How the 2024-law simulation works

The calculator shows a row labelled “under the 2024 laws”. It answers a single question: how much of the same gross salary would you keep today if parliament had changed nothing since 2024.

What the simulation changes and what it leaves alone

This is not a comparison with a 2024 payslip — that would say nothing, since prices and wages have moved since. The simulation takes your current gross salary and runs it through the old rules.

The distinction that matters is between amounts that move on their own and amounts parliament has to change:

• Kept at today’s level. The subsistence minimum and the average wage. The tax-free allowance, the tax bracket thresholds and the contribution cap are all derived from them automatically, so they would be the same either way.
• Reverted to 2024. Rates, multiples, percentages and fixed amounts written directly into the law — exactly what the amendments changed. They are listed below.

As a result the difference contains no inflation and no wage growth. It only contains what the legislation did.

How the difference is split into causes

The calculation runs five times. First fully under the 2024 rules, then today’s rule groups are switched back on one at a time: contributions, tax-free allowance, tax brackets, child tax bonus. The difference between two adjacent runs is the effect of that one group. This is why the parts add up exactly to the total — nothing is lost and nothing is counted twice.

The comparison uses the full-year result after the annual settlement, not one month’s net pay. The tapering of the tax-free allowance does not show up in monthly pay at all — the employer deducts it in full and the difference is settled at year end. Comparing months would make that change look like zero, which would be misleading.

Changes the simulation reverses

What the simulation does not capture

• Changes outside the payslip — higher VAT, the transaction tax, energy prices. They hit the household budget but not the net salary calculation.
• Changes affecting only specific groups — people with disabilities, pensioners, contribution relief schemes, work agreements.
• Uneven income, unworked months, several employers at the same time.

When today’s rules come out ahead

Not everyone is worse off. The child tax bonus is capped at a percentage of the tax base, and those percentages rose more from 2025 than the per-child amount fell. At low salaries a family therefore actually receives more than under the 2024 rules. The crossover sits at roughly:

• €550 gross per month with one child,
• €830 with two children,
• €995 with three children,
• €1,105 with four children.

A family with three children on the minimum wage is thus better off today. Above those thresholds the gap grows against the present, and from about twice the average wage the new tax brackets add to it.

An honest note about contributions

Part of the difference comes from higher contributions. These are not lost in the same sense higher tax is — pension contributions build a higher future pension. The increase in the employee health contribution from 4 % to 5 % has no such counterpart and, under the amendment, is meant to be temporary, until the end of 2027.

Likewise, raising the social contribution cap from 7 to 11 times the average wage means high earners pay more, but they also accrue a higher pension entitlement.

Sources

• Zákon č. 278/2024 Z. z. — konsolidačný balík pre rok 2025 (Slov-lex)
• Zákon č. 261/2025 Z. z. — konsolidačný balík pre rok 2026 (Slov-lex)
• Zákon č. 595/2003 Z. z. o dani z príjmov (Slov-lex)
• Zákon č. 461/2003 Z. z. o sociálnom poistení (Slov-lex)
• Zákon č. 580/2004 Z. z. o zdravotnom poistení (Slov-lex)
• Finančná správa SR — informácia k zmenám v uplatňovaní daňového bonusu od 1. 1. 2025
• Sociálna poisťovňa — zvýšenie maximálneho mesačného vymeriavacieho základu od roku 2025

If you find an error

The goal is an objective number, not a political argument. If you think a parameter is wrong, get in touch — I will fix it and record the change here.