EU member states had until June 7, 2026 to transpose the Pay Transparency Directive into national law. Five months later, we checked the official law texts in all 27 member states and analyzed 640,000 open job postings in Europe. This article shows where the rules apply, what they require from job ads, and how often employers publish pay.

What the Pay Transparency Directive requires before hiring

Directive (EU) 2023/970 was adopted on May 10, 2023. Member states had to bring it into national law by June 7, 2026 (Article 34). The rules for hiring are in Article 5:

• Pay information. Candidates have the right to receive the initial pay or its range, based on objective, gender-neutral criteria, and, where applicable, the relevant provisions of the collective agreement. The employer can provide it "in a published job vacancy notice, prior to the job interview or otherwise".
• No pay history questions. Employers may not ask candidates about their pay in current or previous jobs.
• Gender-neutral job ads. Job vacancy notices and job titles must be gender-neutral.

The directive does not require a salary in every job ad. Member states may go further, and five countries already require pay information in the job ad itself. Reporting on the gender pay gap starts later: employers with 150 or more workers report by June 7, 2027, and employers with 100 to 149 workers by June 7, 2031 (Article 9).

Implementation status by country on November 11, 2026

We checked the official law texts in each member state. Entries based on secondary sources are marked.

Hiring rules in force (7 countries)

• Italy. Legislative Decree No. 96 of May 7, 2026, in force since June 7, 2026. The job ad must state the initial pay or its range. Pay history questions are banned.
• Slovakia. Act No. 76/2026, in force since June 7, 2026. Job ads have had to state the base pay since 2018. The new act adds pay information before the interview and bans pay history questions.
• Lithuania. Labor Code amendments of May 21, 2026. Job ads have had to state the base pay, as an amount or a range, since 2019. The amendments ban pay history questions; most other provisions apply from January 1, 2027. Source: the law firm Sorainen and the broadcaster LRT, as the official register was not accessible to us.
• Poland. Act published in the Journal of Laws of 2025, item 807, in force since December 24, 2025, for hiring only. Pay information goes in the job ad or, if it is not there, to the candidate before the interview or before the employment relationship begins. Pay history questions are banned.
• Malta. Legal Notice 173 of 2026, in force since June 2026. The candidate must receive pay information before the recruitment process ends. Pay history questions are banned, and fines range from €2,500 to €5,000.
• Greece. Law 5316/2026, published on July 6, 2026, applies from November 1, 2026. Pay information is due before the first interview, in writing or orally. Pay history questions are banned. This entry relies on analyses by EY, Grant Thornton and Zeya.
• Estonia. Amendments to the Employment Contracts Act, in force since July 13, 2026, for hiring only. The employer must give pay information in text form before the interview, primarily in the job ad. Pay history questions are banned.

Pay in job ads under older national laws (2 countries)

• Latvia. Section 32(3)(2) of the Labor Law has required a pay range in job ads since November 28, 2018. The directive is not yet transposed; draft 26-TA-700 is under interministerial review.
• Austria. Since 2011, Section 9 of the Equal Treatment Act has required job ads to state the minimum pay under the collective agreement. If the employer is willing to pay more, the ad must say so. Fines go up to €360. The directive is not yet transposed; the government is preparing a draft.

Bill in parliament (7 countries)

• France. Bill PJL 944 is in the Senate. It would require a pay range in every public job ad, which goes beyond the directive.
• Netherlands. Bill 36 949 is in the House of Representatives. A committee session on it is scheduled for December 14, 2026.
• Finland. Government bill HE 129/2026 is at its final stage in parliament, with a proposed start date of January 1, 2027.
• Czech Republic. The bill passed its first reading, with a proposed start date of January 1, 2027.
• Denmark. Bill L 68 passed its first reading, with a proposed start date of March 1, 2027.
• Romania. The Senate rejected bill L445/2026 on October 14, 2026. The Chamber of Deputies has the final vote.
• Bulgaria. The government submitted bill 52-602-01-42 to parliament on September 11, 2026.

No bill in parliament yet (11 countries)

• Germany. The government has not submitted a bill; the law is expected in 2027.
• Spain. No law yet; a draft royal decree on pay transparency does not cover hiring.
• Sweden. No bill has been submitted to the Riksdag.
• Belgium. No bill for the private sector yet.
• Ireland. The bill is still being drafted.
• Portugal. A draft law has gone through public consultation.
• Cyprus. A draft bill was published for public consultation and has not been adopted.
• Luxembourg. No bill has been submitted; the ministry has an internal draft.
• Croatia. A draft is in public consultation until December 2, 2026.
• Slovenia. No bill has been submitted; a draft is with the social partners.
• Hungary. No law yet; we could not confirm whether a bill has been submitted.

Outside the EU, the United Kingdom announced its own "say what you pay" law on November 5, 2026; the bill has not been published yet. Norway has not yet incorporated the directive into the EEA Agreement, and Switzerland is not bound by it.

How many job ads include a salary

The law sets a minimum. Job ads show what employers do in practice. We measured the share of job ads from direct employers that state a salary figure.

Austria leads with 57%, under a requirement in place since 2011. The Netherlands follows with 50%, without any legal requirement. France reaches 29% while its bill is still in the Senate. In Italy, where job ads have had to state pay since June 7, the share is 22%. Germany stands at 17%, Sweden at 6% and Denmark at 4%.

The June 7 deadline did not change the overall picture. Measured by the salary fields our crawler extracts, 9.4% of postings published before June 7, 2026 stated a salary, compared with 7.0% of postings published after that date.

Salary ranges are narrower than expected

Before the deadline, a common concern was that employers would publish very wide ranges, "from zero to infinity", to comply on paper. The postings show the opposite:

• Only 3.4% of the 15,467 postings with a salary show a range where the top is more than twice the bottom. By country, this share is between 0.4% and 4.7%.
• In the median range, the top is 23% above the bottom.
• Poland has the widest ranges: the median top is 47% above the bottom, across 644 postings with a salary.
• More than half of Austrian postings with pay (57% of 472) state a single figure. Austrian law requires the collective agreement minimum in the ad, and employers may add that they are willing to pay more.

For salary levels by role and country, see our salary data for 2026.

"Competitive salary" without a figure

The phrase "competitive salary" appears in 10.3% of job ads in Europe, based on a sample of 32,624 postings. In 88.4% of those ads, there is no salary figure.

Greece has the highest share: 35.1% of job ads use the phrase, and 95.9% of them give no figure. Since November 1, 2026, Greek employers must tell candidates the pay before the first interview. In Austria, where pay has been required in job ads since 2011, the share is 3.5%. In Italy, where the requirement started in June, it is 10.4%.

What this means for HR teams

• Check the rules in each country where you hire. The directive's hiring rules apply in 7 countries. In Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Austria, pay information must appear in the job ad itself.
• Remove pay history questions from application forms and interview scripts in the countries where the ban applies.
• Prepare pay ranges based on objective, gender-neutral criteria. Ranges in current job ads are narrow: the median top is 23% above the bottom.
• Replace "competitive salary" with a figure where the law requires pay in the job ad. The phrase alone does not meet that requirement.
• Plan for pay gap reporting. Under the directive, employers with 150 or more workers report by June 7, 2027. National laws set the details.

Methodology and sources

Job postings. SkaiJobs, our index of job postings, held 639,854 open postings in Europe, including the UK, on November 10 and 11, 2026. We searched the texts of a 10% sample of postings from direct employers, excluding staffing agencies, for salary figures. Text search misses some formats, so the shares in this article are likely understated. The charts show countries with enough postings in the sample. The comparison before and after June 7 uses postings with a known publication date and the salary fields our crawler extracts.

Laws. Status as of November 11, 2026, checked against official sources:

• Laws in force: EU, Italy, Slovakia, Poland, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Austria.
• Bills and drafts: France, Netherlands, Finland, Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia.
• Government documents and announcements: Germany, Sweden, Ireland, United Kingdom, Norway.

For Lithuania, Greece and Hungary, the official registers were not accessible to us; those entries rely on analyses by law firms and media. We will update this article as member states adopt their laws.