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This article provides approximate net salaries at Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, located in Warsaw, Poland.

Frontex is an EU institution that promotes, coordinates and develops European border management and institutions responsible for this function in EU Member States. Frontex also facilitates the uptake of the concept of Integrated Border Management. The agency also engages in a multitude of other border guarding-related functions such as monitoring migration flows, carrying out vulnerability assessments of Member States institutions, organises joint operations and rapid border interventions, carries out search and rescue at operations at sea. Frontex also supervises Standing Corps, the EU’s border guard service.

Most EU institutions, including Frontex, do a notoriously poor job in communicating their salary scales as they often indicate just the basic pay and little other detail, and quite many even fail to adjust it by the Correction Coefficient. This is not helpful for people without experience in the EU system, and a hindrance for quite many staff members that consider changing their positions as this makes it really difficult to understanding a person’s future income. This article series will seek to address the lack of information on actual net salaries in EU institutions.

The salaries below are presented according to four typical personal/family situations of future employees:

• by type of contract (Contract Agent, Administrator, Assistant, Secretary and Clerk) and
• function group (FGI-FGIV, AD5-AD16, AST1-AST11, AST/SC1-AST/SC6).

The mentioned personal/family situations are:

Situation 01	Situation 02	Situation 03	Situation 04
Single local with no children	Married local with two children	Single expat with no children	Married expat with two children

To get an idea of your actual salary at Frontex, you should look at the right cell in one of the four columns in the tables below that best corresponds to your personal/family situation. In calculating these values we have summed up not only the basic salary, but also the applicable allowances and deductions: household allowance, child allowances, expatriation allowance, pension contribution, sickness, accident and unemployment insurance, as well as community tax. All values in the last four columns are also adjusted by the European Commission’s Correction Coefficient for Poland, so they present a realistic approximation of take-home pay/full remuneration package calculation.

As usual in these types of articles, I have to add the caveat that your precise salary can be calculated only by the EU institution’s HR department that knows your particular professional and personal circumstances.

The information below gives you a realistic estimate of what you can expect to earn at Frontex. People interested in working for EU institutions often only look up the basic pay for their type of contract and grade. This is a mistake as the actual net salary can differ up or down quite a bit, compared to the basic salary.

If you want to understand what elements constitute the full salary package in the EU institutions and their weight in the total remuneration calculation, please read the article applicable to your type of contract: Contract Agents, Administrators, Assistants, Secretaries and Clerks.

Lastly, the information also applies to the Frontex border guards also know as the Standing Corps. Officers serving as European Union border guards will get the exact same salaries as “regular” employees of Frontex, plus, they might be entitled to some additional allowances like the Shift Allowance and Standby Duty Allowance.

How to read the tables

Here’s an explanation of how to read the tables below.

Let’s assume that you have applied for an AD6 Administrator’s vacancy in Frontex. You are a Dutch national (any nationality except Polish fits here) with a spouse and two children. From the table below you can deduct that your basic salary without any adjustments would be EUR 5669, however, by working for Frontex in Poland your net take-home remuneration package would be EUR 5026. A Polish national with a similar family situation would earn EUR 4235.

Contract Agent salaries at Frontex

Function group	Basic salary	Correction coefficient for Poland	Single local with no children	Married local with two children	Single expat with no children	Married expat with two children
FG I step 1	2128	72.3	1356	2149	1777	2570
FG II step 4	2211	72.3	1402	2196	1823	2617
FG III step 8	2831	72.3	1783	2586	2238	3042
FG IV step 13	3624	72.3	2237	3047	2781	3596

Administrator salaries at Frontex

Function group (step 1)	Basic salary	Correction coefficient for Poland	Single local with no children	Married local with two children	Single expat with no children	Married expat with two children
AD 5	5011	72.3	3029	3864	3743	4577
AD 6	5669	72.3	3390	4235	4181	5026
AD 7	6414	72.3	3796	4651	4675	5530
AD 8	7258	72.3	4241	5109	5219	6087
AD 9	8211	72.3	4725	5605	5816	6696
AD 10	9291	72.3	5244	6140	6462	7359
AD 11	10512	72.3	5800	6715	7162	8077
AD 12	11893	72.3	6388	7323	7914	8848
AD 13	13457	72.3	6967	7924	8677	9634
AD 14	15225	72.3	7372	8364	9366	10358
AD 15	17227	72.3	8061	9082	10302	11324
AD 16	19491	72.3	8773	9829	11291	12347

Assistant salaries at Frontex

Function group (step 1)	Basic salary	Correction coefficient for Poland	Single local with no children	Married local with two children	Single expat with no children	Married expat with two children
AST 1	3058	72.3	1940	2747	2423	3230
AST 2	3459	72.3	2154	2966	2684	3496
AST 3	3914	72.3	2417	3236	3001	3820
AST 4	4429	72.3	2705	3531	3349	4175
AST 5	5011	72.3	3029	3864	3743	4577
AST 6	5669	72.3	3390	4235	4181	5026
AST 7	6414	72.3	3796	4651	4675	5530
AST 8	7258	72.3	4241	5109	5219	6087
AST 9	8211	72.3	4725	5605	5816	6696
AST 10	9291	72.3	5244	6140	6462	7359
AST 11	10512	72.3	5800	6715	7162	8077

Secretaries and Clerks salaries at Frontex

Function group (step 1)	Basic salary	Correction coefficient for Poland	Single local with no children	Married local with two children	Single expat with no children	Married expat with two children
AST/SC 1	2745	72.3	1729	2536	2185	2992
AST/SC 2	3106	72.3	1960	2767	2443	3250
AST/SC 3	3514	72.3	2149	2964	2699	3514
AST/SC 4	3976	72.3	2439	3258	3023	3842
AST/SC 5	4499	72.3	2745	3571	3389	4215
AST/SC 6	5090	72.3	3086	3921	3800	4634

In you are interested in more information about the Standing Corps, read the dedicated articles for each European Union border guards employment category:
>> How to become a Frontex border guard?
>> Salary and benefits – European Border and Coast Guard Officer, Basic Level (Contract Agent FGIV)
>> Salary and benefits – European Border and Coast Guard Officer, Intermediate Level (Assistant AST4)
>> Salary and benefits – European Border and Coast Guard Officer, Advanced Level (Administrator AD7)

Allowances and other benefits for EU institutions staff

Several allowances and other benefits can quite significantly boost an EU official’s income. This largely depends on whether the person is an expat and has a spouse and/or children. When considering a job at an EU institution, people too often do not take these benefits into account. Important – these benefits are available to Administrators in grades AD 5-16, Assistants in grades AST 1-11, Secretaries and Clerks in grades AST/SC 1-6, and Contract Agents in grades FG I-IV.

• Travel costs on taking up duties
• Daily subsistence allowance (during probation period)
• Installation allowance and coverage of removal costs (one-time payments)
• Expatriation allowance or Foreign Residence allowance
• Household allowance
• Dependent child allowance
• European School enrollment for children or Education allowance if there is no local EU school
• Healthcare costs reimbursement to a level of 80-85% through the EU’s Joint Sickness Insurance Scheme (JSIS) for the employee and any direct family members and dependents. 100% reimbursement of costs in case of a serious illness
• Accident insurance
• Annual travel compensation
• Birth grant
• Parental leave
• Unemployment allowance
• Removal expenses when leaving your home country and again when leaving your EU institution
• EU pension, survivors and orphan’s pensions, invalidity allowance
• Lump sum payments in case of permanent invalidity or death
• Lump sum funeral expenses, up to EUR 2350

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