Cross-Country Equivalent Salary
See what your salary is worth — and how it ranks — in another country.
Derived figures
- Earnings, hours and minimum wage — derived from ILOSTAT (hours worked, minimum wage); World Bank PIP (income distribution) (Per-country most recent ILOSTAT observation) using Hours worked and minimum wage are ILOSTAT's published figures. The earnings percentiles are NOT published earnings percentiles: they are a lognormal fit to World Bank PIP's median and Gini, which measure per-capita household welfare rather than individual employment earnings, so they sit below a full-time salary for the same country.
How this is calculated
Your current salary is bridged through international dollars to find the destination-currency amount with equivalent purchasing power, which is then located within the destination's earnings percentiles and compared against a live market-rate conversion of the same salary. Showing both figures side by side — the PPP-equivalent salary and the plain exchange-rate conversion — makes the gap between them visible, which is often the more useful number when weighing a relocation or a remote job offer priced in another currency.
Using this calculator's defaults — an $80,000 US salary compared against the UK — the PPP-equivalent figure and the raw exchange-rate conversion typically diverge, since the two countries have different relative price levels for everyday goods and services. To see the same PPP logic applied to a whole monthly budget rather than a salary, see the Cross-Country Budget calculator, or for a straightforward salary-to-salary PPP conversion without the destination-percentile ranking, see the PPP Salary Converter.
Frequently asked questions
- How is this different from the PPP Salary Converter?
- It builds on the same PPP bridge, but adds where that equivalent salary would rank among earners in the destination country — so you can see not just the number, but how competitive it is there.
- What does purchasing power equivalent salary mean?
- It is the salary in the destination country that would let you maintain the same standard of living and purchasing power that your current salary gives you at home — accounting for local price levels, not just the currency conversion.
- How is the PPP conversion calculated?
- Your current salary is converted through international dollars using PPP conversion factors for both countries — this bridges the two currencies via relative price levels rather than the market exchange rate, then the result is converted into the destination currency.
- Why might the equivalent salary differ significantly from the exchange rate conversion?
- Because exchange rates reflect capital flows, trade balances, and financial market sentiment, not the relative cost of living — a currency can be weak or strong on foreign exchange markets while local prices for goods and services tell a very different story.
- Does this account for taxes and social contributions?
- No — this compares gross salary purchasing power only. Actual take-home pay after tax and social contributions varies significantly by country and would need to be factored in separately for a full comparison.
- How is this different from just using a currency converter?
- A currency converter shows what your salary converts to at today's market exchange rate — useful for knowing what you'd receive in the bank. This tool instead estimates what salary would give you equivalent real purchasing power in the destination country, which is usually a very different number.