How Much Should You Ask For in a Remote Job With a European Company?

The worst way to decide what to ask for is the way almost everyone does it.

You take your current salary. You add 30 percent because that feels brave. You convert it to euros. You say it out loud and feel like you are asking for a lot.

You just priced a European role using the cheapest number in the room: your own payslip.

How much you should ask for in a remote job with a European company has nothing to do with what you earn now. It is a question about the role. And in 2026, for the first time, European law is on the side of people who ask it that way.

This post gives you the method. Four numbers, the maths behind each one, and the exact words for the moments the number comes up.

Why your current salary is the wrong starting point

Your salary is a measurement of one labour market. The role you want sits in a different one.

When you start from your payslip, every number after it is tied to the cheapest market in the conversation. A 30 percent raise on a Manila or Hanoi salary still lands far below what the same company pays the same role in Berlin, Amsterdam or even Warsaw.

I learned this the hard way, and I am German.

When I moved from Vietnam to Singapore for a Country Manager role, the Managing Director asked me straight out what I earned in Vietnam. Classic anchor. He wanted my Hanoi number so he could price the Singapore role down from it.

I did not give it. I said my salary reflected the Vietnam market, not the role he was hiring for, and asked what they paid country managers in Singapore. He named a figure. It more than doubled what I was earning.

And then I made the second mistake. I said yes on the spot.

Singapore was the dream. The number felt enormous next to my old one. So I accepted the first figure he gave me, without one more question. The deflection worked perfectly. The negotiation never happened.

Two lessons came out of that interview, and this post is built on both:

• The anchor does not care about your passport. I had a European CV and a German passport, and geography was still the first lever he reached for. It will be reached for with you too.
• Knowing the market number is not enough. You need your own numbers decided before the call, or your emotions will decide them for you.

The belief that has to go

The old belief: “I should ask for a bit more than I earn now, so I don’t price myself out.”

The new one: “I am pricing a role in their market. My job is to find where that role sits, and decide in advance where I sit inside it.”

That shift sounds small. It changes every number that follows.

The four-number method

You walk into the conversation with four numbers. You will only say one of them out loud.

Number 1: The band (what the role pays in their market)

This is the anchor point for everything else. Find what the same role pays in the company’s home country.

Where to look:

• The job ad itself. More and more European ads now publish a range. In Poland it has been a legal requirement since December 2025.
• National salary reports. For Germany, StepStone’s Gehaltsreport 2026 puts the median for marketing, media and communication at €57,250 a year and for IT at €66,750. The overall German median gross salary in 2025 was €54,066, according to Destatis.
• Published company calculators. GitLab and Buffer both publish how they pay. Even if you never apply there, they show you how a European company does the maths.

Common mistake: Looking at “remote salary” averages on random websites. Those mix every country together. You want the band for this role in this company’s home market.

Number 2: The discount (what they will try to apply for location)

Now be realistic. Many European companies will not pay you the Berlin number.

A 2024 survey by the compensation platform Ravio found that 51 percent of European tech companies localise all salaries to where the employee works. GitLab, which publishes its formula, multiplies its benchmark by a location factor and states clearly that “this is not a cost of living analysis, but instead a cost of labor market evaluation.” Buffer sits at the other end: most locations get 90 percent of its benchmark.

So the discount is real, and it is a pricing decision, not a law of nature. It moves from company to company.

Here is the number most people miss. You are not only priced against Berlin. You are priced against Kraków and Lisbon. In 2025, an hour of labour cost employers about €45 in Germany and €47.90 in the Netherlands, but €19.10 in Poland and €19.40 in Portugal, according to Eurostat data published by Destatis. That nearshore number is the real alternative on the hiring manager’s desk. I wrote about why in your competition isn’t Berlin, it’s Kraków.

Common mistake: Treating the discount as fixed. It is the opening position of one company. Your job is to find out how big it is before you name a figure.

Number 3: Your three private numbers

Now build three numbers for yourself. Write them down before any call.

1. Walk-away. The number below which you say no. It is not a figure you want. It is a figure that keeps you motivated for two years.
2. Target. The number that would make you happy.
3. Opening ask. The number you say first. It sits near the top of what the role can pay, above your target, so the negotiation has room to move toward your target, not away from it.

The order matters. Research on negotiation is clear: the first serious number in the room pulls the final result toward it. Galinsky and Mussweiler showed this in 2001, and a later study by Gunia and colleagues found the effect held across cultures and even for the side with less power. That is you, in this conversation.

Make your opening ask precise. Researchers at Columbia Business School found that precise offers were seen as better informed, and that people receiving them conceded more. €60,000 sounds like a guess. €58,400 sounds like you did the maths.

Common mistake: Going into the call with one number. One number has nowhere to go but down.

Number 4: The structure adjustment

The same work is worth different numbers depending on how they hire you.

• Employee through an Employer of Record: the band applies as it is. The company pays the EOR’s fee and your local employer contributions on top.
• Contractor: add 1.3x to 1.6x. You are now paying for your own leave, social cover and equipment. The full maths is in they offered you a Deel contract.
• Currency: a salary fixed in euros protects you from your local currency falling. Ask which currency the number is in before you agree to it.

Common mistake: Agreeing a number before you know if it is a salary or a rate. Ask first. It changes everything.

A worked example

Let’s make this real, with numbers that are illustrative, not a promise.

You are a marketing manager in Manila. A German software company posts a remote role and gives no range.

• The band. German median for marketing roles is around €57,250 (StepStone 2026). For a manager-level role in tech, the real band sits higher. Say €55,000 to €70,000 in Germany.
• The discount. They hire internationally and probably localise. Their realistic alternative is a candidate in Poland or Portugal, whose cost to them is well under half the German one.
• Your three numbers. Walk-away: roughly double your current local pay, because that is the floor for the same role at a European company. Target: somewhere between the nearshore rate and the German band. Opening ask: a precise figure near the top of what a localising company could justify, with reasons attached.
• Structure. If they come back with a contractor agreement, multiply all three numbers by at least 1.3.

The point is not the exact figure. The point is that every number now has a reason behind it. A number with a reason survives pushback. A number you made up because it felt brave does not.

Can you ask them for the range first?

Yes. And in 2026, you have more cover than ever before.

The EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970) gives job applicants the right to receive “the initial pay or its range” from the employer, in the job ad or before the interview. It also says plainly: “An employer shall not ask applicants about their pay history.”

To be accurate about where this stands: member states had until 7 June 2026 to put it into national law, and most missed the deadline. By late September 2026 only five had finished. Poland already applies the hiring rules. The Netherlands is aiming for January 2027, and Germany expects its law in early 2027.

Whether those laws legally cover you as a remote hire in Asia depends on your contract. But here is what matters in practice: European companies are building published pay ranges for every role right now, because they have to. Asking for the range is becoming the normal thing to do. It is not pushy. It is current.

The words:

Thanks for the call, I’m excited about the role.

Before we get into numbers, could you share the salary range you’ve set for this position? I’d like to make sure we’re aligned before either of us spends more time.

If they share it, your opening ask goes in the top third. If they don’t, you still have your four numbers.

The moments the number comes up, and what to say

”What are your salary expectations?”

If you have the band, answer with a range anchored on the role, not on you.

Based on what this role pays in the European market and the scope we discussed, I’m looking at €58,400 to €64,000. Happy to walk you through how I got there.

Then stop talking. Silence after a number is not awkward. It is the other side doing maths.

If you do not have the band yet, hand the question back politely. The full deflection is in how to negotiate a European salary from Southeast Asia.

”That’s above our budget for this role”

Understood. Can you tell me where the budget sits? If the base is fixed, I’m open to looking at the whole package: a review after probation, the currency, or the contract structure.

You are not backing down. You are moving the conversation from one number to several levers.

”We pay local rates for your region”

Agree with the idea of a benchmark. Disagree with which market it should be.

I understand you benchmark by location. My point is that the work, the hours and the results are set by your market, not mine. I’m asking to be priced against the role, not my postcode.

There is a full post on this one: what to say when they say “we pay local rates”.

What it looks like from the hiring side

I have hired people at a German tech company, and I have sat on the side of the table that sets the budget.

Here is what a low ask actually signals. A candidate who asks for €40K when the role pays €80K does not read as humble. They read as not ready. If they don’t know what the role pays, what else don’t they know? If they undersell themselves to me, how will they price our product to a client?

And when a strong candidate’s number is above what I can approve today, I don’t just say no. I offer a structure I have used myself: a lower start, with a contractually defined increase once the probation milestones are hit. It works for both sides, which is exactly why it is safe for you to propose it.

If the base is the issue, I’m happy to start at [their number] with a written increase to [your number] after six months, tied to the goals we agree now.

The odds are better than you think

Most people never ask. In a Pew Research Center survey of US workers, only around 30 percent said they asked for more pay when they got their current job. But of those who did ask, 66 percent got more than the first offer.

The risk you imagine is not the risk that exists. The bigger risk is a decade of raises calculated as a percentage of a starting number that was too low.

Do this before your next application

Pick one real role you want. Then, in one hour:

1. Find the band for that role in the company’s home country. Write down two sources.
2. Write down the location discount you expect, and why.
3. Set your three numbers: walk-away, target, opening ask. Make the opening ask precise.
4. Decide your contractor multiple in advance, so a Deel contract doesn’t surprise you.
5. Practise the range sentence out loud until it sounds boring.

Five steps. One hour. And the next time someone asks what you are expecting, you will not be guessing.

The number was never about you

The question “how much should I ask for” sounds like a question about your worth. It isn’t. It is a question about a market, and markets can be researched.

Stop asking what you can get away with. Start asking what the role pays.

Sources cited in this post: Directive (EU) 2023/970, EUR-Lex · Lockton, EU Pay Transparency Directive implementation status (Sep 2026) · Lewis Silkin on Poland’s pay transparency rules · Destatis, median gross earnings 2025 · StepStone Gehaltsreport 2026 and ING summary by field · Destatis, EU labour costs per hour · Ravio, Compensation Trends 2025 · GitLab compensation calculator · Buffer salaries · Galinsky & Mussweiler (2001), first offers as anchors · Gunia et al. (2013), robustness of the first-offer effect · Columbia Business School on precise offers · Pew Research Center on salary negotiation