Taxing Wages1 is an annual publication that provides details of taxes paid on wages in the 38 Member countries of the OECD. The information contained in the Report covers the personal income tax and social security contributions paid by employees, the social security contributions and payroll taxes paid by their employers and cash benefits received by families. The objective of the Report is to illustrate how personal income taxes, social security contributions and payroll taxes are calculated and to examine how these levies and family benefits affect household incomes and labour costs. The results also allow cross-country comparisons of the overall tax and benefit position of different household types.
The Report shows the amount of taxes, social security contributions, payroll taxes and cash benefits for eight household types, which differ by income level and household composition. It also presents the resulting average and marginal tax rates. Average tax rates show the share of gross wage earnings or total labour costs2 that is taken in personal income taxes (before and after cash benefits), social security contributions and payroll taxes. Marginal tax rates show the share of an increase in gross earnings or total labour costs that is paid in these taxes.
This edition of the Report presents data on the tax and benefit position of employees in 2025, which it compares with corresponding data for the year 2024.
The Report is structured as follows:
Part I (Tax burden comparisons and trends) includes six chapters:
Chapter 1 contains an overview of the main results for 2025.
Chapter 2 contains the Special Feature on “The progressivity of labour taxation in OECD countries”.
Chapter 3 reviews the main results for 2025, which are summarised in comparative tables and figures.
Chapter 4 presents a graphical exposition of the estimated tax burden on labour income in 2025 for gross wage earnings between 50% and 250% of the average wage.
Chapter 5 provides comparative tables showing the main results for 2024.
Chapter 6 shows historical trends in the tax burden for the period 2000-2025.
Part II contains individual country tables specifying the wage levels considered and the associated tax burdens for eight separate household types, together with descriptions of each country’s tax/benefit system.
The Annex describes the Taxing Wages methodology and its limitations.
The Report has been prepared by the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA) under the auspices of Working Party No.2 on Tax Policy Analysis and Tax Statistics (WP2) of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs. The Report was led by Edoardo Magalini and Pedro Baptista under the supervision of the Director, Manal Corwin; the Head of the Tax Policy and Statistics Division, Kurt Van Dender; and the Head of the Tax Data and Statistical Analysis Unit, Alexander Pick. The Special Feature was authored by Alexander Pick, Pedro Baptista and Edoardo Magalini. The authors would like to acknowledge Michael Sharratt for his role in data management and dissemination and Rebekka Hviid Kanstrup for the publication formatting. The authors would like to thank other colleagues in CTPA for their support and valuable comments: Bert Brys, Karena Garnier, Pierce O’Reilly, Sarah Perret, Ria Sandilands and Carrie Tyler. The authors would also like to thank the delegates of WP2 for their inputs.