Minimum wage in Cyprus about halfway in EU ranking

The minimum wage in Cyprus is slightly lower than €1,000 per month since the country became the 22nd out of 27 EU member states to have instituted a national minimum wage on 1 January, 2023, according to data released by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU, about the situation as it stood on 1 July.

The minimum wage in Cyprus is about halfway down the EU’s ranking at €940 per month, which is relatively low compared to the country with the highest minimum wage, which is Luxembourg (€2,508 per month). Bulgaria was the country with the lowest minimum wage, at €399 per month.

Eurostat publishes national minimum wages twice a year, in January and July. EU members concerned may be classified into three different groups:

- Group 1, with a national minimum wage above €1,500 per month (Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and France). The national minimum wage in France stood at €1,747.

- Group 2, with a national minimum wage higher than €1,000 but lower than €1,500 per month, which includes Spain ( €1,260) and Slovenia ( €1,203).

- Group 3, with a national minimum wage below €1,000 per month (Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Czechia, Estonia, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, and Bulgaria).

All candidate and potential candidate countries with a national minimum wage, for which data are available, would belong to Group 3, with minimum wage levels ranging from €375 in Albania to €532 in Montenegro. 

Meanwhile, for the sake of comparison, the United States would fall within Group 2 ( €1,156 per month, at the federal level). The average for the 22 member states that have a minimum wage is €1,132 per month.

The average annual growth rate between July 2013 and July 2023 was highest in Romania (+12.9 %) followed by Lithuania (+11.2 %), Bulgaria (+9.7 %), and Czechia (+9.0 %). The lowest average annual growth rates among EU Member States were recorded in Malta (+1.7 %) and France (+2.0 %).

(Source: CNA)