Methodology

TaxCompare produces an indicative estimate of the income tax and mandatory social contributions a freelancer or self-employed person would pay under a country’s main self-employment regime(s). It is a comparison aid, not a filing tool and not tax advice.

For each country we model only the principal freelancer regime(s) — not the entire tax system, and not personal circumstances such as family status, other income, regional surcharges, or one-off reliefs.

Each regime is expressed as a small set of declarative rule primitives — allowances, flat and progressive taxes, revenue-based taxes, and capped or fixed social contributions — applied by a single pure calculation engine in a fixed order (allowances first, then contributions, then taxes). A few regimes with bespoke interactions use an explicit escape-hatch calculation instead.

The result shows every line item, the total tax and contributions, the effective rate (total over gross revenue), and the resulting net income. The assumptions applied to each regime are listed alongside its result so you can see exactly what was and was not modelled.

Tax rules are curated and version-controlled in the application, targeting the TaxCompare model tax year. We do not scrape live data. Every regime carries the official or reputable sources it was built from, linked on the country and result pages, and the data is reviewed on a recurring basis.

Because tax rules change, figures may lag recent legislation. Values flagged for maintainer review are treated as provisional until confirmed against a primary source.

The tax engine always computes in each regime’s own currency; foreign-exchange conversion is a separate, thin layer used only to normalise results for cross-country comparison. Rates come from a dated snapshot (ECB, with the National Bank of Ukraine for the hryvnia) shown with its “as of” date; the runtime performs no live currency calls.

The estimates simplify real tax systems and cannot account for your individual situation. They may differ from what you actually owe. Always confirm figures with a qualified tax adviser in the relevant country before making decisions.