Contributions
Contributions in Slovakia cover social insurance (sickness, pension, unemployment) and health insurance. Social insurance has a monthly maximum assessment base; health insurance is uncapped. The rates shown follow the acts cited on this page; a recent change may not be reflected here yet, and none of them has been through our final sign-off — for official amounts, Sociálna poisťovňa governs.
Two systems, both split between you and the employer
Before any income tax is worked out, contributions (odvody) come off the gross wage. There are two systems: social insurance (sociálne poistenie), run by the Sociálna poisťovňa, and health insurance (zdravotné poistenie), run by your health insurer. Each is split between the employee and the employer, and only the employee’s share reduces your take-home. The employer’s share is a real cost of employing you, but it is not withheld from your pay.
On the employee side the numbers are compact: 9,4 % of the gross for social insurance plus 5 % for health — the 14,4 %-worth of “odvody” a payslip shows. The employer then pays a much larger share on top, which is why a job costs an employer well above the gross on your contract.
Social insurance is five separate funds
“Social insurance” is not one levy — it is a set of funds, each with its own rate, that happen to be collected together. On the employee side they add up to 9,4 %:
| Fund | You (employee) | Employer |
|---|---|---|
| Sickness (nemocenské) | 1,4 % | 1,4 % |
| Old-age pension (starobné) | 4 % | 14 % |
| Disability (invalidné) | 3 % | 3 % |
| Unemployment (nezamestnanosť) | 1 % | 1 % |
| Guarantee fund (garančné) | — | 0,25 % |
| Reserve solidarity fund (rezervný fond) | — | 4,75 % |
| Capped subtotal | 9,4 % | 24,4 % |
| Accident insurance (úrazové) — uncapped | — | 0,8 % |
The employer’s side carries two funds the employee never pays — the guarantee fund (0,25 %) and the reserve solidarity fund (4,75 %) — plus accident insurance (0,8 %), which sits apart because it is the one line with no ceiling at all: the employer pays it on the full wage however high.
Social insurance has a monthly maximum base
Social insurance stops at a ceiling. The maximum monthly assessment base for 2026 is 16 764,00 €. Unlike some countries’ annual, year-to-date caps, this one is a genuine per-month limit: for the part of a month’s gross above 16 764,00 €, no social insurance is levied — the capped funds simply clamp. It binds only on high salaries above that figure; for everyone below it, social insurance applies to the whole gross. (The ceiling was set at eleven times the 2024 average wage — a change from the earlier multiple that we flag as unconfirmed.)
Health insurance has no ceiling
Health insurance behaves in the opposite way: it has no maximum base at all. The 5 % employee share (and the employer’s 11 %) applies to the full gross, however high — above the social ceiling a high earner stops paying more social insurance but keeps paying health on every euro. The two systems must be modelled separately, and the calculator does. For 2026 the employee health rate rose to 5 % (from a lower rate the year before) under the consolidation package.
People with a severe-disability certificate (ZŤP) pay health insurance at half the rate — 2,5 % for the employee (and 5,5 % for the employer) — which the calculator applies when you toggle the ZŤP option. Social insurance rates are not halved.
The rates and the maximum base on this page follow the acts cited above, shown to demonstrate the structure. A recent change may not be reflected here yet, and they have not been through our final sign-off — for a real decision, the cited source or the responsible authority governs.
The full content of this page is still being written.