Benchmark

What a software engineer actually costs in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

A gross salary is not a cost. This page turns published salaries, employer charges, freelance rates and exit rules into the number a founder or owner actually pays, with a source for every figure.

Last updated 7 October 2026. Updated yearly.

Every board deck I read has a line called "engineering" and a number next to it that is too low. Usually the gross salaries are right and everything around them is missing: the 13th month, holiday pay, employer contributions, the freelancers paid from a different budget, and the cost of getting out. This benchmark puts those pieces in one place. All sources were retrieved on 7 October 2026. Where I could not find a citable figure, I say so rather than fill the gap.

The same data drives the engineering cost calculator and is published as a JSON file.

Gross salaries

Gross monthly salary, software engineers, 2026
Level	Belgium	Netherlands	Germany
Junior	EUR 4 150	EUR 3 917	EUR 3 633
Mid	EUR 4 750	EUR 5 000	EUR 4 283
Senior	EUR 5 650	EUR 6 375	EUR 5 425
Lead	not found	EUR 8 125	EUR 5 908

Belgium: Robert Half Salary Guide, Software Developer, 25th, 50th and 75th percentile, national, 2027 guide (retrieved 7 October 2026). Robert Half describes these as salaries for someone starting in the role, without bonus. Netherlands: midpoints of the annual bands in The Search Company salary guide 2026, as reported by Dutch IT Channel (junior EUR 42 000 to 52 000, medior EUR 52 000 to 68 000, senior EUR 68 000 to 85 000, lead EUR 85 000 to 110 000), divided by 12 (retrieved 7 October 2026). Germany: annual figures from Stepstone 2026 divided by 12: the lower end of the IT-Softwareentwickler range for junior, medians for Software Developer, Senior Software Developer and Teamleiter Softwareentwicklung (retrieved 7 October 2026).

The Dutch mid figure holds up against Robert Half's Dutch median of EUR 4 951. The German figures look low until you notice they are for all employers, not Berlin scale-ups: the Bundesagentur für Arbeit puts the 2025 median for full-time IT specialists at EUR 6 114 a month. Belgium has no citable lead or architect figure, and Statbel does not publish pay for ICT occupations on a page I could cite. If you have a better Belgian source, I want it.

Employer charges and the real multiplier

Statutory employer cost on top of gross salary, 2026
Item	Belgium	Netherlands	Germany
Extra salary	End-of-year premium of 1 monthly salary (PC 200), double holiday pay of 92% of a monthly salary	Holiday allowance of at least 8% of annual salary	None statutory
Employer contributions	25% basic rate (19.88% plus 4.27% wage moderation)	17.81%: AWf 2.74, Aof 6.27, Whk 1.52, Wko 0.50, Ufo 0.68, Zvw 6.10	22.82%: pension 9.3, unemployment 1.3, health 8.75, care 1.8, U2 0.44, U3 0.15, accident 1.08
Annual cost in monthly salaries	17.17	15.27	14.74
Multiplier on 12 x gross	1.43	1.27	1.23
Mid engineer, employer cost per month	EUR 6 796	EUR 6 363	EUR 5 261
Mid engineer, employer cost per year	EUR 81 558	EUR 76 350	EUR 63 131

Belgium: RSZ administrative instructions 2026/3, employer contributions; FOD WASO, PC 200 end-of-year premium; RSZ instructions on holiday pay (all retrieved 7 October 2026). Netherlands: Belastingdienst, rates for wage taxes from 1 January 2026; UWV, average Whk rates 2026; Rijksoverheid on holiday allowance (retrieved 7 October 2026). Germany: Deutsche Rentenversicherung; Bundesgesundheitsministerium; TK contribution rates 2026; DGUV average accident insurance 2025 (retrieved 7 October 2026). The multipliers are my arithmetic on those rates.

Belgium is the expensive one, and not because of the gross. The 13th month and double holiday pay add almost 2 salaries a year before a single contribution is paid. The Dutch figure assumes the low WW rate for permanent contracts and the small-employer Aof rate, and stops counting premiums at the maximum premium wage of EUR 79 409, so it slightly overstates a lead. The German figure is below the contribution ceilings (health and care stop at EUR 5 812.50 a month in 2026, per the Bundesregierung) and leaves out the U1 levy that only small employers pay. None of the three include pensions, cars, meal vouchers or bonuses, which in Belgium in particular are rarely optional in practice.

For context, Eurostat puts the 2025 hourly labour cost at EUR 45.0 in Germany and EUR 47.9 in the Netherlands, against an EU average of EUR 34.9. Belgium's 2025 figure was not released; the 2024 value in the Eurostat dataset is EUR 48.2 (retrieved 7 October 2026).

The Dutch 30 percent ruling

For a qualifying hire from abroad, a Dutch employer can pay up to 30 percent of salary as a tax-free allowance in 2025 and 2026, dropping to 27 percent from 2027, for at most 5 years, per Rijksoverheid. The 2026 salary threshold is EUR 48 013, or EUR 36 497 for under-30s with a master's degree, and the allowance applies to salary up to EUR 262 000 (Belastingdienst 2026 table, retrieved 7 October 2026). It does not change the employer cost in the table. It changes how much net pay a given cost buys, which is why Dutch offers to international engineers can look higher than the gross suggests.

Freelance and agency rates

Published freelance and agency rates
Measure	Belgium	Netherlands	Germany
Freelance developer	EUR 722.50 a day	EUR 94 an hour	EUR 105 an hour
Freelance per month (18 days of 8 hours)	EUR 13 005	EUR 13 536	EUR 15 120
Versus a mid employee	1.9x	2.1x	2.9x
Agency or IT services, hourly	EUR 95 (median, 2023)	EUR 106 (Q3 2025)	not found

Belgium: Freelancers in Belgium, market rates, IT and software, March 2025, a community survey without a published sample size; Teamleader, Het Uur, median for IT and programming services companies, 2023 data. Netherlands: Knab Zzp Uurtarievenboekje 2026, self-employed software developers, excluding VAT; Simplicate Agencies Benchmark Q4 2025. Germany: freelancermap Freelancer-Kompass 2025, via Computerwoche, all IT freelancers. All retrieved 7 October 2026. The 18 days and 8 hours are my assumption.

The Belgian freelance figure is the weakest number on this page. I could not find a recent, methodical Belgian rate survey for developers, and Malt's country reports could not be retrieved. Treat it as indicative. The ratio is the useful part: a freelancer costs roughly twice an employee in the Benelux and almost three times in Germany. That premium buys one thing, the right to stop with a month's notice. Teams that keep the same freelancers for three years are paying for an option they never use.

Cloud spend

I looked for a credible benchmark of cloud spend per engineer and did not find one. The pages that quote one do not say where it comes from. What can be cited is relative to revenue:

Citable cloud cost markers
Marker	Figure	Source
Hosting as share of revenue, typical SaaS	6% to 12%	EY, 2023
Cloud spend as share of revenue, top quartile	8% (cloud efficiency rate of 92%)	CloudZero and Benchmarkit, 2024
Share of cloud spend wasted	29%	Flexera State of the Cloud, 2026

All retrieved 7 October 2026.

Per engineer is the wrong denominator anyway. A team of 10 running a data product and a team of 40 running a CRUD app should not have the same bill per head. In the reviews I run, the bill tracks ownership more than headcount: the cloud bill is an ownership problem.

The cost of a 6-week vacancy

Nobody publishes a citable euro figure for what an open engineering seat costs. What exists:

Vacancy indicators and costs, mid engineer
Measure	Belgium	Netherlands	Germany
Job vacancy rate, information and communication, Q2 2025	5.2%	5.1%	3.0%
Recruiter fee at 15% to 30% of annual gross	EUR 8 550 to 17 100	EUR 9 000 to 18 000	EUR 7 709 to 15 419
Budgeted employer cost of 6 weeks	EUR 9 410	EUR 8 810	EUR 7 284

Vacancy rates: Eurostat job vacancy statistics, NACE J, EU average 2.4% (Dutch figure provisional). Fee range: Headfirst, recruitment agency fees in the Netherlands, applied to 12 times the gross monthly salary above. Budgeted cost: 6 weeks of the employer cost above. All retrieved 7 October 2026.

The fee is a Dutch range from a recruiter; I found no Belgian or German industry body that publishes one. The second line is not a cost: it is what the budget already assumed 6 weeks of that work was worth. The salary you do not pay during a vacancy is only a saving if the work was never needed. And 6 weeks is optimistic. Bitkom reports an average of 7.7 months to fill an IT role in Germany in 2025 (retrieved 7 October 2026). Belgian and Dutch time-to-fill figures for IT roles could not be sourced.

Exit rules: what a cut costs per person

Statutory exit rules, employer side
Rule	Belgium	Netherlands	Germany
Notice by tenure	2 years: 12 weeks. 3: 13. 5: 18. 8: 27	Under 5 years: 1 month. 5 to 10: 2 months	Under 2 years: 4 weeks. 2: 1 month. 5: 2 months. 8: 3 months
Severance	None beyond notice (worked or paid)	Transition payment of 1/3 monthly salary per year, max EUR 102 000 in 2026 or 1 annual salary if higher	No general right. KSchG 1a option: 0.5 monthly salary per year
Collective trigger	From 10 dismissals in 60 days, depending on unit size	20 or more within 3 months in one UWV region	More than 5 within 30 days in an establishment of 21 to 59
Collective waiting time	30 days, extendable to 60, after consultation	1 month, waivable by the unions	1 month, extendable to 2
Mid engineer, 4 years, individual exit	EUR 23 526	EUR 13 030 to 19 393	EUR 5 261 to 13 827

Belgium: FOD WASO notice table for contracts from 1 January 2014; FOD WASO, collective dismissal procedure. Netherlands: Rijksoverheid, employer notice; Rijksoverheid, transition payment; UWV, collective dismissal. Germany: BGB section 622; KSchG section 1a; KSchG section 17 and section 18. All retrieved 7 October 2026. The last row is my arithmetic: notice months times monthly employer cost, plus statutory severance on gross. The Dutch upper end adds a month for a UWV permit route; UWV publishes no decision time for economic dismissals, so that month is my placeholder.

This is a summary of statute, not legal advice. Real exits rarely settle at the statutory floor: Dutch social plans, Belgian outplacement duties and German settlements all push the number up. The bigger cost is usually time. In Belgium no notice can be given during the Renault consultation, which has no statutory length. In the Netherlands the reflection principle decides who leaves.

What this means for right-sizing

Three things fall out of these tables. First, the cheapest capacity to remove is the most expensive capacity you have: freelancers and agency staff at 2 to 3 times employee cost, with a month's notice. Most over-hired teams I see cut employees first and keep the contractors, because the contractors sit in a different budget. Second, a Belgian exit costs more and takes longer than a German one, but the saving per head is also higher, so the payback is often similar: a few months, not a year. Third, the timeline is the variable that breaks plans. A saving that starts 4 months late is worth a third less in the year it was promised.

How I run a cut under these rules: engineering team restructuring. The law in detail: what the Renault procedure changes about a Belgian right-sizing and right-sizing in the Netherlands: WMCO, UWV, and the timeline. To run your own numbers: the engineering cost calculator.

Sources and method

Every figure was retrieved on 7 October 2026 from the source linked next to it. Salaries are gross base pay before bonus. Employer cost multipliers are computed from statutory rates for a permanent white-collar employee below the contribution ceilings, and exclude pensions, cars, meal vouchers, group insurance and bonuses. Freelance rates are converted at 8 hours a day and 18 billable days a month, which is my assumption. Exit figures are statutory minimums for an individual exit and are not legal advice.

Not found, and left out on purpose: Statbel pay for ICT occupations; Belgian lead and architect salaries; a recent, methodical Belgian developer rate survey; German agency rates; a credible cloud spend per engineer benchmark; Belgian and Dutch time-to-fill for IT roles; any euro estimate of the cost of a vacancy; a decision time for UWV dismissal permits on economic grounds.

Cite this page as: The Interim CTO, Benelux engineering cost benchmark 2026, interimcto.be, last updated 7 October 2026. Corrections with a better source are welcome through the contact page.

Frequently asked

What does a software engineer cost an employer in Belgium?

A mid-level software developer on EUR 4 750 gross a month costs the employer about EUR 81 600 a year, or EUR 6 800 a month. That is 17.17 monthly salaries: 12 months plus the end-of-year premium, with 25 percent employer contribution, plus double holiday pay. Group insurance, meal vouchers and a car come on top.

What is the employer cost multiplier in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany?

Against 12 times the monthly gross salary, the statutory employer cost is about 1.43 in Belgium, 1.27 in the Netherlands and 1.23 in Germany. Belgium is highest because of the 13th month, double holiday pay and a 25 percent basic employer contribution. Pensions, cars and other extras are not included.

Is a freelance developer cheaper than an employee?

Not per month. At published average rates and 18 billable days, a freelance developer costs about 1.9 times a mid-level employee in Belgium, 2.1 times in the Netherlands and 2.9 times in Germany. The premium buys the right to stop with a month's notice instead of a statutory exit.

What does it cost to let a software engineer go?

For a mid-level engineer with 4 years of service: about EUR 23 500 in Belgium (15 weeks of notice), about EUR 13 000 to EUR 19 400 in the Netherlands (notice plus the transition payment, more with a UWV procedure) and about EUR 5 300 to EUR 13 800 in Germany (notice, plus severance if agreed). Collective procedures add months. This is not legal advice.

How much cloud spend per engineer is normal?

There is no credible published benchmark for cloud spend per engineer. The citable markers are relative to revenue: EY puts hosting at 6 to 12 percent of revenue for a typical SaaS company, and Flexera's 2026 survey puts wasted cloud spend at 29 percent. Compare your bill with revenue, not with headcount.

How often is this benchmark updated?

Once a year. This edition was last updated on 7 October 2026, with every source retrieved on that date. The underlying data is published as a JSON file and feeds the engineering cost calculator on this site.

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