Meal vouchers in Europe Meal benefit calculator: how much stays within the exemption
Meal benefit calculator: how much stays within the exemption
This meal benefit calculator applies the 2026 rules of seventeen European markets to a team you describe: how many people, how many working days, how much per day. It shows what stays inside the exemption, what goes over and becomes ordinary pay, and the charges that still apply to the exempt part. Every figure comes from the country pages on this site.
| Per employee per month |
|---|
How the calculator reads each market
European meal benefits share a purpose and differ in almost every mechanism. Some countries set a ceiling per working day, some per shift, some per month and one per year. Some exempt the whole value, some only the employer's share, and one values the benefit at a fixed percentage of what is loaded. The calculator keeps each of those rules as its own formula, so the market you pick decides which inputs appear and how they are split.
| Mechanism | Markets | What the calculator does |
|---|---|---|
| Ceiling per working day | Austria, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain | Splits the daily amount at the ceiling and multiplies by the days |
| Ceiling per shift | Czechia | Treats each working day as one shift of at least three hours |
| Ceiling per month | Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland | Splits the monthly amount at the ceiling |
| Ceiling per year | Hungary | Splits the annual amount at the 570 000 HUF limit and applies the employer rate |
| Employer share exempt | Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Slovakia | Works out the employer and employee shares of each voucher |
| Fixed values per meal | Germany | Uses the standard configuration of 4.57 EUR plus 3.10 EUR per meal |
| Percentage valuation | Finland | Values the benefit at 75 percent of the loaded amount, with the 8.80 EUR floor |
What the result does not include
The calculator stops at the benefit. Income tax on the part that goes over the ceiling depends on each employee's bracket, and social contributions depend on the payroll category, so neither can be computed for a team as a whole. Where a charge is fixed by the rule itself, such as Germany's 25 percent flat tax on the benefit in kind value, Hungary's 28 percent employer rate or Romania's deductions from the voucher, it is shown as a separate line.
Service fees of an issuer or a card platform are also left out, because they come from a contract rather than a law. For the cost of running a card programme on Verestro, the pricing page has the public price list.
Where the numbers come from
Every ceiling in the calculator is the one published on the country page and in the table of 2026 limits, each with its legal source. When a figure changes, the country page, the table and this calculator change in the same release. Figures announced for 2027 are tracked separately on the 2027 page until they are in force.