EU salaries: what an AD5, an AST3 and a contract agent earn

The basic monthly salary is set by grade and step in a table published in the Official Journal and updated every year. Steps go up with seniority, normally every two years; grades go up by promotion. These are the figures applicable from 1 July 2025:

AD and AST share the same scale: the number is the grade, so an AST3 and an AD3 would be paid the same. What changes is the grade you enter at, and that is set by the competition: AD5 in the graduate competition, AD7 in the ICT one, AD8 in AI and cybersecurity, AST3 in the specialist assistants' one.

Contract staff have their own scale, with four function groups and their own grades. Recruitment is normally at the first grade of the group:

That is the route of CAST Permanent, where the contract is normally for up to six years rather than a career for life.

The allowances of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, and they are not small:

• Household allowance: €241.21 plus 2% of the basic salary, for a married official or one with dependent children.
• Dependent child allowance: €527.06 a month per child.
• Education allowance: €357.62 a month per child in education, or €128.76 in the reduced case.
• Expatriation allowance: 16% of the basic salary plus household and child allowances, with a minimum of €714.89, for those who did not live in the country of their posting. Contract staff in some situations get a lower one, €513.91.
• Parental leave allowance: €1,289.65 a month, or €1,719.56 for a single parent or in some other cases.

So an AD5 with a partner and two children is well above the €6,152.64 of the table.

Three things, and none of them is national income tax: under Protocol No 7 on the privileges and immunities of the Union, EU salaries are exempt from it, and are instead taxed by the Union itself.

1. EU income tax. Progressive, from 8% to 45% of the taxable amount, under Regulation (EEC, Euratom, ECSC) No 260/68. It is withheld at source each month.
2. Solidarity levy. An extra deduction on top of the tax, set at 6% of the basic salary by Article 66a of the Staff Regulations, and 7% from grade AD15 step 2 upwards.
3. Pension and sickness contributions. A share of the pension scheme and of the joint sickness insurance. The pension rate is recalculated every year by the Council on an actuarial basis, so it changes; the current figure is published with the annual update.

The number that circulates as "an EU official's salary" is almost always the basic salary of the table, before all of this.

Because of the correction coefficient of Article 64 of the Staff Regulations, which adjusts pay to the cost of living of the place of employment. Brussels and Luxembourg are the reference, at 100. From 1 July 2025:

An AD5 posted to an agency in Spain is paid 92.4% of the figure in the table; one in Copenhagen, 130.5%. The coefficient applies to the salary, not to the grade: your career is the same wherever you are.

Through a competition, and the grade is decided before you apply, in the notice:

• AD5 is the entry grade for graduates, with no experience required. See the guide to EPSO/AD/427/26.
• AD7 and AD8 are specialist grades: degree plus professional experience in the field, and the field test decides your place.
• AST3 is the entry grade for specialist assistants, and asks for experience too.
• FG I to IV are for contract staff, through CAST Permanent, with no ranking: you pass or you do not.

Which tests each one has is in the guide to the 2026 competitions, and how they are scored in how EPSO scores.