From what salary can a person be considered middle class in Spain? The answer is not as simple as establishing a specific figure. Being middle class can be measured through salary, wealth, profession, place of residence, or even through the perception that each citizen has of their own economic situation. The OECD itself acknowledges that there are different ways to define it and uses the concept of “middle income class” when making economic comparisons.
One of its most used criteria considers people living in households whose disposable income is between 75% and 200% of the national median to be within this group. Below 75% would be low-income households, and when it exceeds 200%, the OECD classifies them within the high-income group.
Between 1,273 and 3,395 euros per month if you live alone
The latest available data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) allows approximating that boundary for Spain. The 2025 Living Conditions Survey, which uses the income obtained during 2024, places the poverty risk threshold for a single person at 12,220.4 euros per year. This threshold is equivalent to 60% of the median income, so the median is approximately 20,367 euros per year per consumption unit.
If the OECD criterion is applied to that amount, a person living alone would enter the so-called middle income class starting from about 15,276 euros net available per year and would remain within it up to about 40,735 euros. Divided by twelve months, the range is approximately between 1,273 and 3,395 euros per month.
Within that broad range, the OECD also distinguishes three levels. For a single person, taking as a reference the latest Spanish data, they would be approximately as follows:
- Lower middle class: between 1,273 and 1,697 euros per month.
- Middle middle class: between 1,697 and 2,546 euros per month.
- Upper middle class: between 2,546 and 3,395 euros per month.
The classification comes from dividing the average income among those earning from 75% to 100% of the median, from 100% to 150%, and from 150% to 200%, respectively.
It is not the same to earn 2,000 euros living alone as to support a family
Here appears one of the main differences when calculating who can be considered middle class: the composition of the household matters. It is not comparable to have 2,000 euros monthly living alone than to have that same income for two adults and several children.
The INE uses for these comparisons the so-called modified OECD scale. The first adult in the household is assigned a weight of 1, each additional adult a 0.5, and each minor under 14 years a 0.3. This allows taking into account that families share expenses such as housing, electricity, or certain goods.
Applying this method, a couple of two adults would need approximately between 1,909 and 5,092 euros monthly of joint disposable income to be within the middle-income range. If that couple has a child under 14 years, the interval would increase to around 2,291 to 6,110 euros per month.
For a household composed of two adults and two children under 14 years, the range would rise approximately to 2,673 euros monthly at its lower end and 7,129 euros at the upper end. These figures refer to the total disposable income of the household, not to what each member should individually earn. The INE uses precisely this system of consumption units to make households of different sizes comparable.
Warning: we are not talking about gross salary
There is another fundamental clarification. These figures do not directly equate to the gross salary that appears on a payslip.The OECD criterion is built on the household disposable income, corrected for its size, and not solely on the salary of one person.
The concept can include different sources of income and takes into account the resources available to the entire household. Therefore, stating that "to be middle class you have to earn 1,273 euros" would be an excessive simplification: that amount serves as an approximation for a person living alone, using the OECD income criterion and the latest available income data from the INE.
Moreover, the cost of living changes enormously depending on where one resides. The thresholds are national, so they do not directly incorporate the differences in rental or housing prices between Madrid, Barcelona, a provincial capital, or a rural municipality. The OECD uses precisely the national median to classify households according to their position within the income distribution of the country.
From what amount is high income considered?
Following strictly the same criterion, a person living alone would enter the high-income group when they exceed approximately 3,395 euros monthly of disposable income, equivalent to 200% of the median estimated with the latest data from the INE.
On the contrary, anyone earning below about 1,273 euros per month would be, under this economic classification, outside the middle-income group and within the low-income segment. That does not automatically mean being at risk of poverty: the INE places that threshold considerably lower, at 60% of the median, which in the 2025 Living Conditions Survey equated to 12,220.4 euros per year — about 1,018 euros per month — for a single-person household.
Being middle class goes beyond the paycheck
The numbers allow for situating a family's income relative to the overall population, but do not completely resolve what it means to belong to the middle class. The OECD reminds us that the concept can also be analyzed through employment, occupation, wealth, or social and cultural factors, in addition to there being an important subjective dimension: many people identify as middle class even if they statistically fall outside the income ranges used by economists.
With the economic criterion of the OECD and the latest Spanish data, the reference is, in any case, clear: for a person living alone, the middle-income class currently starts around 1,273 euros per month of disposable income and reaches approximately 3,395 euros. From there, the size of the family can substantially change the amount needed to occupy the same economic position.