Career Paths · 5 min read · Oct 2026
Salary by Country
Small Business Owners Salary by Country
The US median for small business owners is $105,770. Below, the PPP-adjusted equivalent across 13 markets, modelled from US BLS data with OECD wage ratios and live exchange rates.
Pay and AI exposure
What the small business owners salary does not tell you
Salary measures what the market pays small business owners today. It says nothing about how durable that pay is as AI reshapes the work. Small Business Owners currently sit at 54/100 on the AI exposure scale, in the moderate exposure band. A well-paid role can still be highly exposed: the question is which layer of the work you occupy.
The country differences below are wage-level effects, not exposure differences. AI compresses the same routine layer of small business owners work in every market. To see where your own position sits and what shifts it, run the free structural reading or model the dimensions in the simulator.
13 markets
Small Business Owners salary across countries
Median annual pay and the typical 10th-to-90th-percentile range, shown in each market's local currency.
| Country | Median | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| United States (source) | $105,770 | $50,090 to $253,390 |
| United Kingdom | £54,800 | £25,900 to £131,200 |
| Canada | $110,200 | $52,200 to $263,900 |
| Australia | $112,800 | $53,400 to $270,100 |
| Ireland | €72,100 | €34,100 to €172,700 |
| New Zealand | $106,700 | $50,600 to $255,700 |
| Germany | 68.500 € | 32.400 € to 164.100 € |
| France | 61 300 € | 29 000 € to 146 800 € |
| Netherlands | € 81.100 | € 38.400 to € 194.300 |
| Singapore | $110,400 | $52,300 to $264,400 |
| Japan | ￥10,001,000 | ￥4,736,200 to ￥23,959,000 |
| South Africa | R 594,300 | R 281,500 to R 1,423,800 |
| India | ₹18,20,900 | ₹8,62,300 to ₹43,62,200 |
US figures are BLS OEWS survey data. All other countries are PPP-adjusted estimates, derived from the US median via OECD average-wage ratios and live exchange rates. They indicate purchasing-power-style equivalents, not surveyed local salaries.
FAQ
Small Business Owners salary questions
Career Paths · 5 min read · Oct 2026
Will AI Affect the Job You're Studying For?
AI is reshaping graduate work, but it rarely erases a whole career. See how your target career is changing, where you stand today, and what to build before you graduate.
Strategy · 5 min read · Oct 2026
How Universities Can Prepare Students for AI
A graduate survey tells you where students ended up. A cohort read of AI career readiness tells you where they stand now, and the few moves that would help most.
"I expected another personality test. What I got felt more like a proper review of my role. The read on how exposed I am was uncomfortably accurate, and the plan laid out the steps in the same order my team had already been arguing about for months."
LH
Lukas Hoffmann
Senior Engineering Manager · Berlin, Germany
"It finally gave me words for something I had been sensing. My title suggested more seniority than my actual say in decisions backed up. The report made that gap clear, and the plan made it fixable."
IF
Isabel Fernández
Digital Strategy Lead · Madrid, Spain
"I used this before a performance review and it changed how I made my case. Instead of listing achievements, I walked in with a clear argument for a bigger role. The conversation shifted at once, and I got the step up I had been chasing for eighteen months."
JP
Jonathan Pierce
Director of Client Strategy · New York, USA
Measure Your Position with AI Career Index
Take the AI Career Snapshot to see your structural leverage, automation exposure, and growth trajectory with AI Career Index.