Combine IRPF income tax and Social Security contributions to estimate your net Spanish salary.
Net pay is gross salary minus IRPF income tax and the 6.5% employee Social Security contribution (within the 2026 contribution base limits).
Illustrative estimate only, using simplified/rounded 2026 Spanish tax figures (Madrid regional rates as a representative example) — not tax advice. Rates vary by Comunidad Autónoma. Always confirm with the Agencia Tributaria or a licensed tax advisor.
Spanish take-home pay (salario neto) is calculated from gross salary (salario bruto) through two main deductions: the employee's Social Security contribution (roughly 6.35-6.48% of gross, deducted first) and IRPF income tax withholding, calculated on the reduced base that remains after Social Security, using the combined national-plus-regional progressive bands. Because the regional component of IRPF varies by Spain's 17 autonomous communities, take-home pay for the same gross salary genuinely differs depending on where in Spain an employee is resident.
Spanish employment contracts commonly include extra payments (pagas extra) — typically two additional full-salary payments per year, often in summer and around Christmas, sometimes prorated monthly instead depending on the employer's pay structure — which is worth checking specifically when comparing an annual salary figure to monthly take-home pay, since it changes how a headline annual salary translates into each month's actual payment.
Many Spanish employment contracts include two additional "pagas extra" payments beyond the standard 12 monthly payments, commonly around July and December, effectively spreading an annual salary over 14 payment dates rather than 12 — though some employers prorate these extra payments evenly across all 12 months instead.
Before — the employee's Social Security contribution is deducted from gross salary first, and IRPF withholding is then calculated on the resulting reduced base, similar to the deduction order used in Italy's INPS-before-IRPEF system.
Because the regional component of IRPF is set independently by each of Spain's 17 autonomous communities and combined with the national scale — different regions can and do apply different regional rates, producing genuinely different net pay for identical gross salaries.
It can be adjusted for either an annual salary that already accounts for pagas extra or a straightforward monthly figure — worth clarifying which basis a specific salary offer uses before comparing it to other offers or countries.