Your profit, minus what the taxman takes.
before you celebrate the chart, check the bill
Two streams. Three countries.
Investing income comes in two shapes: a when you sell at a profit, and a when a company hands cash to shareholders. Spain taxes both together. The UK and US tax them separately, with allowances and tiers. Move the controls below to see what reaches your pocket, and how the same numbers land in each country.
Spain
Both streams added together. Progressive scale: 19% / 21% / 23% / 27% / 30%. No annual allowance.
United Kingdom
£3,000 capital gains and £500 dividend allowances. Above: 18% or 24% on gains, 8.75/33.75/39.35% on dividends, depending on your income tier.
United States
Long-term gains and qualified dividends share a 0/15/20% scale set by your taxable income. Short-term gains taxed as ordinary income. State tax extra.
Same profit, three different bills.
Take a clean slice of capital gain (100 of currency, no allowances, no fancy structures). Here is roughly how much each country takes off the top, by tier.
Single filer, capital gains only, no allowances applied. ES uses progressive savings-income brackets; UK and US depend on your other income.
See it for your own numbers
Spain taxes capital gains and dividends together on the savings-income scale. The portion of your combined total that falls into each band is taxed at that band's rate, only the lit-up rows reach your numbers.
How the same gain and dividend amounts land in Spain, the UK, and the US, at each country's default tier. Currency aside, the take-home percentages are directly comparable.
- Net kept
- €8415
- Total tax
- €2085
- Effective rate
- 19.9%
- Take-home
- 80.1%
- Net kept
- £8,820
- Total tax
- £1,680
- Effective rate
- 16.0%
- Take-home
- 84.0%
- Net kept
- $8,925
- Total tax
- $1,575
- Effective rate
- 15.0%
- Take-home
- 85.0%
Long-term beats short-term, almost everywhere.
The single biggest tax decision most beginners face is whether to hold for more than a year. In the US it can drop your bill from up to 37% to 15%. In Spain and the UK the holding period itself doesn't change the rate, but the urge to costs you the , and that's almost always more expensive than the tax.