Minimum wages in Europe - Which countries have the highest salaries? Luxembourg leads with 2,704 euros
Millions of workers in the European Union continue to receive minimum wages, which are intended to provide a basic standard of living, although they have often not increased in line with inflation. According to Eurostat data, as of July 2025, the gross monthly minimum wage in EU countries ranged from €551 in Bulgaria to €2,704 in Luxembourg.
When EU candidate countries are included, Ukraine is at the bottom of the list, with a minimum wage of just 164 euros. Meanwhile, five EU countries, such as Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Finland, have not set a national minimum wage.
Apart from France, which offers 1,802 euros, all countries with the highest minimum wages exceed 2,000 euros per month. These include Ireland with 2,282 euros, the Netherlands with 2,246 euros, Germany with 2,161 euros and Belgium with 2,112 euros.
At a more intermediate level are countries with minimum wages ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 euros per month. This group includes Spain with 1,381 euros, Slovenia with 1,278 euros, Poland with 1,100 euros, Lithuania with 1,038 euros, Greece with 1,027 euros, and Portugal with 1,015 euros.
At the bottom of the table are mainly Eastern European and Balkan countries. Some of them are also EU candidate countries. These are North Macedonia with 584 euros, Turkey with 558 euros, Bulgaria with 551 euros, Albania with 408 euros, Moldova with 285 euros and Ukraine with 164 euros.
To make a fairer comparison between countries, purchasing power standards (PPS) are used, an artificial unit that measures what people can actually buy in each country. This method shows how much a salary is worth in terms of the cost of living.
In this way, the difference between Luxembourg and Bulgaria, which in nominal terms is 4.9 times, narrows to only 2.3 times when calculated according to this standard. However, Luxembourg remains at the top in this respect too, with a minimum wage of 2,035 units, while Estonia ranks last among EU members.
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