2,000 Kilometres and a Five-Figure ETS2 Job: How Much of It Would a Real Driver Earn?

The honest answer initially sounds unsatisfying: We cannot calculate a credible driver’s wage from 2,000 kilometres. There is no universal European payment model for employed truck drivers that simply multiplies kilometres by a euro amount. Pay is based on an employment contract – perhaps a monthly or hourly wage, collective agreements, bonuses and other components. That means the question “How much does the driver earn from this particular load?” is already the wrong one.

ETS2 deliberately blurs this boundary. The official Steam page does not describe driving alone: We build a fleet, buy garages, hire drivers and run our own transport company. In the current Job Details Widget, SCS explicitly uses the term “job income”. The amount shown is therefore part of our company’s in-game economy; it is not a simulated personal payslip.

An old piece of ETS2 nostalgia shows how far apart those two levels can be. SCS added Steam achievements to the game with Update 1.13 in 2014. To unlock “Profit Hunter”, the official Steam description still requires a job worth more than €130,000 and covering at least 2,200 kilometres. More than a decade ago, then, ETS2 could already place a six-figure job value on one long journey. A real driver would not suddenly become a six-figure earner after arriving.

In reality, the transport company first receives or calculates a freight payment. Among other things, it must cover diesel, tolls, vehicle financing, the driver’s wage and employer costs, maintenance, tyres, insurance, administration, empty running, waiting times and possibly ferries. The driver does not automatically receive the job value or simply whatever is left at the end. They receive their contractual pay for their work.

For a tangible order of magnitude, we can look at Germany. The Federal Employment Agency’s Pay Atlas reports a median gross monthly salary of €3,048 for skilled professional drivers, based on 2024 data. The lower quartile is €2,614 and the upper quartile €3,614. Median does not mean average, and it certainly does not mean that everyone earns this amount: Half of the recorded full-time employees are below it and half are above it. Region, experience, employer, collective bargaining coverage, type of operation, shifts, night work, dangerous goods or international journeys can all change earnings.

Since 1 January 2026, the general statutory minimum wage in Germany has been €13.90 gross per hour. This is a legal floor, not a typical long-haul driver’s wage. And it still does not tell us how many payable working hours are hidden inside our journey.

If we assume an average of 75 km/h while the truck is actually moving, 2,000 kilometres take a purely mathematical 26 hours and 40 minutes. At 70 km/h, the result is about 28 hours and 34 minutes. These are calculation scenarios, not realistic delivery times. Loading and unloading, congestion, roadworks, refuelling, finding parking, vehicle checks, manoeuvring, waiting at loading bays and possible border or customs procedures are entirely absent.

EU social rules must also be considered. The European Commission states a general maximum daily driving time of nine hours, extendable to ten hours twice a week. The weekly maximum is 56 hours, with a combined limit of 90 hours over two consecutive weeks. After no more than four and a half hours of driving, a 45-minute break is generally required unless a rest period begins. So 2,000 kilometres are not simply one long shift. The pure driving time alone legally stretches across several driving days.

Driving time is not the same as working time. When we perform checks, manoeuvre, handle organisational tasks or load and unload ourselves, that can also be working time. For employees in road transport, Section 21a of Germany’s Working Time Act generally limits weekly working time to 48 hours. It can reach 60 hours if an average of 48 hours is maintained over four calendar months or 16 weeks. Certain periods of availability are treated separately. The wage question therefore involves far more than the time during which the wheels are turning.

A deliberately artificial calculation illustrates exactly that. If we multiply only 26 hours and 40 minutes of pure driving by €13.90, the result is around €370.67 gross. This is expressly not the real income from this journey. The figure ignores other working time, the actual contract, possible bonuses and the complicated legal allocation of an international trip. It merely shows how misleading it would be to turn distance into a journey wage too quickly.

Nor can the monthly median be cleanly distributed across one load. If, purely for illustration, we convert the €3,048 using an assumed 40-hour week and about 173.3 hours per month, we get roughly €17.58 gross per calculated hour. For 26 hours and 40 minutes, that would be approximately €469. But this is not a collective-agreement, contractual or journey wage either. We are forcing a monthly median into a freely chosen hourly assumption and once again excluding all other working time. The figure is methodologically interesting precisely because it reveals the limits of such comparisons.

Allowances do not solve the problem either. Subject to the relevant conditions, German tax law provides meal allowances of €14 for certain arrival and departure days or absences exceeding eight hours, and €28 for a full 24-hour day away. Country-specific amounts apply to foreign travel. When sleeping in the vehicle, a €9 allowance per calendar day may also be relevant for certain incidental overnight expenses. These are tax rules for travel expenses, not simply additional salary.

Crossing Europe makes matters even more complicated. Under the EU rules on the posting of drivers, cabotage and cross-trade generally count as posting situations. Bilateral operations can be exempt under the statutory conditions, while pure transit through a country without loading or unloading is generally not a posting. A driver therefore does not automatically receive every transit country’s minimum wage. The exact route, type of operation and activities performed are decisive; in a posting situation, the relevant remuneration conditions of the host country may apply.

A credible answer would therefore require the employer, employment contract, country of origin, actual working hours, route, type of assignment and transport operation. We can explain orders of magnitude, but not a universal “wage for 2,000 kilometres”. When ETS2 shows us “Job Income: €30,000”, we would need to split it mentally into at least three levels: freight revenue or company turnover, the driver’s contractual pay and all the transport company’s costs.

That creates an intriguing, purely hypothetical expansion for ETS2. Our company could pay drivers according to working time, calculate bonuses and foreign travel allowances, cover holiday and employer costs, and incur personnel costs during long waits at loading bays. Poor conditions could make employees resign, while attractive salaries could bring in better drivers. A highly paid job would suddenly not always be a good job. SCS has not announced such a system, but it would expose a heavily simplified side of the business simulation: ETS2 simulates our company, but barely simulates our most important resource – working time.

Should ETS2 distinguish between our transport company’s revenue and a driver’s personal wage in future – or would a real payroll system be too much business simulation? Would you like to calculate waiting times, bonuses and different driver salaries yourself? Should a high-value job be able to become unattractive when working time, tolls and operating costs consume the profit?