On 1 July 2026, 22 EU countries set a legal monthly minimum. In euros, Luxembourg pays 2,771 and Bulgaria 620. Convert to purchasing power (PPS) and the spread shrinks to 2.3 times, the order reshuffles, and Germany comes first.
After adjusting for price levels (PPS), how many times higher is the highest EU minimum wage than the lowest, on 1 July 2026? In euros it is 4.5.
Switch the unit and watch the countries re-sort. Scrub back through time: in 2007 the euro spread was 17 to 1.
Arrows: rank in this unit compared with the other unit.
Highest divided by lowest national minimum wage, every 1 January and 1 July since 2007. The grey line marks the date you picked above.
■ euro ■ PPS Own calculation. The set of countries grows from 19 (2007) to 22 (2023: Cyprus), so some of the early drop is not comparable one to one.
Data: Eurostat, Monthly minimum wages, bi-annual data (earn_mw_cur), euro and PPS, values for 1 January (S1) and 1 July (S2), dataset released 31 July 2026, downloaded 29 October 2026 through the Eurostat API. Method notes: Eurostat metadata (earn_minw_esms). Shown: the 22 EU countries with a national minimum wage; Denmark, Italy, Austria, Finland and Sweden have none (set by collective agreements). Germany from 2015, Cyprus from 2023, Croatia from 2008, Ireland and others as available. Ratios, ranks and rank moves are own calculations. A PPS euro buys the same basket everywhere, so PPS compares what the wage buys, not what it pays.