The Maximum Corporate, Personal Income, VAT, Dividend, and Capital Gains Tax Rates of 51 European Countries and Territories

I have been diving deep into taxes lately and created a fun Google sheet where you can find:

• The maximum corporate tax rate
• The maximum personal income tax rate
• The maximum/standard VAT rate
• The standard/max dividend tax rate
• The standard/max capital gains tax rate

…of 51 European countries and territories.

Then you can play with the filters and see who’s got the highest for each.

I also created a “theft score” that looks at how much money you are left with once your company and you have paid the highest corporate and personal income tax rates on €100. The formula is [100*(1-corp.tax.rate)]*(1-pers.inc.tax.rate).

Eg: if you are in a place where corporate taxes are 10% and personal income taxes are 20%, then:

[€100*(1 – 10%)] * (1-20%) = €72

The theft score corresponds to the money the state leaves you with. The higher it is, the lower the taxes!

If you want to import the sheet into your own account, this video explains how to do so.

NB 1: The dividend tax rate is not super precise as in some cases, it’s paid by the company (must differentiate foreign VS local company) and in other cases, it’s paid by the person (must differentiate between resident VS non-resident). In Estonia for example, dividends are taxed by 14% on the companies, but Estonian fiscal residents don’t need to pay taxes on the dividends they receive (from Estonian companies).

NB 2: The sheet overall gives an indication of the tax rates in place in each country, but tax law in general is so complicated and specific that you shouldn’t spend too much time on the sheet. I found ChatGPT to be great at explaining how tax systems work in different countries.