EU Pay Transparency Directive: A cross-border snapshot for employers

France did not transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970) by the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. A first draft bill was circulated to the employer-employee representatives on 6 March 2026. A new draft bill was then introduced on 5 June 2026; however, it has not yet been submitted to the Council of Ministers.  The Minister of Labour is reportedly aiming for June 2026, which would likely delay parliamentary review until the autumn session and postpone implementation until at least 1 January 2027. In addition, many of the practical arrangements will remain subject to implementing decrees.

Key areas of focus will include greater pay transparency in recruitment, notably through disclosure of salary ranges and a ban on asking candidates about their salary history, as well as enhanced employee information rights. Also, France already has a mechanism in place for analysing and reporting data on workplace gender equality (the so-called Gender Equality Index). This framework will be expanded, in particular to assess gender equality against new criteria. Further changes are expected to the evidentiary rules applicable to discrimination claims, which may, in certain cases, become more favourable to employees. Changes to the applicable sanctions, including criminal penalties, are also expected in the event of non-compliance with the rules on gender equality in the workplace.

In Germany, national legislation implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive is not yet in force. The federal government recently announced that the implementing legislation is now expected to enter into force in early 2027, with reporting obligations and the right to information first becoming due in June 2028. The new legislation will build upon and substantially expand Germany's existing Pay Transparency Act of 2017 (Entgelttransparenzgesetz).

Despite the delayed national transposition, German courts are expected to apply existing equal pay legislation more strictly in line with the Directive's principles, and public-sector employers will be directly bound by the Directive from 7 June 2026. Accordingly, even in the absence of national implementing legislation, employers should review their remuneration structures for objective, gender-neutral criteria and identify and remedy unjustified pay gaps. Employers should also be prepared for new requirements to disclose salary ranges during recruitment, a prohibition on salary history enquiries, expanded employee rights to pay information regardless of company size, and the involvement of works councils (Betriebsräte) in joint pay assessments. Early engagement with works councils and investment in equal‑pay compliance and the data infrastructure required for compliant reporting are key elements of readiness.

On 1 June 2026, Legislative Decree No. 96/2026 implementing EU Directive No. 2023/970 was finally published. The Decree entered into force on 7 June 2026, introducing significant obligations for Italian companies in the public and private sector. Some obligations will have an immediate impact on Italian companies, regardless of their dimension, which shall therefore be ready to face the news introduced. These include, among others, transparency in the hiring phase, ban on asking candidates about previous salaries, obligation to grant employees easy access to information on criteria used to determine salary (levels) and right of employees to request information on average pay levels divided by gender.

Companies with at least 100 or more employees, starting from 2027 (or from 2031, for those employing from 100 to 149 employees), will also be subject to reporting obligations regarding the pay gap to a Monitoring Entity and, in case of a pay gap exceeding 5% without objective justification, companies are required to correct it or, in lack, to undertake a joint assessment with unions.

In Spain, national legislation implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive is not yet in force. Spain's 2026 Annual Regulatory Plan envisages the approval of a Royal Decree to transpose the Directive, and the Ministry of Labour has taken an initial step in the transposition process by running a prior public consultation from 24 April to 8 May 2026. However, although the transposition deadline was 7 June 2026, no final implementing text has yet been published, and the regulatory process remains at a very early stage. Therefore, the content of the Spanish implementing rules, including specific effective dates, remains to be confirmed.

The Directive should not have horizontal direct effect against private employers, although existing EU and Spanish equal pay rules continue to apply. Spain is therefore not starting from scratch: current law already provides for pay registers, equality plans, and pay audits. For employers, the main focus will be to identify gaps between existing obligations and the new Spanish implementing rules once adopted. Key areas include gender-neutral job evaluation and classification, pay-range information in recruitment, employee information rights and future reporting obligations, particularly for larger employers.