Date note: Directive (EU) 2023/970, Arts. 5 and 7 (transposition deadline: Art. 34). These baseline duties carry no employer-size threshold, unlike Art. 9's gender-pay-gap-report duty, which only binds employers with 100+ staff (see pay-transparency-first-gender-pay-gap-report).
Directive (EU) 2023/970 requires every employer in the EU, whatever its size, to give job applicants the initial pay or pay range for the role before the interview or in the job ad, and bans asking applicants about their pay history. Workers also get the right to ask, in writing, for their own pay level and the average pay level by sex for people doing the same or equal-value work.
Every employer with at least one worker in an EU country, including micro and small companies — unlike the gender-pay-gap-reporting duty, these baseline duties are not limited to larger employers.
Sizes: micro, small, medium, large · Sectors: All sectors · Applies if: We employ staff
Set an objective, gender-neutral pay range for every open role and share it in the job ad or before the first interview. Remove pay-history questions from application forms and interview scripts. Set up a simple process so a worker who asks in writing gets their own pay and the relevant average pay level within a reasonable time. Check whether your country's transposition law has been adopted yet — the underlying EU duty applies regardless.
Set nationally by each Member State’s transposition law; the Directive requires effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties, plus compensation claims with a reversed burden of proof once a pay gap is shown.
Last verified 8 September 2026. Informational only, not legal advice.
Transposition deadline was 2026-06-07; many Member States (incl. Latvia, Poland, Germany, France) were late, so national dates may shift slightly. Employers with 100-149 staff report first by 2031-06-07
All employers for the transparency rights; medium and large employers with 100+ workers for pay-gap reporting.