Salary calculator: gross, net and total cost

What is withheld

Pension (CAS) and health (CASS) are computed on the gross and withheld in full. Income tax applies to what remains after those, minus the personal deduction. The employer's work insurance contribution is not deducted from the salary — the employer pays it on top, which is why it appears under total cost.

Meal vouchers

They are not salary, so they are not added to the gross: they enter the base for health contributions and income tax, but not for pension. That is why they are computed separately — folding them into the gross would tax them for pension too and would shift the thresholds (minimum-wage exemption, personal deduction).

The card is loaded with the full face value, while the health contribution and income tax due on the vouchers are withheld from the salary. So when you solve for the gross behind a given net, vouchers push it up: for 4,000 RON to land in the account, the gross must also cover the withholdings on the vouchers.

Personal deduction

It reduces the tax base only, not the contributions, and it applies only at the main job — at a second job the net is lower for the same gross. It phases out as income rises and disappears above the minimum wage + 2,000 RON. Each child in school adds a supplementary deduction, and employees under 26 get a bonus if their income is below the same threshold.

Minimum-wage exemption

In 2026, an employee whose base salary equals the minimum wage, full-time and at their main job, gets a tax-free amount: 300 RON in January–June, if the gross stays at or below 4,300 RON, and 200 RON from July, if the gross stays at or below 4,600 RON (OUG 89/2025, art. III). The amount stays out of the base for pension, health and income tax, and out of the employer's work-insurance contribution too. Meal vouchers do not count toward the gross. The calculator does not apply it in construction. Above the ceiling, or with a base salary above the minimum, the amount disappears entirely — which is why a small raise from exactly the minimum wage can actually lower the net.

What the calculation leaves out

The calculator works on a base salary and on the boxes you tick. It does not cover bonuses with their own tax treatment, overtime, per diem, deductions from the salary — garnishments, loan instalments, maintenance payments — or the case where someone holds several contracts in the same month.

For a month with sick leave, with unpaid leave, or with a mid-month hire, the result here is a reference point rather than the figure on the payslip: that one also depends on the number of days worked, which the base calculation does not ask for.

Gross, net, and what it actually costs

Net is what lands in the account. The employer's cost is something else: the work insurance contribution sits on top of the gross, and the distance between what the company pays and what the person receives is wider than the payslip suggests. If you start from “I want to give them X lei in hand”, the reverse calculation is the one that tells you the cost — it is in the tool on what an employee costs.

Where the numbers come from

The computation is the very function that produces payslips inside the app, with the rates configured for the period you picked. The euro rate is the Romanian National Bank reference rate, with its publication date shown under the table — if the bank does not respond we tell you we are using a fallback rate instead of pretending it is the official one.