From monthly gross pay to an annual net estimate

A figure in a contract is a monthly base. The IRS assessment is an annual sum. For a mainland employee in 2026, the path between them is short, and it is easy to skip a step. You choose 12 or 14 payments, subtract employee social security, apply the specific-deduction floor, run one band of article 68 with its parcela a abater, and divide by the number of payments you chose. This page does that arithmetic and then lists what it deliberately leaves out.

The scale is the consolidated mainland table in article 68, with the continuous parcela rounded to the cent. The IRS brackets guide sets out every band. Monthly withholding is a different instrument, Despacho n.º 233-A/2026. The employee calculator is a third thing again: a sketch that does not follow the legal floor. None of the three is a payslip by itself.

Five steps from the contract to a monthly average

1. Count the payments before you touch a rate. Twelve times the monthly base is the year when holiday pay and Christmas pay are not part of it. Fourteen times the monthly base is the year when each of those subsidies equals one month of base pay. The table on this page is the fourteen-payment case. Timing of the subsidies is covered in holiday and Christmas pay.
2. Subtract employee social security. In the general regime that is 11 percent of gross. The employee social security guide is the rate page. This illustration does not use a reduced rate.
3. Apply the specific deduction, which is the greater of that mandatory contribution and €4,587.09. The Tax Authority's January 2026 newsletter states the floor as 8.54 times the IAS of €537.13. Below the floor you subtract €4,587.09, not the contribution. Above it you subtract the contribution. You do not subtract both.
4. Apply the single article 68 band that contains the taxable income. Tax equals taxable income times the marginal rate, minus the parcela a abater for that band. Rates are not stacked, and the top rate is not applied to the whole salary.
5. Divide by the number of payments from the first step. For every row below, monthly net means (annual gross − annual social security − annual IRS) / 14. That is an average across the year. A month that carries a subsidy, or a month that already includes duodécimos, will not match the average even when the year does.

Fourteen payments, mainland, 2026

Each row starts from the monthly base, multiplies by 14, takes employee social security at 11 percent, and uses the greater of that contribution and €4,587.09 as the specific deduction. From €1,200 through €2,500 the contribution is still under the floor, so the floor is what reduces taxable income. At €3,000 the contribution is €4,620, which exceeds €4,587.09, so taxable income is €42,000 − €4,620 = €37,380. At €4,000, taxable income is €49,840, which sits in the band from €46,566 to €86,634. That row uses the 44.6 percent rate and the parcela of €8,441.70: €49,840 × 0.446 − €8,441.70 = €13,786.94.

The €920 row is bracket arithmetic, not a payslip

Walkthrough: €2,000 a month, fourteen times

The €2,000 row is the same arithmetic written out, so each multiplication is visible. Nothing else is deducted. Dependants, joint taxation, the minimum existence, tax credits, meal allowance and regional rates stay out, as they do in the table.

1. Payments. A holiday subsidy and a Christmas subsidy are each taken as one month of base pay, so the year has 14 payments. €2,000 × 14 = €28,000 of annual gross.
2. Employee social security. €28,000 × 0.11 = €3,080.
3. Specific deduction. The greater of €3,080 and €4,587.09 is €4,587.09. The contribution is smaller than the floor, so the floor is the deduction.
4. Taxable income. €28,000 − €4,587.09 = €23,412.91.
5. Band. €23,412.91 is above €23,089 and not above €29,397. The marginal rate is 31.1 percent. The parcela a abater is €3,092.75.
6. Rate times income. €23,412.91 × 0.30 = €7,023.873. €23,412.91 × 0.011 = €257.54201. Added together, €7,023.873 + €257.54201 = €7,281.41501.
7. Parcela. €7,281.41501 − €3,092.75 = €4,188.66501, which rounds to the cent as €4,188.67 of annual IRS.
8. After social security and this IRS. €28,000 − €3,080 − €4,188.67 = €20,731.33.
9. Split by the 14 payments. €20,731.33 / 14 = €1,480.809…, which is €1,480.81 a month.

What the employee calculator does instead

The SalarioBox employee calculator does not apply the €4,587.09 floor. It subtracts 11 percent and, separately, €600 per dependant from taxable income. At €2,000 × 14 and zero dependants it therefore starts from taxable €24,920 (€28,000 − €3,080), not from €23,412.91. The gap between those two taxable amounts is €1,507.09, which is the unused part of the floor (€4,587.09 − €3,080). A higher starting point produces a higher tax inside the tool. The €600 step is also not the statute: dependants are a credit against the tax, not a slice cut out before the band is chosen. Do not read the number on the calculator as the legal net.

What the estimate leaves out

The rows are mainland figures. The Azores and Madeira publish their own withholding tables and regional rate rules, so a row from this page is not an island payslip. On the mainland the monthly average still misses several things a real assessment includes.

• Meal allowance. Inside the exempt limit it is outside this gross and outside this tax. Above the limit, the excess can become employment income. The amounts and the limit are in the meal allowance guide. They are not added to the rows.
• Duodécimos. Paying one twelfth of each subsidy every month changes the cash on a given payslip. It does not, by itself, change an annual total that already assumes both subsidies equal one month of base pay.
• Withholding versus settlement. The employer withholds from Despacho n.º 233-A/2026, using marital status and the number of dependants. The annual return settles article 68 after deductions and credits. The difference is a refund or a balance to pay. This table is only the settlement sketch, before those credits.
• IRS Jovem. Eligible younger workers can leave part of their employment income outside the tax. This illustration runs the ordinary scale over the whole taxable amount. It does not compute that regime.
• Dependants as credits. A dependant does not move you into a lower band. The credit sits against the tax after the bracket, under the rules of the IRS Code. Joint taxation is a separate option and is ignored here, together with health, education, rent and the general family-expenses credit.

The same January base can finish the year apart because of a bonus, a child, IRS Jovem, or meal allowance above the exempt limit. The five steps are the skeleton. The return is the rest.