EU Pay Transparency Directive: which countries have transposed?

The EU Pay Transparency Directive is the bloc’s latest push to make “equal pay for equal work” a reality rather than just a principle. It requires employers with more than 100 staff to regularly report on their gender pay gap, and if that gap exceeds 5% in any job category without a legitimate explanation, the employer has six months to fix it or face a joint pay audit involving employee representatives. The Directive also gives individual employees and job applicants real rights: pay ranges must be disclosed during hiring, employers can no longer ask about salary history, and staff can request data on how their pay compares to colleagues doing equivalent work.

The deadline for EU member states to transpose the Directive into national law was 7 June 2026, but progress across Europe is patchy.

Greece has already crossed the finish line. Parliament passed Law no. 5316 on 2 July 2026, fully transposing the Directive, and it was signed into law and published in the Government Gazette on 6 July 2026. That said, the core obligations and rights under articles 8-20, along with the new procedural rules on equal pay disputes in article 27, won’t actually take effect until 1 November 2026 – so Greek employers still have a few months to get ready.

Elsewhere, the picture is mixed. Hungary and Ireland have taken initial steps, while Portugal and Spain have both put draft legislation out for public consultation. Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France and the Netherlands all have draft laws moving through various stages of their legislative processes, and Germany may see its cabinet approve a draft bill as soon as October. Italy and Slovakia are already counted as having transposed the Directive.

Read the full article and interactive tracker here.