Where Cyprus stands in EU minimum wage

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

The minimum wage in Cyprus is about halfway down the EU’s ranking at 940 euro per month, which is relatively low compared to the country with the highest minimum wage, which is Luxembourg (2,508 euro per month). Bulgaria had the lowest minimum wage, at 399 euro 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 euro per month (Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, and France). The federal minimum wage in France stood at 1,747 euro.

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

- 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 comparison, the United States would fall within group 2 (1,156 euro per month, at the federal level). The average for the 22 member states that have a minimum wage is 1,132 euro 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 %).