The question is never „how much will I earn“, but „how much I get to keep“. Enter the amount someone will pay for your work, and the calculator converts it three ways at once – through a sole trader business, through your own s. r. o., and through an employment contract. It calculates directly in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is recorded.
An individual who invoices on their own
A company that pays out profit to a shareholder
Full-time employment contract
Enter an amount, and all three calculations fill in automatically. The rates and amounts are valid from 1 January 2026.
The Labour Code defines it in § 1 ods. 2 as work performed in a relationship of superiority of the employer and subordination of the employee, performed personally by the employee for the employer, according to the employer's instructions and in the employer's name.
When these features are present, it is dependent work – and under § 1 ods. 3, it must not be performed under a commercial-law relationship. So not on an invoice either. It does not matter that both parties agree to it, or what is written in the contract. What matters is how the cooperation actually works in practice.
Each of the three forms has a different number of points where something is deducted from the money. It is not about the size of a single rate, but about how many times, and on what, the deduction is calculated.
The calculator above uses exactly these figures. 2026 brought three changes at once: higher health insurance, higher minimum contributions for sole traders, and two new tax brackets.
| Item | Health insurance | Social insurance |
|---|---|---|
| Rate | 16 % | 33,15 % |
| Minimum assessment base | 762,00 € | 914,40 € |
| Minimum per month | 121,92 € | 303,11 € |
| Maximum assessment base | not set | 16 764,00 € |
| Maximum per month | no upper limit | 5 557,26 € |
| Annual tax base | Tax rate |
|---|---|
| up to 43 983,32 € | 19 % |
| 43 983,32 – 60 349,21 € | 25 % |
| 60 349,21 – 75 010,32 € | 30 % |
| above 75 010,32 € | 35 % |
| Company's taxable income | Income tax | Minimum tax |
|---|---|---|
| up to 50 000 € | 10 % | 340 € |
| 50 000 – 100 000 € | 10 % | 960 € |
| 100 000 – 250 000 € | 21 % | 960 € |
| 250 000 – 500 000 € | 21 % | 1 920 € |
| 500 000 – 5 000 000 € | 21 % | 3 840 € |
| above 5 000 000 € | 24 % | 11 520 € |
| Item | Amount for 2026 |
|---|---|
| Flat-rate expenses | 60 % of income, capped at 20 000 € a year |
| Coefficient for the sole trader's (SZČO) assessment base | 1,486 |
| Tax-free portion of the tax base | 5 966,73 € a year |
| Tax base from which the tax-free allowance starts to be reduced | 26 083,13 € |
| Tax base at which the tax-free allowance disappears | 43 983,33 € |
| Withholding tax on the share of profit | 7 % |
| Financial transaction tax | 0,4 %, capped at 40 € per transaction |
| Employee contributions | 14,4 % of the gross wage |
| Employer contributions | 36,2 % on top of the gross wage |
| Maximum assessment base for social insurance | 16 764 € a month |
| Subsistence minimum | 284,13 € a month |
At the start, sole trader status looks far more favourable than it actually turns out to be. That is because of the deferral of social insurance – and that deferral ends at some point.
From 1 July 2026, a special assessment base of 396,24 € is introduced for sole traders with annual income up to 9 144 € and for those who have just started out. Social insurance contributions based on it come to 131,34 € a month instead of 303,11 €.
The calculator above works with the standard minimum, so at very low income it shows a slightly worse result than what will actually apply in the second half of 2026.
Then you need the calculation the other way round: how much to ask for in gross terms so that what lands in your account is what you are used to. Enter the net amount, and the calculator will work out the gross wage, the total employer cost, and what daily rate it would correspond to.
The daily rate is derived from the total employer cost, not the gross wage – that is the amount the employer actually spends on you, and what they would otherwise pay on an invoice.
Detailed calculation of net payTo keep the numbers comparable, it sticks to a model case. These are things that can shift your result – and you should know about them when deciding.
No. If the work has the features of dependent work – you do it personally, following instructions, in the employer's name and subordinate to them – the law does not allow it to be performed on an invoice. This follows from § 1 ods. 3 of the Labour Code, and it cannot be got around by agreement between both parties, because an inspection assesses the actual state of affairs, not the text of the contract. The company risks a fine of 4 000 to 200 000 € and an entry in the public register kept by the National Labour Inspectorate for five years. The tax office can reclassify the income as income from dependent activity and additionally assess tax. And the Social Insurance Agency can assess the contributions retroactively – if the person was not registered at all, under § 147 of the Act on Social Insurance this right never becomes time-barred, plus a penalty of 0,05 % of the amount owed for each day of delay. The calculator above makes sense when you are genuinely building your own business with several clients.
With flat-rate expenses and no other income, the threshold is around 41 000 € in annual income. Below that, sole trader status is more favourable: the 60 % flat rate reduces the tax base, and the rest is taxed at only 15 %. Above that amount, the flat rate is capped at 20 000 € and contributions grow on the entire remainder, while an s. r. o. does not pay social insurance contributions at all. Work out the exact threshold in the calculator above – it depends on what your real expenses are.
Because the comparison uses the total employer cost, not the gross wage. On top of the gross wage, the employer pays a further 36,2 % in contributions, so substantially less of the same amount reaches the employee. At the same time, though, they are buying sick pay, maternity benefits, unemployment benefits, paid leave, severance pay and a higher pension. So the difference is not a pure loss – it is the price of security.
No. On profit earned for 2017 and later, no health insurance contributions are paid on a share of profit, and social insurance contributions were never paid on it. It is taxed only with a 7 % withholding tax. The exception is a profit share paid to an employee who holds no ownership stake in the company – that is treated as a wage, with all contributions.
No social insurance. Health insurance, yes – if there is no other payer of the contributions, they become a self-payer and pay at least 121,92 € a month. They pay nothing if they are also employed elsewhere, are a sole trader, or are a state-insured person, for example a student, a pensioner, a registered jobseeker or a parent on parental leave. The calculator works with the worse-case scenario, where there is no other payer.
Since 1 January 2026, only legal entities pay it. Sole traders and other individuals – entrepreneurs are exempt from it, and it never applied to individuals who are not in business, so an employee never paid it out of their wage. The rate is 0,4 % of the amount debited, capped at 40 € per transaction, 0,8 % with no cap on cash withdrawals, and 2 € a year for each payment card used.
It converts between a sole trader's profit and an employee's wage. An employee's contributions are calculated from the gross wage, meaning a figure that does not yet include the employer's contributions. A sole trader has no gross wage at all – only profit. Dividing the profit by 1,486 converts it into a figure that is comparable to a gross wage. Without this, a sole trader would pay contributions on a substantially higher base than an employee with the same income.
This page calculates the whole year at once, the same way a tax return is filed. The payroll calculator works out one month at a time and rounds the tax advance payment to whole cents separately each month – twelve times a year. The difference is on the order of a few tens of cents a year, and it evens out in the annual tax reconciliation.
Yes, and it is not unusual. The combination has its own rules, though: income is assessed separately, but the minimum contributions are paid only once, and if you invoice your own company from your sole trader business, it has to hold up at an inspection as a normal market price. Before you set it up, it is worth going through it with an accountant – get in touch with us.
The calculator works with a model case. We will look at what you actually invoice, what expenses you have, whether you have children, and whether you are employed elsewhere – and tell you which form is cheaper for you, and by how much.
I want a calculation tailored to meWe process the conversation and the data you enter in line with our privacy policy. We send the chat transcript to the accountant and, once you confirm your address, to you as well.