Wednesday, 10 December 2025
The cost of the festive season varies across Central and Eastern Europe, but one measure makes the differences in purchasing power easy to see: the number of working days needed to set aside a typical Christmas budget. Using the amount planned by Polish households this year—about 1,387 zł—and converting it into local currencies, it becomes possible to compare how long employees in the region must work to prepare for the holidays.
In Poland, this year’s Christmas spending represents just under five days of work for someone earning the national average salary. A typical full-time employee takes home slightly more than 6,300 zł per month, which translates into roughly 290 zł per working day. Setting aside the planned holiday budget therefore requires about 4.8 working days. For those earning the minimum wage, the situation looks different: with daily income roughly half the national average, the same amount requires around eight and a half days of work.
Czech employees face almost the same level of effort as their Polish neighbours. Converting the Polish Christmas budget into Czech crowns gives a value slightly above 7,600 CZK. With average net monthly earnings around 33,000 CZK, a Czech worker earns a little over 1,500 CZK per day, meaning that accumulating the same Christmas budget takes just under five days. The result closely mirrors the Polish calculation, reflecting similar income levels and living costs.
A comparable picture emerges in Slovakia. When the Polish holiday budget is expressed in euros, it amounts to slightly more than 300 EUR. The average Slovak take-home salary is roughly 1,300 EUR per month, or a little over 60 EUR per working day. On this basis, a Slovak employee would need around 4.9 days to put aside the equivalent festive budget, almost identical to the situation in Poland and Czechia.
Romania is the one country in the group where preparing for the holidays takes noticeably longer. Converting the Polish budget into Romanian lei produces an amount close to 1,600 RON. With an average net wage of around 5,650 RON and daily earnings of roughly 270 RON, Romanian workers need close to six working days to save the same sum. The difference reflects lower average wages rather than higher holiday spending, and it highlights the gap in purchasing power even within a broadly similar regional context.
Taken together, the comparison shows that workers in Poland, Czechia and Slovakia devote roughly a week of labour to fund a standard holiday budget, while in Romania the effort is higher by almost an additional day. Although each country faces its own patterns in wage growth and household spending, the regional picture demonstrates that the financial weight of Christmas remains broadly similar across Central Europe, with Romania standing out due to lower average incomes.
Source: Personnel Service and CIJ EUROPE Analysis Team
