Photo by Kampus Production: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-working-in-an-office-8171198/Employers can no longer ask job applicants about their salary history while workers now have the right to information about a workplace’s pay levels after a legal notice has transposed an EU directive into law.
Legal Notice 173 of 2026 – the Equal Pay (Transparency and Reporting) Regulations, 2026 – transposes Directive (EU) 2023/970, commonly known as the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
The directive, which was approved in May 2023, aims to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value between men and women, and seeks to do so through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms.
The regulations apply to all workers, whether in the public or private sector, and in principle requires employers to ensure that they have pay structures “that ensure equal pay for equal work or work of equal value.”
This requirement is qualified, however, with the regulations explicitly allowing for salary scales that reward seniority – a key feature of salary scales at the public service.
Employers are also allowed to pay different workers performing the same work differently “on the basis of objective, gender-neutral and bias-free criteria including but not limited to performance and competence,” which emphasising that such criteria cannot lead to any direct or indirect sex-based discrimination.
Pay transparency provisions
Job applicants are now entitled to receive salary-related information about the job they are applying to, including initial pay or its range, and any relevant provisions of a collective agreement.
In contrast, employers cannot ask about applicants’ pay history.
Larger employers – with 50 or more staff – will be required to establish the criteria and policies they use to determine workers’ pay, pay levels and pay progression in writing: and these must be accessible to workers at all times.
Smaller companies are exempted from such requirements, however, though those employing 25 or more workers will still be obliged to internally document the criteria they used.
Workers have the right to request and receive information about their individual pay level and average pay levels broken down by sex for categories of workers performing the same work as them or work of equal value.
Victimisation of any workers or workers’ representatives that seek this information is expressly deemed unlawful.
Reporting obligations for larger companies
The legal notice imposes reporting obligations only on larger companies, requiring those with at least 100 workers to prepare a “pay gap report.” Reporting obligations scale up according to the company’s size, companies with more than 250 workers must compile this report annually, while those with 100-249 workers must do so every three years: companies with 100-149 workers will only need to start doing so in 2031.
The Department of Industrial and Employment Relations is tasked with monitoring compliance with the regulations, with the involvement of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality.
Among the various transitory measures included, the regulations also explicitly specify that any existing collective agreement – including expired ones extended while negotiations for the next are underway – will not be impacted by the regulations
€2,500-€7,000 fines
Breaching the provisions of the regulations is ordinarily punishable by a fine of €2,500-€5,000.
However, higher fines – €5,000-€7,000 – are to be imposed in cases where the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value is deemed to have been breached “on the basis of gender and intersectional discrimination.”
The regulations do not specify steeper fines for subsequent offences, though they do specify that repeat infringements should be met with fines at the higher end of the stated limits.
