residents with three or more dependent children, or with a dependent child with a disability.
• May not apply to you: Italy: The region and municipality are those of the taxpayer's tax domicile on 1 January of the tax year. Someone who moves to Piedmont or to Turin during the year still owes the previous location's surcharges for that year. Applies to: Anyone relocating within Italy during the tax year.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Italy: Taxpayers under the flat-rate regime forfettario pay no regional surcharge at all. Applies to: Self-employed on the regime forfettario.
• May not apply to you: Poland: The 9% health insurance contribution is charged on gross pay minus your social security contributions, not on gross pay. Until the calculator applies that reduced base, the health contribution shown is slightly too high and the net take-home slightly too low. Your income tax is unaffected, because the health contribution is not deductible from it. Applies to: All employees (affects the net-pay figure, not the tax).
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Poland: Married couples and single parents may elect joint or single-parent taxation, which can lower total tax when incomes are unequal. We model a single taxpayer only. Applies to: Couples and single parents filing jointly.
• Your real tax may be LOWER: Poland: The child relief (ulga na dzieci) is a tax credit of at least PLN 1,112.04 per child, higher for a third and further child, and is partly refundable. We do not model it, so families pay less than shown. Applies to: Taxpayers with dependent children.
• Your real tax may be HIGHER: Poland: For a taxpayer under 26 earning above the PLN 85,528 exemption, the standard employee costs and social contributions attributable to the exempt income are not deductible in reality. We apply the full amounts to the remaining taxable income, so the tax just above the cap is slightly understated. Applies to: Under-26s earning more than PLN 85,528 who claim the relief for young.