Dividend Tax Rates in Europe, 2026

Ireland has the highest top dividend tax rate among the covered European countries at 51 percent. Denmark and the United Kingdom follow, at 42 percent and 39.35 percent, respectively.

Estonia, Latvia, and Malta are the only European countries covered that do not levy a tax on dividend income. For Estonia and Latvia, this is due to their cash-flow-based corporate tax system: instead of levying a dividend tax, they levy a corporate income taxA corporate income tax (CIT) is levied by federal and state governments on business profits. Many companies are not subject to the CIT because they are taxed as pass-through businesses, with income reportable under the individual income tax. of 22 and 20 percent, respectively, when a business distributes its profits to shareholders. Malta, in contrast, allows shareholders to offset personal income tax on their dividend income against its 35 percent corporate tax rate, resulting in a zero percent top rate.

Of the countries that do levy a dividend tax, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Greece have the lowest tax rate at 5 percent, followed by Moldova and Ukraine at 6 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively.

For comparison, the United States applies a combined state and federal dividend tax rate of 28.73 percent.

Among the 35 European countries, the average top dividend tax rate is 20.82 percent.

Notable Changes

Several European countries have changed their dividend tax rate in the last year.

• Romania raised the dividend tax rate from 10 to 16 percent in 2026.
• Slovakia’s rate returned to 7 percent starting on January 2025 .
• Spain increased its top dividend tax rate from 28 to 30 percent starting in 2025.
• The Netherlands increased the tax rate in 2025 from 33 percent to 36 percent.

In many countries, corporate profits are subject to two layers of taxation: the corporate income tax at the entity level when the corporation earns income, and the dividend tax or capital gains taxA capital gains tax is levied on the profit made from selling an asset and is often in addition to corporate income taxes, frequently resulting in double taxation. These taxes create a bias against saving, leading to a lower level of national income by encouraging present consumption over investment.  at the individual level when that income is passed to shareholders as either dividends or capital gains. Some countries, however, have integrated their taxation of corporate and dividend/capital gains income to eliminate such double taxation.