Income Tax

Personal income tax is the tax a country charges on what individuals earn — wages, salaries and, in most systems, other income such as self-employment profit. Nearly every country layers rates in brackets, so the amount any one person pays depends on how much they earn, not on a single flat number.

The rate shown on this page is the top statutory personal income tax rate: the highest bracket rate that applies once income clears a country’s top threshold, combining national and sub-national or surcharge components where they exist (for example, a federal bracket plus a solidarity surcharge). It is not the effective rate most taxpayers pay — income below the top threshold is taxed in lower brackets — so this number marks the top of the schedule, not an average. Top rates vary widely, and so do the income thresholds where they start to apply.

We currently track verified income tax data for 200 of 206 countries — the second-broadest series on this site after corporate tax. The original 37 are OECD member countries, carrying the OECD Tax Database’s own combined top statutory rate (2025 vintage, one shared source). The rest are sourced individually, country by country — each to its own national tax authority or statutory text where fetchable, or a big-four tax guide (PWC Worldwide Tax Summaries, EY) otherwise — and dated to its own source rather than a shared vintage. Both bases measure the same thing, the top statutory rate for resident individuals, but aren’t guaranteed to combine national and sub-national components identically; each rate’s own citation shows which basis it rests on.