About Obolus
Obolus is a read-only payroll and cross-country tax calculation service for people comparing estimated take-home pay in eight countries. It offers a hosted MCP endpoint and REST API, with examples for connecting clients and making API calls.
Key features
- 01Detailed single-country payroll estimates
- 02Tax comparisons across multiple countries
- 03Support for eight countries
- 04Read-only tools without login or API key
- 05REST API demo and connection examples
Use cases
- 01Compare estimated payroll results between countries
- 02Check a detailed payroll calculation for one country
- 03Connect an MCP client to the hosted calculation tools
MCP support
Obolus provides a public, read-only MCP endpoint over Streamable HTTP with tools for single-country payroll calculations and multi-country comparisons. Clients can connect without a login or API key.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/publicclaude mcp add --transport http sanzation-obolus https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/public{"mcpServers":{"sanzation-obolus":{"type":"http","url":"https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/public"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"sanzation-obolus":{"type":"http","url":"https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/public"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"sanzation-obolus":{"type":"http","url":"https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/public"}}}{"mcpServers":{"sanzation-obolus":{"serverUrl":"https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/public"}}}Run commands in a terminal; paste JSON into the client’s MCP config and restart. Servers that need sign-in will prompt on first connect.
Tools
Details
From the project READMEObolus Finance API and Remote MCP Examples
Public examples for the Obolus payroll and multi-country tax API. This repository contains a small Vite client, connection examples, and documentation. The hosted calculation engine and MCP server run at obolusfinanz.de; their server source code is not contained in this repository.
Remote MCP server
Obolus provides a public, read-only MCP endpoint:
- Streamable HTTP:
https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/claude - Tools:
berechnefor detailed single-country payroll andtaxcomparefor comparisons across two or more countries - Access: no login or API key required for these read-only tools
- Registry:
io.github.sanzation/obolus - Full API and MCP documentation: Obolus Developers
The /claude URL is the agent-neutral MCP surface despite its historical route name. It is suitable for MCP clients other than Claude. It is separate from the browser-facing ChatGPT app integration at /api/mcp.
Connect from VS Code / GitHub Copilot
This repository includes a workspace .mcp.json. Open the folder in VS Code, open the MCP server list, and start obolus. You can also copy its configuration into your own workspace:
{
"servers": {
"obolus": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/mcp/claude"
}
}
}
Ask the agent, for example: "Compare an annual gross salary of EUR 60,000 in Germany and Austria for tax year 2026 using Obolus." The agent should request missing profile details instead of inventing them. Calculations are estimates; inspect each tool's returned assumptions and source information before using a result.
To inspect the public MCP connection without making a calculation, run npm run mcp:check. This lists the available tools and checks that both expected tools are present.
REST API demo
The Vite app demonstrates direct REST calls to POST /api/berechne and POST /api/taxcompare. It is an API client, not a local MCP server or a copy of the tax engine.
npm install
npm run dev
Open http://localhost:8080. The Vite proxy forwards API requests; see vite.config.js. Build with npm run build.
For a current, complete request schema and response examples, use the developers page or OpenAPI document. The browser demo uses the legacy annual_gross alias in major currency units. New taxcompare integrations should prefer salary_ct in minor currency units: 6000000 means EUR 60,000 when currency is eur and salary_period is annual. At least two countries and a supported tax year are required. The detailed berechne endpoint also uses minor currency units for salary fields.
Example comparison request:
const response = await fetch("https://www.obolusfinanz.de/api/taxcompare", {
method: "POST",
headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
body: JSON.stringify({
salary_ct: 6000000,
salary_period: "annual",
tax_year: "2026",
countries: ["DE", "AT"],
currency: "eur"
})
});
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(await response.text());
const result = await response.json();
console.log(result);
Supported countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. The returned net pay is a tax/payroll result. Housing, groceries, health costs outside payroll, and purchasing-power adjustments are separate models; do not describe payroll net as disposable income after living costs.
Repository scope and usage
This is a public integration example, not the MCP server's source repository. The hosted API has usage terms and rate limits; do not assume unrestricted production access from this demo. Do not commit API keys or other credentials. The public read-only MCP tools need no key.
Comments
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