Equal pay remains high on the agenda through­out Europe. Rightly so: fig­ures from Stat­ist­ics Neth­er­lands (CBS) show that in 2025, the aver­age pay gap in the Neth­er­lands still stood at 10.5%. With the entry into force of the Pay Trans­par­ency Dir­ect­ive on June 7, 2026, employ­ers will be required to safe­guard the prin­ciple of equal pay demon­strably and struc­tur­ally. This oblig­a­tion goes well bey­ond the clas­sic com­par­is­on between men and women: every employ­ee is entitled to a trans­par­ent, object­ive, and fair remu­ner­a­tion policy. The Dir­ect­ive fun­da­ment­ally changes the rules for HR and gov­ernance. Employ­ers will face far-reach­ing trans­par­ency oblig­a­tions, report­ing require­ments, and enforce­ment. Those who fail to com­ply in a timely man­ner run con­sid­er­able com­pli­ance risks and leg­al expos­ure: the bur­den of proof for equal pay lies expli­citly with the employ­er. Wait­ing is no longer an option.

At the same time, equal pay presents oppor­tun­it­ies. Organ­iz­a­tions that pro­act­ively address fair remu­ner­a­tion not only strengthen their com­pli­ance and repu­ta­tion. Trans­par­ency and fair pay con­trib­ute to an inclus­ive cor­por­ate cul­ture and help achieve broad­er ESG object­ives. Equal pay is there­fore not a ‘must’, but a stra­tegic choice for sus­tain­able and future-proof employ­ment prac­tices.

Achiev­ing equal pay with­in the organ­iz­a­tion requires more than a straight­for­ward salary check. It demands an integ­rated approach, com­bin­ing leg­al frame­works, data ana­lys­is, and organ­iz­a­tion­al design. Think of con­duct­ing an audit, devel­op­ing a con­crete action plan, recal­ib­rat­ing job struc­tures, and remu­ner­a­tion policies, and set­ting up robust pro­cesses for data man­age­ment, report­ing, and respond­ing to ques­tions from employ­ees and reg­u­lat­ors.

Keep an eye on this page to stay up to date. Please feel free to con­tact the spe­cial­ists at HVG Law to help guide your organ­iz­a­tion in devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing effect­ive equal pay policies. Togeth­er with mul­tidiscip­lin­ary teams and in stra­tegic alli­ance with EY PAS’s reward team, we offer an integ­rated and prag­mat­ic approach.