Hiring in the EU? You can no longer ask "what do you earn now?" - and your job ads owe candidates a pay range.

The EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970) required member states to write it into national law by 7 June 2026. Transposition status varies by country, but the obligations are the same everywhere: pay information for applicants up front, salary-history questions banned, pay-secrecy clauses banned. And pay-gap reporting phases in from June 2027, largest employers first.

Run the readiness check See the pack

Free check: is your hiring compliant?

Three questions from the Commission's Pay Transparency FAQ. Nothing you pick leaves this page.

Do your vacancy notices or pre-interview communications give applicants the initial pay or its range, set on objective, gender-neutral criteria? Do your application forms, recruiters or interview guides ask candidates about their current or previous pay? Do your employment contracts contain clauses stopping staff discussing their pay?

Answer all three to see where you stand.

Source: European Commission FAQ on Directive (EU) 2023/970.

The rules, in plain words

Rule	What it means
Pay info for applicants	Initial pay or its range in the vacancy notice or before the interview, on objective, gender-neutral criteria
Salary history ban	No asking candidates what they earned before - in forms, scripts or interviews
Pay secrecy banned	Confidentiality clauses blocking pay discussion for equal-pay purposes are prohibited
Pay criteria access	Workers can ask for the criteria behind pay, pay levels and progression (possible under-50 exemption on progression)
Pay-gap reporting	250+ workers: annually from June 2027. 150-249: three-yearly from June 2027. 100-149: three-yearly from June 2031

Pay structures must ensure equal pay for work of equal value, assessed on skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions - and soft skills must not be undervalued.

The EU Pay Transparency Readiness Pack

Recruiting rules checklist (Excel): eight tasks from vacancy templates to contract audits.
Job-ad wording: the pay-range line and equal-pay paragraph to drop into templates.
Pay-structure worksheet: map role families to the objective criteria and flag roles paid differently for work of equal value.
Reporting timeline: which headcount band you fall in, and when your first report lands.
The national-law step: the Directive sets minimums - the checklist ends with your member state's transposing law.

What it is not: templates and worksheets, not legal advice. Your member state's transposing law is the binding text.

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Checkout by Polar, in US dollars. If the file does not arrive, email fuseini.metadata@gmail.com with your receipt.

Questions

We have 20 staff. Does this touch us? The recruiting rules - pay ranges for applicants, the salary-history ban, the secrecy-clause ban - are not headcount-limited. Only pay-gap reporting phases in by size, and under 100 workers the Directive adds no reporting duty (existing national measures may still apply).

We hire through an agency. The duties sit with the employer; brief your agency in writing - the checklist includes it.

Is this advice? No. It is a worksheet pack built from the Commission's FAQ and Directive (EU) 2023/970. Check your national transposing law.