EU Pay Transparency Directive: Early Transposition Trends to Watch

The deadline for member states to transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive (the “Directive”) remains June 7, 2026, and we are beginning to see the first published drafts of the local implementing legislation. In this article we examine these early measures to ascertain any emerging trends and what these might tell us about the direction of travel for other member states.

Early movers, lack of detail

As of late October 2025, three member states (Czech Republic, Malta, and Poland) have partially implemented the Directive into national law. Malta and Poland have passed implementing legislation, but only in respect of pay transparency elements. Malta’s law is now in effect whereas Poland’s law will take effect in December this year. The Czech Republic has implemented a very small part of the Directive—the prohibition against contractual terms that restrict workers from disclosing information regarding pay. Six member states (Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovakia, and Sweden) have published draft legislation, which in some cases addresses all the obligations of the Directive (e.g., in Sweden and the Netherlands) but in others only partially address the new obligations (e.g., in Ireland). Although Belgium has introduced some new legislation around equal pay, this is limited to the French Community of Belgium (a very small part of the country), is applicable to public companies only, and is not implemented in response to the Directive.  

The remaining member states have not yet published draft legislation or have only begun preliminary steps, such as undertaking consultation, or early drafting, or indeed are yet to start. Some of these larger European countries include Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

None of the three member states with the largest working populations in the EU—France, Germany and Spain—have published versions of their legislation. Although draft legislation was expected from Germany by the end of October 2025, this has still not materialised. Instead, an expert commission in Germany submitted its proposal for draft legislation on October 24, 2025, although the details are not public. A number of press releases indicate that Germany will adopt the Directive almost word for word. 

This means the employers of tens of millions of EU workers continue to wait for clarity on the biggest shift in remuneration transparency in a generation. 

Early trends

By looking at the early outlines that have been published, however, we can begin to see some trends emerging to help us gaze into the crystal ball of what’s to come.

Almost all of the implemented legislation as well as draft legislation deal with the pre-employment pay transparency requirements under the Directive, e.g., disclosing salary ranges to applicants and the ban on asking candidates about salary history. These rules are relatively easy to transpose into local law by tracking the wording of the Directive. Ireland, Poland, and Malta are all part of this trend, focusing only on pay transparency requirements for now. Clearly member states are taking longer to finalise the more technically challenging pay gap reporting mechanics.

Specifically, we are seeing the following trends regarding pre-employment pay transparency:

Certain obligations are being transposed almost word for word and with no additional requirements. This includes: 

• The prohibition on an employer’s asking applicants about their pay history.>
• The requirement that job vacancy notices and job titles be gender-neutral, and that recruitment processes be led in a non-discriminatory manner.

Divergence when the Directive leaves a “when” and “how” question up to the member state. Due to the number of member states that have published draft or passed legislation, we have the most insight into the divergence of when and how employers must provide salary ranges to job applicants. For example: 

• The Irish draft requires salary levels or ranges to appear in job advertisements.
• The Dutch draft does not require employers to provide pay information in the job advertisement; rather, candidates must be informed only before the interview. This aligns more closely with the Directive’s baseline language rather than stricter “in-advert” publication. 

Some member states may not need to transpose this aspect of the Directive in light of existing standards. Current (non-Directive-implementing) Austrian law already mandates that employers provide the minimum salary in job advertisements. We anticipate they will not change this standard as it already aligns with a stricter approach to the Directive. This is similar to Malta’s position, which centers on pre-employment provisions rather than job advert rules. This divergence in practice means employers will need to consider their recruitment practices closely to understand where roles are being advertised and at what point salary information must be provided. Some employers may simply opt for an “earliest point” approach and add salary ranges to all their advertisements to ensure pan-European compliance.

Gold plating and pay gap reporting

Another feature of the drafts so far is the general lack of “gold plating,” or member states’ choosing to impose rules that are stricter than the minimum requirements laid down in the Directive. 

Based on the drafts and official communications, we anticipate the main exception will be around the thresholds for pay gap reporting. Many member states already have gender pay gap reporting threshold requirements that are currently more rigorous than the Directive. For example, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden currently have thresholds for gender pay gap reporting that are lower than the minimum threshold of 100 or more workers mandated by the Directive. We do not anticipate that member states will choose to loosen their standards as a whole. However, some drafts are carving out the reporting that is required under current law and the reporting required by the Directive. In Sweden and Finland, the draft implementing legislation indicates that the broader pay gap reporting requirements mandated by the Directive will apply only to employers with 100 or more workers – leaving the current, less-onerous local reporting requirements in place for employers employing fewer than 100 workers. Essentially, this is creating a two-tiered reporting regime. In France, although we are awaiting further details, we understand the reporting obligation (using an equality index) will remain for companies with 50 to 99 employees, but with a looser requirement.

In Slovakia, where there are currently no pay gap reporting requirements, its proposed legislation follows the 250/150/100 worker threshold cadence set out in the Directive with different reporting frequencies depending on the threshold. 

Although the evidence is limited, it seems that member states that already have gender pay gap reporting mechanisms will continue to impose standards that are at least as stringent as their current requirements (but with the obligations under the Directive not being required at this lower threshold level), while countries without gender pay gap reporting mechanisms will introduce reporting requirements aligned to the minimum standards set out in the Directive.

What we cannot see

Although these early drafts of the legislation are helpful, one of the most telling trends is what is not included in them. 

Of particular concern is the lack of new guidance from member states around categorisation of workers performing work of equal value. A headline aim of the Directive is to make job-to-job pay comparisons easier for workers to access. However, to do this, employers will first need to undertake these categorisation exercises. 

However, we have seen very little detailed, uniform evaluation guidelines to help employers. Although we expect this in due course, and it is required by member states under article 4 of the Directive, most employers need to start undertaking equal value evaluations now to understand their compliance obligations. Waiting on guidance from government authorities is often not feasible in most cases.

Missed deadlines

Although June 7, 2026, is the legal deadline for member states to transpose the Directive into local law, there is a growing concern many member states may miss this deadline. The Netherlands has publicly indicated a delay, with implementation suggested to be shifting to January 1, 2027, and first large-employer reports being required in 2028 based on 2027 data. This is despite the Netherlands being one of the early movers in publishing legislation. 

Until each member state actually puts the Directive into national law, there’s no new legal obligation for employers under the Directive, and workers generally can’t bring claims based solely on the Directive itself against their employer. However, for employers, a delay in implementation will not necessarily give them the breathing room they think. First, employers may still have very similar pay transparency obligations in their other member states (which have not missed the deadline). Implementing EU-wide pay transparency processes at one time will likely be more efficient than waiting for a country-by-country approach. Secondly, delayed implementation may not necessarily mean a delay in publication of the first pay gap reports in 2027 (based on 2026 data) and therefore preparation for this will need to start as early as late 2025.

One thing that is clear is that employers with workers in any member state will need to start preparing now for the introduction of these new rules. Even if member states are slow to publish their draft legislation and guidance, an employer’s “wait and see” approach is going to become increasingly unviable as the June 7 transposition deadline looms.