The EU Pay Transparency Directive in brief

General information, not legal advice. This article summarises the EU Directive itself. Each country turns it into national law in its own way, many countries are still finalising their laws, and the rules change often. Always check your own country's law, or ask your legal adviser.

The EU Pay Transparency Directive (Directive (EU) 2023/970) aims to close the gender pay gap by making pay more transparent. EU member states were due to bring it into national law by 7 June 2026.

The main obligations

Pay transparency before employment (Article 5)

Job applicants have the right to know the starting pay or pay range for a job, and employers may not ask about their pay history. Evenpay doesn't publish job ads, but you can document your recruitment practices in a policy. See Pay policies (Early Access).

Pay-setting and progression criteria (Article 6)

Employees must be able to see the criteria used to set their pay and pay progression. These criteria must be objective and gender-neutral. In Evenpay this is supported by job evaluation, pay bands and pay policies.

Right to information (Article 7)

Employees can ask for their own pay level and the average pay of colleagues doing the same work or work of equal value, broken down by gender. Employers must answer within a reasonable time, at most two months. They must also remind all employees of this right every year. See How pay information requests work.

Reporting on the pay gap (Article 9)

Employers with 100 or more employees must report gender pay gap indicators. How often depends on their size. See Key deadlines and thresholds and The EU report's Article 9 indicators.

Joint pay assessment (Article 10)

If the report shows a gap of at least 5% in any category of workers that isn't justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria and isn't fixed within six months, the employer must carry out a joint pay assessment with employee representatives. Evenpay's alerts flag groups at or above 5% so you can act early. See Pay equity alerts.

Work of equal value

Comparisons are made between employees doing the same work or work of equal value. The Directive names four criteria: skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. See Work of equal value groups and What job evaluation is and why it matters.

Good to know

• National laws can be stricter than the Directive, for example with shorter deadlines or lower thresholds. Evenpay's settings let you match your own rules.

• See How Evenpay covers each obligation for where each requirement is handled in the app.

Related articles

• How Evenpay covers each obligation

• Key deadlines and thresholds

• The compliance readiness checklist

• Glossary