What the Directive Actually Requires
Directive (EU) 2023/970 on pay transparency entered into force on June 7, 2023. Member states have three years to transpose it into national law — meaning all 27 EU countries must have implementing legislation by June 7, 2026.
The directive does three things:
- Pre-employment transparency — employers must publish salary ranges in job postings or share them before the first interview. Asking candidates about their pay history is banned.
- Employee information rights — any employee can request pay data for their role and comparable roles, broken down by gender. Employers must respond and cannot retaliate.
- Gender pay gap reporting — companies above a size threshold must calculate and publish their gender pay gap annually or every three years, broken down by worker category.
The directive is not just a reporting exercise. It creates a legal presumption of discrimination: if you cannot justify a pay gap with objective, documented factors, you lose in court. The burden of proof shifts to the employer.
The UK Gender Pay Gap reporting rules (2017) only require disclosure. The EU directive requires justification. If you have a gap above 5% that you cannot explain with documented wage-influencing factors, you must conduct a joint pay assessment and close it.
Obligations by Company Size
Obligations scale with headcount. Here is the full picture:
All employers — regardless of size
- Publish salary ranges in job postings or disclose before first interview
- Never ask candidates about prior salary history
- Respond to employee pay information requests within a reasonable timeframe
- Notify employees annually of their right to request pay information
- Document objective, gender-neutral criteria for all pay decisions
Reporting obligations by headcount
| Company size | First report due | Frequency | What to report |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250+ employees | June 7, 2027 | Annually | Gender pay gap by worker category (base + variable + benefits) |
| 150–249 employees | June 7, 2027 | Every 3 years | Gender pay gap + remediation action plan |
| 100–149 employees | June 7, 2031 | Every 3 years | Gender pay gap + remediation action plan |
| 50–99 employees | Varies by country | Varies | May be required under national transposition |
| Under 50 employees | Not required by EU | — | Not required at EU level |
If you have 150–249 employees, your first report is due June 7, 2027 — the same deadline as companies with 250+. You are not getting the 2031 extension. Your 2026 payroll data is what goes into that report. Data collection starts now.
Not sure where your company stands? Get a readiness score in under 2 minutes.
Check your compliance readiness score →Key Deadlines
| Date | What happens | Who it affects |
|---|---|---|
| June 7, 2026 | Directive must be in national law. Pre-employment transparency rules take effect. | All EU employers |
| Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026 | Reference year for first pay gap reports. Payroll data collected this year is what you report on. | Companies with 150+ employees |
| June 7, 2027 | First gender pay gap reports due for 250+ and 150–249 employee companies. | Companies with 150+ employees |
| Dec 31, 2027 | If adjusted pay gap >5% found in 2027 report, joint pay assessment must begin within 6 months — so by this date. | Affected companies |
| June 7, 2031 | First reports due for companies with 100–149 employees. | 100–149 employee companies |
The June 7, 2026 transposition date also matters operationally: once national law is in force, candidates can legally request salary ranges before interviews and employees can legally request pay comparison data. If you have not prepared your HR processes for those requests, you will receive them anyway.
The 5% Threshold and Joint Pay Assessments
This is the most consequential part of the directive for most HR teams.
Every reporting company must calculate both a raw pay gap and an adjusted pay gap for each worker category. The adjusted gap accounts for wage-influencing factors (see next section). If the adjusted gap remains above 5% — and you cannot objectively justify it — you must conduct a joint pay assessment.
How the calculation works
Raw gap: Women in your "Senior Engineer" category earn a median of €80,000; men earn €100,000. Raw gap = 20%.
After adjusting for job level + location: Gap drops to 7%.
After adjusting for tenure: Gap drops to 5%.
Result: 5% unexplained gap. This equals the threshold exactly. You must now either justify it with additional documented factors — or trigger a joint assessment.
What a joint pay assessment involves
- Conduct the assessment jointly with employee representatives within 6 months of the reporting date
- Identify root causes of the unexplained pay gap
- Produce a written remediation plan with specific corrective actions
- Implement corrective actions within a reasonable timeframe
- Monitor and re-audit to confirm the gap has closed
Failure to conduct a joint assessment after a >5% unexplained gap is a direct compliance violation — and one of the primary triggers for financial penalties.
Wage-Influencing Factors Explained
Wage-influencing factors (WIFs) are objective, gender-neutral criteria that legitimately explain pay differences. They are the mechanism by which you move from your raw pay gap to your adjusted pay gap. They are also your legal defence if challenged.
The directive requires that WIFs be documented, applied consistently, and provably gender-neutral in their application. Using "performance" as a WIF is only valid if your performance framework itself does not have a gender bias.
Recognised wage-influencing factors
| Factor | What counts as documentation |
|---|---|
| Job function / job family | Job descriptions, org chart, role classification framework |
| Job level / seniority | Career ladder, grading framework, promotion criteria |
| Education / qualifications | Required qualifications in job spec; employee qualification records |
| Experience / tenure | Years in role, years at company, years in field — with clear pay scale |
| Geographic location | Documented location pay bands; market data by city/country |
| Span of control | Number of direct reports; documented management premium |
| Performance rating | Formal performance review scores; must show no gender correlation |
| Shift / working conditions | Documented shift differential policy; hazard pay schedule |
| Market conditions | Third-party salary survey data showing market premium for specific skills |
Many companies have legitimate WIFs in practice — they just have not documented them. "We pay that person more because they're in Amsterdam" is fine. "We pay that person more because Amsterdam" with a written location pay band policy and consistent application is defensible. The absence of documentation turns a legitimate factor into an unjustified gap.
Want to see how your current pay structure maps to these factors?
Check your compliance readiness score →Country-by-Country Transposition Status
As of May 2026, the picture is fragmented. Three countries have meaningfully transposed. Nine have published drafts. Fifteen have no official activity — and they have 23 days left.
| Country | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Belgium | Partial | Stricter than EU minimum — salary ranges must be published immediately |
| Malta | Partial | Pay transparency + request rights; full equal-value comparison pending |
| Poland | Partial | Pay transparency elements Dec 2025; full reporting expected June 2027 |
| Netherlands | Delayed | Missed June 2026; new target January 2027. Enforcement risk for employers. |
| France | Draft | Draft expected May 2026 — watch for rapid implementation |
| Germany | Draft | Cabinet approval targeted Feb 2026; full transposition timeline unclear |
| Ireland | Draft | Draft published Jan 2025; stricter than EU baseline (salary ranges in all job ads) |
| Finland, Denmark, Lithuania, Slovakia, Italy | Draft | Drafts at various stages; expect rapid finalisation under June deadline pressure |
| Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden | No activity | EU infringement proceedings likely if no transposition by June 7 |
For HR teams at multinationals: even if your country has not transposed yet, the directive applies at the employee level. Employees in Belgium or Malta can already exercise their rights. Operating in multiple EU countries means the strictest national implementation applies to employees in that country — not a single EU-wide standard.
Penalties for Non-Compliance
The directive requires member states to set penalties that are "effective, proportionate, and dissuasive." The specific amounts vary by country, but the structure is consistent:
| Jurisdiction | Fine amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Belgium | €3,900/year or actual damages | Per violation |
| Slovakia | €4,000 | Gender pay gap reporting failure |
| Netherlands | €10,300 per violation | Various failures |
| Serious/repeat breach (EU guidance) | 2–4% of annual revenue | Significant or systemic non-compliance |
| First offense (general EU) | 1% of payroll | Serious breach |
| Repeat offense (general EU) | 2% of payroll | Ongoing serious breach |
Non-financial penalties
- Exclusion from public procurement — banned from bidding on government contracts
- Termination of public contracts — existing government contracts can be cancelled
- Burden of proof reversal — employer must prove the pay gap is justified, not the employee
- Uncapped compensation claims — victims can claim full back pay, bonuses, lost opportunities, and interest
- Retaliation liability — disciplining an employee for reporting a violation triggers additional penalties
For a company with €50M annual revenue, a "serious breach" finding under the 4% revenue rule means €2M in fines. For a company with 500 employees at an average salary of €60,000 (€30M payroll), a 2% payroll penalty is €600,000. The per-violation fines (€4k–€10.3k) are the floor, not the ceiling.
5-Step Action Plan for Getting Compliant
You have 23 days before the transposition deadline. Here is what to prioritise:
-
Audit your current payroll data. Identify whether you have consistent, complete data for every EU employee: base salary, variable pay, benefits, job level, job function, tenure, location, and gender. Missing fields now mean an indefensible gap later. Assign a data owner this week.
-
Document your wage-influencing factors. List every factor your company uses to make pay decisions. For each one, confirm it is written down in a policy or framework — not just practiced informally. Undocumented WIFs do not count under the directive.
-
Calculate your raw and adjusted gender pay gaps by worker category. Run the numbers now, before the report is due. If the adjusted gap is above 5% in any category, you want to know now — not in June 2027 when you have 6 months to remediate.
-
Update your hiring processes for pre-employment transparency. Before June 7: add salary ranges to all open job postings (or establish a process to share them before first interviews). Remove any candidate intake forms that ask about current or previous salary. Train recruiters.
-
Build your employee information response process. Employees can legally request pay comparison data from June 7 onward. Designate who handles these requests, what data you will provide, in what format, and within what timeframe. GDPR applies — you cannot share individual salaries, only aggregated comparisons.
Steps 4 and 5 are highest priority — they become legally required on June 7. Steps 1–3 govern your reporting obligation, which kicks in June 2027. But the data for that report is your 2026 payroll. Every month you delay collecting clean data is a month of audit trail you will not have.