Minimum monthly minimum wages across the EU ranged from €620 in Bulgaria to €2,704 in Luxembourg on 1 January 2026.
Twenty-two of the EU’s 27 countries had a national minimum wage on that date, with Denmark, Italy, Austria, Finland and Sweden the exceptions, Eurostat informed in a release on Friday.
Eight countries recorded minimum wages below €1,000 a month: Bulgaria (€620), Latvia (€780), Romania (€795), Hungary (€838), Estonia (€886), Slovakia (€915), Czechia (€924) and Malta (€994).
Another eight countries were in the €1,000 to €1,500 range — Greece (€1,027), Croatia (€1,050), Portugal (€1,073), Cyprus (€1,088), Poland (€1,139), Lithuania (€1,153), Slovenia (€1,278) and Spain (€1,381).
The remaining six were above €1,500 a month: France (€1,823), Belgium (€2,112), the Netherlands (€2,295), Germany (€2,343), Ireland (€2,391) and Luxembourg (€2,704).
Adjusting for different price levels
The highest minimum wage was 4.4 times the lowest when comparing euro amounts, Eurostat said.
After adjusting for differences in price levels using purchasing power standards (PPS) — a measure designed to compare what money can buy in different countries — minimum wages ranged from PPS 886 per month in Estonia to PPS 2,157 in Germany, meaning the highest was 2.4 times the lowest.
In PPS terms, minimum wages were above PPS 1,500 per month in Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, France, Poland and Spain.
Slovakia, Bulgaria and Czechia moved above PPS 1,000 per month compared with January 2025.
