Minimum Wages in European Countries 2025: Official Data From Eurostat

Eurostat has published statistics on minimum wages in European countries as of early 2025. The study does not include Denmark, Italy, Austria, Finland, and Sweden, as these countries do not have a state-mandated minimum wage; instead, wages are determined through collective agreements.

Eurostat collects data on minimum wages from official national sources of each EU member state and applies methodological approaches that account for differences in tax systems. For a more accurate comparison, it uses the purchasing power standard (PPS) indicator and an adjustment for inflation.

As of January 2025, minimum wages in EU countries can be divided into three groups:

Low level: less than €1000 per month.

• Croatia (€970)
• Greece (€968)
• Malta (€961)
• Estonia (€886)
• Czech Republic (€826)
• Slovakia (€816)
• Romania (€814)
• Latvia (€740)
• Bulgaria (€551)

Mid-level: between €1000 and €1500 per month:

• Spain (€1323)
• Slovenia (€1254)
• Poland (€1091)
• Lithuania (€1038)
• Portugal (€1015)
• Cyprus (€1000)

High level: more than €1500 per month.

• Luxembourg (€2638)
• Ireland (€2282)
• Netherlands (€2193)
• Germany (€2161)
• Belgium (€2070)
• France (€1802)

The highest increase compared to early 2024 was recorded in Bulgaria (+15.2%) and Romania (+22.5%). Most countries, including Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, and Portugal, raised their minimum wages by only 3–6%, in line with inflation growth.

The Impact of Inflation on Minimum Wages

Inflation is an indicator of the average annual increase in prices for most goods and services. If wages grow at a higher rate than inflation, purchasing power increases, allowing individuals to buy more with the same amount of money. However, if inflation rises faster than wages, real incomes decline, reducing the actual standard of living.

In European countries, the inflation situation has been unstable due to the ongoing energy crisis, leading to significant fluctuations in price levels across different regions.

Among non-EU countries, Montenegro recorded the highest increase in real incomes, with a 25.9% rise, while inflation remained relatively low at 2.6%.

The most volatile situation was observed in Turkey, where real incomes declined by 14.4%. Despite a 30% increase in the minimum wage, the government was unable to offset the massive 44% inflation rate, significantly eroding purchasing power.

Minimum Wage and Purchasing Power Standard (PPS)

For a more accurate comparison, Eurostat has also adjusted wage levels using the Purchasing Power Standard (PPS) indicator. PPS is an artificial calculation unit created by Eurostat to measure the real level of income and GDP while accounting for differences in prices across EU countries.

The essence of this indicator is to recalculate income levels and GDP in different EU countries in a way that reflects variations in the cost of living.

Minimum wage adjusted for PPS:

With some approximation, and only for the sake of visualizing the data in the table, one PPS unit can be considered roughly equivalent to €1.

After recalculating minimum wages in PPS, the gap between countries narrows because wages in countries with lower prices increase in PPS units, while wages in countries with a higher cost of living decrease. For example, although the nominal minimum wage in Germany is more than four times higher than in Bulgaria, when adjusted for PPS, this difference is reduced by half.

This means that, despite the nominal wage figures, when accounting for taxes, the cost of services, goods, and social contributions, people in Bulgaria, on average, earn only twice (rather than five times) less than those in Germany or Luxembourg.