Hire employees in Slovakia using an Employer of Record

One employee in Slovakia means registering with the Sociálna poisťovňa before their first day, enrolling them with a health insurer, setting up the mandatory Social Fund contribution, and putting together an employment contract in Slovak. Miss any piece of that and you're non-compliant before the new hire even logs into their laptop.

The stakes get higher once you're actually employing someone. Slovak payroll runs on a progressive income tax scale (19% up to 35%), employer social and health contributions that add real cost on top of gross pay, and a termination framework where notice typically runs one to three months and severance can stretch to several months of average pay depending on tenure and how the exit happens. Get the contract terms wrong, and you're not just facing a fine, you're facing a dispute over whether the termination was valid at all.

Your three options for hiring here

Option 1: Set up your own entity

• Cost: Meaningful upfront legal, notarial, and registration spend, plus ongoing accounting, payroll, and compliance overhead every year
• Timeline: Typically 3-6 months before you can legally pay someone
• Complexity: Tax registration, Sociálna poisťovňa and health insurer setup, Slovak-language contracts, Social Fund administration, and ongoing statutory filings
• Makes sense when: You're hiring 20+ people long-term or need a permanent Slovak legal presence

Option 2: Hire contractors

• Cost: No entity setup, but you lose control over how the work relationship is structured
• Timeline: Immediate
• Risks: Slovak law treats "dependent work" as employment regardless of what the contract says, so a misclassified contractor can be reclassified as an employee, triggering back taxes, social contributions, and dispute exposure
• Makes sense when: A short, defined project under six months, or genuinely independent specialist work
• Note: Hire with Columbus also handles compliant contractor agreements and payments if that's the right fit

Option 3: Use an employer of record (recommended for most)

• Cost: From $179/month per employee (USD)
• Timeline: 2-3 days to get someone legally employed
• Complexity: None on your end. We handle registrations, contracts, payroll, and contributions
• Makes sense when: You're hiring 1-50 people, testing the Slovak market, or building a team across several countries at once

Why an EOR usually wins the math

If you're hiring one to ten people, entity setup and its ongoing accounting and compliance costs will outweigh years of EOR fees. From $179/month per employee ($2,148/year), hiring three people through Hire with Columbus runs $537/month, roughly $6,444/year, against the legal fees, registration costs, and annual maintenance a Slovak entity requires whether you have one employee or fifty. If you're also hiring in other countries, that entity math multiplies fast, since each country needs its own registration and its own ongoing compliance work.

An EOR gets you hiring in days instead of months, keeps you compliant with Slovak contract, tax, and termination rules without you having to track them yourself, and lets you scale up or down without carrying legal infrastructure you don't need yet. Hire with Columbus handles the employment contract, payroll runs, tax and social contributions, statutory benefits, and any compliance changes that come out of Bratislava, so you can focus on the actual hire.

Ready to hire in Slovakia without setting up an entity first? Get started with Hire with Columbus.

What employment types can you use?

Before you draft an employment contract in Slovakia, you need to decide: entity, contractor, or EOR. That choice affects your timeline, your costs, and how much compliance work lands on your desk.

How can you hire in Slovakia?

Option 1: Set up your own entity

Setting up a legal entity in Slovakia means registering with the Commercial Register, the tax office, Sociálna poisťovňa (Social Insurance Agency), and a health insurer before you can run your first payroll. Expect incorporation, notary, and legal costs upfront, plus ongoing accounting and compliance spend once you're operating. The verified facts for this guide don't include a specific entity setup fee or registration timeline for Slovakia, so treat any number you see elsewhere with caution and budget for it to take a few months rather than weeks.

Once you're set up, you're on the hook for ongoing statutory filings, payroll administration, and Slovak-language legal documentation (written employment acts must be in Slovak, though a parallel translation is allowed). This route makes sense once you're planning for 20+ employees and a long-term physical presence in Slovakia.

Option 2: Hire contractors or freelancers

You can start working with a contractor almost immediately, no registration needed. But Slovak labor law draws a hard line here: "dependent work" (work performed under the employer's direction, personally, in the employer's name) can't legally be done under a civil or commercial contract. It has to be an employment relationship.

If your contractor looks and acts like an employee, doing set hours, taking instructions, using your equipment, working exclusively for you, you're exposed to misclassification risk. The law doesn't spell out a specific fine amount in the facts we've verified, so don't assume a fixed penalty, but reclassification can mean back-pay obligations and disputed employment status. Contractors also can't be directed and controlled the way employees can, which limits how deeply you can integrate them into your team.

Contractors work best for short projects under six months or highly specialized, standalone deliverables. Hire with Columbus also handles compliant contractor agreements and payments if that's the right fit for the role.

Option 3: Use an employer of record (recommended for most companies)

With an EOR, Hire with Columbus becomes the legal employer in Slovakia while you manage the person's day-to-day work. We draft the compliant Slovak-language employment contract, run payroll, handle the mandatory social and health contributions, and keep you aligned with the Zákonník práce (Labor Code) as it changes.

Pricing starts from $179/month per employee. Five people on your Slovak team runs from $895/month, no incorporation, no local accounting setup, no entity to wind down later if plans change. You can typically get someone hired and started within 2-3 days, compared to the months it takes to stand up an entity from scratch.

This route fits companies with 1-50 employees, teams testing the Slovak market, or anyone running a multi-country footprint who doesn't want a separate entity in every country. One thing worth knowing: Slovak law treats "temporary assignment" through a licensed temporary employment agency differently from a standard EOR arrangement, so it's worth checking the legal basis behind whatever EOR provider you use.

Employment contract types in Slovakia

Once you've picked a hiring route, you still need the right contract type. Slovak law recognizes a handful of employment structures, and each carries different rules.

Permanent contracts (neurčitý čas) are the default. If a contract doesn't explicitly state a fixed duration in writing, it's automatically permanent. This is the right choice for core, ongoing roles.

Fixed-term contracts (určitá doba) can run up to two years and can be renewed or extended twice within that window. Beyond two years or a third renewal, you need a specific statutory reason, such as covering someone on maternity or parental leave, seasonal work capped at eight months a year, or a reason set out in a collective agreement. If an employee keeps working past the agreed end date with the employer's knowledge, the contract automatically converts to permanent.

Probationary periods must be agreed in writing before the employee starts, and can't be extended once set. The standard cap is three months; for managers reporting directly to a statutory body or another senior manager, it can run up to six months. For fixed-term contracts, probation can't exceed half the contract's total length.

Part-time contracts carry the same statutory protections as full-time roles, just on a pro-rata basis, including proportional minimum wage entitlements tied to the job's difficulty grade.

Occasional work agreements (dohody) exist for work outside a standard employment relationship: a "dohoda o vykonaní práce" caps at 350 hours a year and 12 months' duration, while a "dohoda o pracovnej činnosti" caps at 10 hours a week (or 520 hours a year for seasonal work). These aren't a substitute for a real employment contract if the role is ongoing and central to your business.

Whichever contract type you need, Hire with Columbus drafts it in compliant Slovak, handles the required written notices, and keeps probation and fixed-term timelines on track so nothing quietly converts into a contract type you didn't intend.

How does payroll and taxation work?

The minimum wage in Slovakia is €915 a month for 2026. Employer contributions sit on top of that, and they add up faster than most first-time hirers expect.

Minimum wage depends on the job, not just the calendar

€915 a month is the floor for the least demanding roles (grade 1 on Slovakia's six-tier job complexity scale). More demanding jobs carry a higher legal minimum, even without a union contract in place.

For context, the national average gross monthly wage was €1,707 in Q2 2026, according to the Statistical Office. Bratislava region runs well above that average; other regions run below it. Only about 27.6% of Slovak employees are covered by a collective agreement, so for most hires, pay is whatever you write into the individual contract, subject to these floors.

Income tax is progressive, not flat

Slovak employment income is taxed at four rates, applied to annual income bands:

Most employees only ever see the 19% bracket. A basic personal tax-free allowance also applies (roughly €5,967 for lower earners, phasing out as income rises), which your payroll provider applies automatically each month.

Keep this separate from business taxes: corporate income tax sits at 21% and VAT at 20%, but neither touches your payroll run. Don't let anyone mix the two up when budgeting.

Social security and health insurance: who pays what

Slovakia splits payroll contributions into social insurance (paid to Sociálna poisťovňa) and health insurance (paid to a health insurance fund). Both employee and employer pay into each.

Most components are capped at a monthly assessment base of €16,764; above that, no further social insurance is due on those pieces (accident insurance has no cap). Below that threshold, which covers the vast majority of hires, the percentages above apply to the full gross salary.

On top of the 36.2%, employers must also fund a statutory social fund, at least 0.6% of gross payroll (rising to 1% if the company was profitable and tax-compliant the prior year). Budget for 36.8% in employer add-on costs as your baseline.

Slovakia's overall tax wedge on labor, the OECD-style measure of total tax and contributions as a share of total labor cost, runs around 42.7%. That's a useful gut check when you're comparing total cost across countries.

What a €2,000 salary actually costs

Here's a real, worked example for an ordinary employee on €2,000 gross a month in 2026, assuming no insurance exemptions:

• Employee health insurance (5%): €100
• Employee social insurance (9.4%): €188
• Employee take-home before income tax: €1,712
• Employer health insurance (11%): €220
• Employer social insurance (25.2%): €504
• Statutory social fund (0.6%): €12
• Total employer cost: €2,736

That's before income tax comes out of the employee's side, and before you add meals, leave, equipment, or any EOR/invoicing fees. Scale it up: a €4,000/month hire costs roughly €5,472 fully loaded, using the same 36.8% employer add-on.

No mandatory 13th or 14th salary

Slovak law doesn't require an extra month's pay at Christmas or in summer. Some employers offer discretionary summer or Christmas bonuses (the Labour Code explicitly allows this), but it's optional, not a statutory obligation. Don't budget for one unless you've chosen to offer it.

Overtime is a separate line to plan for: it carries a premium of at least 25% of the employee's average earnings on top of the hours worked, unless the employee takes time off in lieu instead.

Payroll cycle and registration

Wages are paid monthly, in arrears, by the end of the following calendar month unless the contract or a collective agreement sets an earlier date. Most employers pay by the last working day of the month worked.

You must register every employee with Sociálna poisťovňa before their first day of work. Miss this and you're operating outside the compliance framework from day one.

Common payroll mistakes to avoid

• Budgeting salary only. The 36.8% employer add-on catches new hirers every time.
• Assuming a 13th/14th salary is required. It isn't, though some employers offer one voluntarily.
• Forgetting the social fund contribution. It's small (0.6%-1%) but mandatory and easy to miss.
• Mixing up corporate tax with payroll tax. The 21% corporate rate has nothing to do with what comes out of an employee's paycheck.
• Registering late. Employees need to be registered with Sociálna poisťovňa before, not after, their start date.

Doing this yourself vs. letting someone else handle it

Running Slovak payroll yourself means engaging a local accounting firm or payroll software, tracking two separate contribution regimes (social and health insurance), staying current on annual threshold changes, and carrying the compliance exposure if something's filed wrong. It's manageable, but it's ongoing work that doesn't stop after the first month.

With Hire with Columbus: from $179/month per employee (USD), fully compliant. We register the employee, calculate and remit both sets of contributions, apply the right income tax bracket, and handle the monthly filing, so your team just approves the numbers and moves on.

What benefits and leave are required?

Three things trip up companies hiring in Slovakia for the first time: the meal contribution requirement, the recreation allowance for larger employers, and the fact that maternity leave runs a full 28 weeks. Get these wrong and you're not just annoying an employee, you're breaching the Labour Code. Here's what's actually required and what's optional.

Annual vacation

Slovak employees get a minimum of 20 working days of annual leave. Employees who turn 33 or older by the end of the calendar year, or who permanently care for a child, get an extra week, bringing them to five weeks minimum.

Leave accrues at one-twelfth of the annual entitlement per full calendar month worked. The employer sets the leave schedule after consulting the employee, and it's supposed to be used within the calendar year where possible.

Carryover works, but with limits. If an employee can't use their leave because the employer didn't schedule it, or because of work incapacity, it carries into the next calendar year and must be used by the end of that year. Employers can't pay out the base four weeks of leave in cash unless the employment relationship ends before it's used. Anything above the four-week base that goes unused can be paid out.

One quirk for 2026: 8 May and 15 September are technically working days this year (a 2025 law change stripped their "day of rest" status), but they're still holidays for pay purposes. If an employee works those days, they're entitled to their normal wage plus a 100% holiday premium. If they'd rather take the day off, they can request ordinary vacation, and it counts as a normal vacation day since it's not classified as a rest day in 2026.

Sick leave

When an employee gets sick, the employer pays income replacement for the first 14 days of the incapacity, starting in 2026 (this got extended from 10 days). The rate is 25% of the daily assessment base for days one to three, then 55% from day four through day 14.

From day 15 onward, Slovakia's Social Insurance Agency takes over and pays sickness benefit, also at 55% of the daily assessment base. Employees need a doctor to certify the incapacity through the electronic sick-leave system (ePN); there's no separate paper note to chase down.

If the employee caused their own incapacity through alcohol or drug use, the payment drops to half the usual rate.

Parental leave

Maternity leave runs 28 weeks for a standard birth, with longer periods for single mothers or multiple births under the Labour Code framework. Maternity benefit, paid by Social Insurance, replaces 75% of the daily assessment base.

Fathers get a paternity benefit of up to 2 weeks, which can be taken any time in the six weeks following the birth. It's a separate benefit from parental leave and runs alongside the mother's maternity leave rather than replacing it.

After maternity or paternity leave ends, either parent can take parental leave, which is a job-protected leave of absence, until the child turns three (or six, if the child has a long-term unfavorable health condition requiring special care). The state pays a parental allowance during this period rather than the employer.

Employees must give written notice at least one month before starting maternity, paternity, or parental leave. Employers can't dismiss an employee during maternity leave, and dismissal protections extend to fathers on paternity leave and either parent on parental leave.

Public holidays in 2026

Slovakia has 11 statutory public holidays that count as paid rest days in 2026. Note that 8 May and 15 September are excluded this year under the transitional rule described above, even though they remain paid holidays for wage purposes.

Work on any of these days earns the employee their regular wage plus at least a 100% premium on their average earnings, unless you agree on compensatory time off instead.

Mandatory benefits

Slovakia runs its benefits through payroll contributions, not separate enrollment. Employer contributions total 25.2% of gross salary, and employee contributions total 9.4%, covering pension, health, sickness, unemployment, and related insurance funds.

On top of that, meals are mandatory. Employers must provide a hot meal or a meal contribution to any employee working more than four hours in a shift. The employer covers at least 55% of the meal cost, up to a statutory cap.

Larger employers have extra duties. Companies with more than 49 employees must offer a recreation contribution of 55% of eligible expenses (capped annually) to employees with at least 24 months of continuous service, on request. The same threshold triggers an equivalent contribution toward a child's sport activities.

Every employer also contributes to the statutory social fund, generally 0.6% to 1% of the gross wage base, which funds employee welfare items like meals, recreation, and transport support.

Optional and competitive benefits

Beyond the legal minimums, companies competing for talent in Slovakia commonly add:

• Supplementary pension contributions (private pillar top-ups)
• Private health or dental coverage on top of the state system
• Extra vacation days beyond the statutory minimum
• Meal contributions above the 55% legal floor
• Home office equipment stipends for remote or hybrid roles
• Life insurance or accident insurance riders

None of these are required, but in a tight labor market, especially for tech and finance roles concentrated around Bratislava, they're often the difference between an accepted offer and a candidate who goes elsewhere.

Common benefit mistakes

The most common miss is forgetting the meal obligation entirely. Companies used to markets where meals are a perk, not a legal requirement, skip this and end up out of compliance from day one.

The second is misreading the 2026 holiday exception. Some employers assume 8 May and 15 September are regular paid holidays like every other year and either overpay or underpay holiday premiums when staff work those dates.

The third is missing the recreation and sport contribution thresholds once headcount crosses 49 employees. This one creeps up on growing companies that didn't realize the obligation kicks in automatically once they cross that headcount, based on the prior year's average employee count.

The fourth is treating parental leave and parental benefit as employer costs. The employer's job is to hold the position and protect against dismissal; the state pays the allowance. Employers sometimes budget for cash they'll never actually owe, or fail to update payroll cleanly when leave starts and ends.

Getting all of this right means tracking contribution rates, meal thresholds, recreation eligibility windows, and a public holiday calendar that changes year to year. Hire with Columbus handles the full benefits administration and payroll compliance piece from $179/month per employee, so you're not the one tracking which year 8 May counts as a rest day.

What are the compliance requirements?

Most companies don't realize Slovakia requires a Slovak-language contract and a valid statutory reason for dismissal until they're already mid-termination and scrambling. Get the contract wrong at the start and you'll pay for it at the exit. Here's what actually needs to happen, in order.

Employment contract requirements

Slovak employment contracts must be in writing before the employee's start date. Skip this and the relationship automatically becomes an indefinite-term contract, no matter what you intended.

Written contracts must be prepared in Slovak. You can add a parallel version in another language, but the Slovak text wins if there's ever a dispute.

The contract needs to cover four essentials at minimum:

• The type of work and a short description of it
• Place of work (or a rule for how the employee's location is set)
• Start date
• Pay terms (or a reference to the relevant collective agreement clause)

Beyond that, you're free to add extra terms both sides want, like additional benefits. Two things you legally can't include: a confidentiality clause about the employee's own pay or working conditions, and a blanket ban on outside work done outside their working hours.

If the role is based outside Slovakia, extra written disclosures apply, covering pay currency, additional benefits, and repatriation terms, unless the assignment abroad is under four weeks.

Electronic signatures work, but only if they're a qualified electronic signature or seal with a timestamp. A basic scanned signature doesn't automatically satisfy the "written form" requirement, so check your e-signature tool actually meets the legal bar before you rely on it.

Probation periods

Standard probation in Slovakia runs up to three months. For managers reporting directly to a statutory body or another senior manager, it can run up to six months.

Probation must be agreed in writing, and you can't extend it once it's set. For fixed-term contracts, probation can't exceed half the contract's duration.

During probation, either side can end the employment in writing for any reason, or no reason at all. That flexibility disappears the day probation ends. After that, you're into full statutory dismissal grounds and notice periods.

Working time regulations

The standard working week is 40 hours. Employees on rotating two-shift schedules cap out lower, and three-shift or continuous operations cap out lower still.

Overtime requires at least a 25% premium on top of the employee's average earnings (35% for employees in hazardous roles). Employers can nominate up to 150 overtime hours a year to be built into salary for certain senior or specialist roles, and if they do, no separate overtime pay applies.

Rest requirements: a break of at least 30 minutes once a shift passes six hours, at least 12 consecutive hours of rest between shifts, and two consecutive rest days a week (normally Saturday-Sunday). Weekend and night work carry their own separate wage supplements on top of base pay.

Employers must keep records of hours worked, including overtime. These feed directly into wage slips and the total labor cost breakdown employees are entitled to see.

Notice periods

Notice periods depend on who's giving notice and how long the person has worked for you.

Notice starts on the first day of the calendar month after it's delivered and runs to the end of the following month. Employers must state the dismissal reason in writing, specifically enough that it can't be confused with a different ground, and that reason can't be changed later.

Termination process

You need a valid statutory reason to dismiss an employee in Slovakia. There's no at-will termination here, full stop.

Valid grounds include redundancy from restructuring or closure, long-term health incapacity confirmed by a medical opinion, failure to meet job requirements, unsatisfactory performance (after a written warning and a chance to improve), or serious disciplinary breaches.

Before issuing notice or immediate termination, employers must consult employee representatives where they exist. Skip this step and the dismissal is invalid, no exceptions.

Immediate termination without notice is reserved for exceptional cases: a final criminal conviction for an intentional offense, or a serious breach of workplace discipline. It must happen within two months of discovering the grounds, and no later than one year after the incident itself.

Some employees carry extra protection and can't be dismissed by notice during a protected period: pregnancy, maternity leave, parental leave, sick leave, and similar circumstances. Immediate termination is also blocked for most of these groups, with narrow exceptions.

Collective redundancy rules kick in at set thresholds (roughly 10+ employees at mid-sized employers, growing with headcount) and require advance consultation with employee representatives and notification to the Labour Office at least a month before redundancies start.

Severance pay

Severance depends on how the contract ends and how long the person has worked for you.

Notice the pattern: a negotiated exit (dohoda) pays out one tier higher than a straight notice dismissal at the same tenure. That's a real cost difference worth knowing before you pick your exit route.

Work-related injury or occupational disease dismissals carry a much higher floor, at least 10 months' average pay, unless the employee caused the injury themselves through their own safety violation.

Severance is due at the next regular payday after termination unless you agree otherwise with the employee.

Non-compete and confidentiality

Post-employment non-competes are capped at one year and only enforceable if the employee had access to genuinely sensitive information during employment. You must pay at least 50% of average monthly pay for every month the restriction runs, and this needs to be agreed in the contract itself, not bolted on later.

Employees also have a statutory duty of confidentiality about workplace matters during employment, separate from any non-compete.

Data protection

Slovakia applies GDPR directly. That means the standard principles: collect only the personal data you need, tell employees why you're collecting it, keep it only as long as necessary, and secure it properly.

Employees are entitled to know what data you hold, why, who else receives it, and whether it leaves the EU. GDPR penalties can reach up to €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher, for serious violations.

Foreign hires bring extra data obligations. Employers must verify and retain copies of residence and work permit documents for the duration of employment, and notify the Labour Office within seven working days of both the start and end of employment for EU nationals and third-country hires.

Common compliance mistakes

• Verbal-only agreements. Without a written contract before day one, you default to an indefinite-term relationship you may not have intended, with none of the protections a properly drafted contract gives you.
• Skipping employee representative consultation before dismissal. This step is mandatory wherever representatives exist. Miss it and the whole dismissal is invalid, meaning you could face a reinstatement claim.
• Getting the severance route wrong. Assuming notice and mutual agreement pay the same severance at the same tenure. They don't, and using the wrong figure means a shortfall claim later.
• Extending probation. Slovak law doesn't allow it. Try it anyway and the probation clause itself becomes invalid.
• Missing the dismissal-reason specificity requirement. A vague or generic reason in a notice letter can void the whole notice, and you can't fix it by amending the reason afterward.
• Ignoring protected-employee status. Dismissing someone on maternity leave, sick leave, or in another protected category by notice, without checking their status first, risks a void dismissal and back-pay exposure.

What happens when you get it wrong

A dismissal challenged successfully in court can result in a reinstatement order plus back pay covering the entire disputed period, on top of whatever severance was already owed. GDPR breaches carry fines up to €20 million or 4% of global turnover. Missing the mandatory pre-dismissal consultation voids the termination outright, meaning you're back to square one with the same employee, the same job, and now a legal bill.

This is exactly the kind of process risk Hire with Columbus exists to absorb. Every contract we issue in Slovakia has the mandatory clauses built in, every termination goes through the correct consultation and notice sequence, and severance gets calculated against the right formula for the right exit route. You won't be the one finding out which rule you missed after the fact.

What has changed recently?

Slovakia updated several payroll and compliance rules for 2026, and three of them hit your very first payslip if you're onboarding someone this year. Here's what's actually new, not evergreen background law.

Employer-paid sick leave got longer

Since 1 January 2026, employers cover the first 14 days of an employee's sick leave instead of 10. Sociálna poisťovňa (the Social Insurance Agency) only takes over from day 15 onward. If someone gets sick for two weeks, that's four extra days you're paying for directly compared to last year.

Health insurance contributions went up for employees

The employee health insurance rate rose from 4% to 5% of gross pay as of 1 January 2026. The employer rate stayed at 11%. It's a small shift, but it changes the net pay number on every payslip you run this year.

A new pay transparency law is now in force

Law 76/2026 took effect on 7 June 2026, and it changes how you hire. Job ads and postings can't imply a gendered title, you have to give candidates a pay range before the interview or contract, and you're barred from asking anyone about their salary at a previous employer. Employers that existed before 7 June 2026 had until 31 July 2026 to put a documented pay structure in place. Bigger reporting duties (like submitting pay-gap reports to the Ministry of Labour) start rolling in from 2027 for companies with 150+ employees, so this isn't finished yet.

Two public holidays aren't rest days in 2026

A fiscal consolidation law that took effect 1 November 2025 pulled the rest-day status from 8 May (Victory Day) and 15 September (Our Lady of Sorrows), but only for 2026. Employers can schedule normal work on those dates this year without the usual restrictions on requiring work on a rest day. Employees still get holiday pay if they work, and can request regular vacation instead if they'd rather not work.

Minimum wage and retirement age both moved

The 2026 minimum wage is €915 a month (or €5.259 an hour), with six job-grade minimums running up to €1,495 a month for the most demanding roles. Separately, the retirement age keeps climbing by birth cohort: as of a decree published mid-2026, employees born in 1968 have a confirmed retirement age of 64 years and 2 months. If you're hiring someone in their late 50s or 60s, check their specific birth-year table rather than assuming one flat number.

Wage growth is slowing down

The latest official figure (Q2 2026) puts the national average gross monthly wage at €1,707, up 3.2% year over year, but real wages actually fell 0.5% once you account for inflation. That's the first real-terms wage drop in two and a half years, worth knowing if you're benchmarking an offer.

If you're running payroll through Hire with Columbus, we build changes like these into contracts and pay runs as they take effect, so you're not the one cross-checking Slov-Lex amendments every quarter.