VAT / GST Rate by Country

What This Ranking Actually Says About Global Pay

United States leads this ranking at 0.0%, while Hungary sits at the bottom with 27.0%. The spread between the top and bottom entries is 27.0% — a gap that translates directly into real differences in worker take-home pay, employer cost, or purchasing power depending on the dimension. Across all 38 ranked countries, the average vat rate is 18.8%, giving a baseline against which each country can be read as above- or below-typical.

VAT and GST rates apply on top of income taxes when workers spend their take-home pay, so a country's place in this ranking is a spending-side signal. United States's 0.0% VAT is a key data point for expats and remote workers comparing the real purchasing power of the same after-tax income across jurisdictions.

The mid-table country, Belgium at 21.0%, is a useful reference point: countries ranked above it outperform the typical OECD outcome on this dimension, countries below it underperform. A high ranking on one dimension often masks a low ranking on another — a country may have a low effective income tax rate but a steep VAT or high employer social contributions that erode the real benefit. All 38 OECD members are covered here using the same 2024 Taxing Wages methodology, so the ranking is apples-to-apples and the spread of 27.0% genuinely reflects policy and structural differences rather than data noise. Click any country above to see the full tax and take-home breakdown at every salary level from $20K to $300K, or open the calculator to model a specific scenario against all 38 OECD economies at once.