Pay Transparency Support & Resources

• Employers must provide job applicants with information about their starting salary (or pay range) for the position they applied for. That information must be provided prior to any job interview, e.g., in a job advert. The aim here is to ensure an informed and transparent discussion, and to minimize the scope for negotiations about pay.

• Employers will be prohibited from asking job applicants about their previous pay history. The thinking behind this is that candidates should have salary offers based on their suitability for the role, and not on what they may have been willing to work for at another employer, since that could have the effect of perpetuating lower salaries for women.

• Employers must make available to workers the criteria used to determine their pay, pay levels and pay progression. These criteria must be objective and gender neutral.

• Workers will have the right to request information in writing on their individual pay level and the average pay levels, broken down by sex, for categories of workers performing the same work as them or work of equal value. They also have the right to request and receive this information through their workers’ representatives, in accordance with national law and/or practice. The information must be provided no later than two months after the request is made. Furthermore, on an annual basis, employers will be required to inform their workers of their right to receive this information and how they can exercise their rights.

• Employers will be prohibited from including contractual terms that restrict workers from disclosing information about their pay for the purposes of enforcing equal pay rights.

• The new pay gap reporting obligations are significantly broader in scope than those currently in place in most, if not all, EU member states.

• Large employers will be obliged to report on their gender pay gap – see “What information must be provided?” below for the specific information that they will be required to provide and the deadlines for doing so. The accuracy of the information provided will have to be confirmed by management, after consulting workers’ representatives.

• Workers’ representatives will have access to the methodologies applied by the employer and certain information must be provided to the workers and their representatives. Certain information must also be shared with the relevant national body in charge of compiling and publishing such data.

• Workers, workers’ representatives, labor inspectorates and equality bodies will have the right to request further information, including explanations concerning any gender pay differences. Employers must respond to such requests within a reasonable period and where gender pay differences are not justified based on objective, gender-neutral criteria, employers must remedy the situation within a reasonable period of time in close cooperation with those bodies.

• If (i) the pay reporting shows a difference in the average pay level between male and female workers of at least 5% in any category; (ii) the employer cannot justify such a difference on the basis of objective, gender-neutral criteria; and (iii) it has not remedied the difference within six months of the pay reporting date, the employer will be required to conduct a joint pay assessment in cooperation with the workers’ representatives. This joint pay assessment must comply with various requirements (imposed with the purpose (or at least effect) of representing a process to be avoided if at all possible) and then be made available to workers and their representatives.

• Employers with 250 or more workers will have to report their first pay gap data by June 7, 2027, in respect of the previous calendar year and then annually thereafter.

• Employers with 150 to 249 workers will also have to report their first pay gap data by June 7, 2027, in respect of the previous calendar year and then every three years thereafter.

• Finally, employers with 100 to 149 workers will have to report their first pay gap data by June 7, 2031, in respect of the previous calendar year and then every three years thereafter.

It is possible that individual EU member states will require employers with fewer than 100 workers to provide information on pay. Indeed, some EU countries already impose such obligations. In Ireland, for example, the gender pay gap reporting obligations were extended to employers with 50 or more employees from June 1, 2025.

Affected employers will be obliged to provide the following information concerning their organization under their gender pay gap reporting obligations:

• The gender pay gap, i.e., the difference in average pay levels between female and male workers of the employer expressed as a percentage of the average pay level of male workers.

• The gender pay gap in complementary or variable components, e.g., certain bonuses.

• The median gender pay gap, i.e., the difference between the median pay level of female and male workers of an employer expressed as a percentage of the median pay level of male workers.

• The median gender pay gap in complementary or variable components.

• The proportion of female and male workers receiving complementary or variable components.

• The proportion of female and male workers in each quartile pay band, i.e., each of four equal groups of workers into which they are divided according to their pay levels, from the lowest to the highest.

• The gender pay gap between workers by categories of workers (meaning workers performing the same work or work of equal value), broken down by ordinary basic wage or salary, and complementary or variable components. This obligation is the one most likely to cause difficulties for employers, as it will require them (possibly for the first time) to “group” together workers who are performing the same work or work of equal value, i.e., akin to an equal pay audit, to allow them to produce the relevant statistics.

• To strengthen the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value, the directive contains robust enforcement mechanisms.

• EU member states will be required to ensure that effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties are in place relating to the principle of equal pay, including potential exclusion from public contracts where there has been a failure to comply with the pay transparency obligations or there is a pay gap of more than 5% in any category of workers that is not justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria.

• The directive also contains provisions on compensation for individuals who have faced pay discrimination.

• Where an employer has not implemented the pay transparency obligations and proceedings are brought alleging pay discrimination, the burden of proof will be on the employer to prove that there has been no such discrimination.

It is also important to note that the definition of pay for these purposes is broad and would capture benefits in kind (such as share awards), as well as basic pay and bonuses.