EU pay-transparency rollout falters as most capitals miss deadline

A fragmented map across the bloc

The implementation map now divides the EU into several groups.

Five countries have adopted or put full measures in force: Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia.² Five others have partial measures: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Estonia and Poland. In those countries, some elements — such as procurement rules, pay-secrecy bans, recruitment transparency or information rights — are already in place, but core obligations remain incomplete.²

Eleven countries are still at the published-draft stage: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Spain.² Six capitals — Zagreb, Berlin, Budapest, Luxembourg, Ljubljana and Stockholm — have no completed published legislative route in force. Croatia, Germany and Luxembourg are still in preparation; Hungary and Slovenia show no directive-specific public measure; and Sweden’s implementation is paused.²

That leaves employers and workers in sharply different positions depending on jurisdiction. In Malta, pay information rights are already in force. In Germany, where employees have some pre-existing pay-information rights, directive-specific transposition remains in preparation. In France and Portugal, major draft processes are still unfolding after the deadline.²

France and Portugal show the legislative bottleneck

France illustrates the political and technical complexity facing larger member states. A revised French draft bill was presented to the Council of Ministers on September 10, but the parliamentary timetable remains uncertain. The labour minister hopes for adoption by the end of February 2027, with no guarantee of that schedule.³

The French draft retains core mechanisms, including pay ranges in job advertisements, a ban on salary-history questions, a ban on salary non-disclosure clauses and employee rights to request average remuneration data. It also keeps a 50-employee gender-reporting threshold, stricter than the directive’s 100-employee baseline.³

Portugal is also still in process. Vieira de Almeida noted on September 18 that the legislative process remains under way and that expected changes include disclosure of pay-setting and pay-progression criteria, stronger employee information rights and joint pay assessments.⁴ DLA Piper’s employment-law roundup similarly said the June 7 deadline had passed, with some countries having final laws and others still transposing the directive. It pointed to draft bills in both France and Portugal.⁵

For companies operating in several member states, the result is not simply delay but regulatory divergence. Deloitte’s September 18 briefing promoted an EU pay-transparency webcast focused on member-state progress, lessons from early movers and employer actions as 2027 approaches, underscoring that uneven national implementation has become an active compliance issue.⁶

Commission faces enforcement pressure

The Commission has said that, after the June 7 deadline, it would pay particular attention to whether national legislation conforms with Directive 2023/970.⁷ It has also described the pay-transparency directive as a flagship deliverable of the EU’s gender-equality agenda and said member states must transpose it by June 7, 2026.⁷

If capitals fail to notify transposition measures on time or adopt incomplete laws, the Commission can open infringement proceedings. Under the EU infringement process, Brussels may send a formal request to comply through a reasoned opinion, usually giving the member state two months to respond, and may later refer the case to the Court of Justice of the EU.⁹ Where a country fails to communicate directive-transposition measures in time, the Commission may ask the court to impose penalties.⁹

The scale of delay creates a political dilemma. Acting against a large group of member states would signal that social-policy directives are binding and enforceable, not aspirational. But a broad infringement push could also expose the limits of EU enforcement when national labour ministries, parliaments and social partners move at different speeds.

Uneven rules could weaken the policy’s effect

The directive’s policy logic depends on comparability. It aims to make pay discrimination easier to detect by giving job applicants information on initial pay or pay ranges, barring employers from asking about pay history, requiring objective and gender-neutral pay-setting criteria, and giving workers the right to request average pay levels by sex for comparable categories of work.⁸

It also phases in pay-gap reporting. Employers with at least 250 workers must report by June 7, 2027, and annually thereafter. Those with 150 to 249 workers must report by the same date and every three years. Those with 100 to 149 workers face a later first reporting date of June 7, 2031.⁸ Where reporting shows an unjustified average pay gap of at least 5% in a category of workers and the employer fails to remedy it within six months, a joint pay assessment is required.⁸

Late and uneven transposition risks weakening that architecture. Workers in fully transposed countries may gain clearer routes to information and enforcement, while those in lagging jurisdictions may face uncertainty over procedures, competent authorities, penalties and deadlines. Employers spanning several countries may have to prepare for the directive’s baseline while navigating different national effective dates, thresholds and reporting formats.

The Commission has tried to smooth implementation through workshops, guidance and EU-wide materials on gender-neutral job evaluation and classification.⁷ But the September implementation map shows that technical support has not prevented a fragmented rollout. The next test is whether Brussels turns that fragmentation into infringement pressure — and whether member states can close the gap before the first major reporting obligations arrive in 2027.