Egypt Salary Calculatorحاسبة الراتب المصري — 2026

Variable Pay Explained — Cost of Living, Commission, Overtime & Transportation

Your monthly pay is rarely a single number. On top of a base salary, many Egyptian employees also receive a cost-of-living allowance, commission or KPI incentives, overtime pay, and a transportation allowance. This guide explains how these four components are taxed, and why they're treated differently from your base salary for social insurance.

The rule: fully taxable, but outside the insurable wage

All four components — cost of living, commission/incentives, overtime, and transportation — are added to your base salary to form your total gross, and all of it is subject to payroll income tax just like any other income.

The key difference: social insurance (the employee's 11%) is calculated only on the base insurable wage, up to the EGP 16,700 cap — not on these extra components. An employee on a EGP 15,000 base plus EGP 5,000 commission pays social insurance on EGP 15,000 only (not EGP 20,000), but pays income tax on the full amount after deductions.

Why these components are often taxed at a higher bracket

Because they stack on top of your base income, these components land in the highest bracket your salary has already reached — exactly like an annual bonus. If your base salary already sits in the 20% bracket, every additional pound of commission or overtime is typically taxed at 20% or higher, not at your average overall rate.

The Law 4.3 deduction (0.05%) also applies to these components, since it is calculated on your total gross, not just the base.

Worked example

An employee with a EGP 15,000 base and EGP 3,000 monthly commission: social insurance = 15,000 × 11% = EGP 1,650 (on the base only). Taxable income includes the base and the commission together, after social insurance and the personal exemption — and the tax caused by the commission is calculated as the marginal difference on top of the base tax. You can see this split exactly by enabling "Add variable items" in our main calculator.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does the transportation allowance count toward social insurance?⌄

No — in our model, none of the four variable components (cost of living, commission, overtime, transportation) count toward the insurable wage. Social insurance is calculated on the base salary only, up to the EGP 16,700 cap.

Is monthly commission taxed the same way as an annual bonus?⌄

For tax purposes, yes — both stack on top of your base income and are taxed at the marginal rate on that extra slice, which is why the effective tax on them looks higher than your average salary tax rate.

What if my base salary is already above the insurance cap?⌄

Then social insurance stays fixed at EGP 1,837/month regardless of how much variable pay you add — additional commission, overtime or allowances only affect your income tax, not your insurance deduction.

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