At the start of 2026, many organ­iz­a­tions are start­ing the new year with fresh ambi­tions and good res­ol­u­tions. For employ­ers, 2026 will not only mark a new begin­ning, but also the entry into force of sig­ni­fic­ant new legis­la­tion and sub­sequent trans­par­ency oblig­a­tions fol­low­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of the EU Pay Trans­par­ency Dir­ect­ive.

This Dir­ect­ive rep­res­ents a major step towards clos­ing the gender pay gap and strength­en­ing the prin­ciple of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women. In 2023, the EU aver­age gender pay gap was 12%.[1] While its goal is clear, com­pli­ance will require com­pre­hens­ive pre­par­a­tion, struc­ture, and com­mit­ment from employ­ers.

 

What is the Pay Trans­par­ency Dir­ect­ive?

On 10 May 2023, the European Uni­on adop­ted the Pay Trans­par­ency Dir­ect­ive aimed at strength­en­ing the applic­a­tion of the prin­ciple of equal pay between men and women through pay trans­par­ency meas­ures and enhanced enforce­ment mech­an­isms. It sets min­im­um stand­ards to ensure equal pay for equal or equi­val­ent work between men and women and intro­duces far-reach­ing trans­par­ency oblig­a­tions.

The Dir­ect­ive applies to employ­ers in both the pub­lic and private sec­tors and cov­ers all employ­ees with an employ­ment con­tract.

 

Timeline: What does this mean for Dutch employ­ers?

By 7 June 2026, the Dir­ect­ive must be trans­posed into Dutch legis­la­tion. From that moment on, employ­ers must com­ply with its oblig­a­tions and may expect ques­tions of employ­ees regard­ing this sub­ject, which need to be answered prop­erly and with­in a man­dat­ory time frame. If employ­ers can­not fol­low-up prop­erly, this will have con­sequences. This includes poten­tial fines for not being com­pli­ant, but also lit­ig­a­tion risks as employ­ees may invoke rights to equal pay whilst the bur­den of proof shifts to the employ­er to prove that there is equal pay or a suf­fi­cient jus­ti­fic­a­tion for any (unin­ten­ded) dif­fer­ences. It is often mis­un­der­stood that this only applies to dif­fer­ences between female and male employ­ees. Dif­fer­ences may also exist between employ­ees in gen­er­al doing the same work of work of equal value. Already for this reas­on employ­ers will need to have their home­work done in time. As a sid­e­note, while the Dutch gov­ern­ment announced it will not meet the June 7, 2026 dead­line as it aims to have the Dutch imple­ment­a­tion legis­la­tion ready by Janu­ary 1, 2027, employ­ees may still claim equal pay rights from the former date (and even now already to a cer­tain extent). Also, the European Com­mis­sion announced that post­pone­ment of the imple­ment­a­tion will not be accept­able.

The new rules impose respons­ib­il­it­ies that can be cat­egor­ized into two pil­lars. On the one hand, it imposes trans­par­ency oblig­a­tions for all employ­ers, regard­less of com­pany size. These include trans­par­ency about pay before employ­ment, a ban on ask­ing can­did­ates about their salary his­tory, gender-neut­ral job titles and vacancy texts, trans­par­ency regard­ing pay pro­gres­sion and employ­ees’ right to request inform­a­tion about pay levels and cri­ter­ia. On the oth­er hand, for employ­ers with at least 100 or more employ­ees, a report­ing oblig­a­tion and pay eval­u­ation require­ment will also apply. We notice in our day-to-day prac­tice that many employ­ers only seem to focus on the report­ing oblig­a­tions, where in fact the first pil­lar trans­par­ency oblig­a­tions apply to all employ­ers and will require prop­er pre­par­a­tion. The time is how­ever run­ning out, there­fore employ­ers may con­sider some good res­ol­u­tions at the start of 2026!

 

Good res­ol­u­tions for 2026: how to pre­pare your organ­iz­a­tion?

Like any good res­ol­u­tion, com­pli­ance with the Pay Trans­par­ency Dir­ect­ive starts with a clear plan. Below are key res­ol­u­tions employ­ers should con­sider ensur­ing they are ready for 2026:

1. Con­duct an equal pay audit in advance.

Per­form a (mock) joint pay assess­ment (if required under attor­ney-cli­ent priv­ilege) before the Dir­ect­ive takes effect to identi­fy risks and define remedi­al actions. It will give you valu­able insights in your cur­rent work­force organ­isa­tion and cur­rent com­pli­ance level. It will help struc­ture the rest of your strategy and approach towards com­pli­ance.

2. Devel­op a glob­al, region­al, or loc­al action plan.

Align your equal pay strategy with your (glob­al) busi­ness needs and core val­ues. Determ­ine, which group of employ­ees falls with­in which cat­egory of work­er and determ­ine how inform­a­tion is made avail­able. This will be dif­fer­ent depend­ing how the work­force is organ­ised. Fur­ther­more, in case part of the work­force is out­sourced or hired through third parties, com­pan­ies need to have a struc­ture in place to share rel­ev­ant pay inform­a­tion to be com­pli­ant. The equal pay audit can provide you with help­ful insights in determ­in­ing your action plan.

3. Review your job archi­tec­ture.

Ensure roles are clearly defined and clas­si­fied in a job mat­rix based on gender-neut­ral cri­ter­ia to demon­strate a sol­id under­stand­ing of ‘equal work’ and ‘work of equal value’. In the event his­tor­ic­al dif­fer­ences in job pro­files or salary levels exist due to tem­por­ary effects in the past, such as labour mar­ket scarcity, now is the time to work on sus­tain­able solu­tions.

4. Review con­tracts, policies, and pro­ced­ures.

Identi­fy and assess poten­tial risks and ensure employ­ment con­tracts and intern­al policies com­ply with the Dir­ect­ive and exist­ing and upcom­ing equal treat­ment legis­la­tion. This also required organ­isa­tions to start think­ing about remedi­ation plans and the leg­al options to amend employ­ment pack­ages and terms.

5. Pre­pare for involve­ment of employ­ee rep­res­ent­a­tion such as works coun­cils & trade uni­ons.

Estab­lish a frame­work for involving employ­ee rep­res­ent­at­ives and for shar­ing required inform­a­tion in a struc­tured way. Dis­cuss pro­cesses. Fur­ther­more, in the event employ­ers do meet the threshold for set­ting up a works coun­cil, now is the time to also set pro­cesses in place to estab­lish employ­ee rep­res­ent­a­tion. Fail­ing to have employ­ee rep­res­ent­a­tion may cause not being com­pli­ant and trig­ger unwanted delays in the future in case of pay-gaps.

6. Set up a hot­line, struc­ture for replies and sup­port ser­vice.

Be pre­pared to handle employ­ee ques­tions as of day one regard­ing their indi­vidu­al pay trans­par­ency in due time. It will be neces­sary to have some form of auto­mated struc­ture and access to rel­ev­ant data to allow swift responses. In cer­tain situ­ations, such right to access may infringe with pri­vacy rights of oth­er employ­ees, which requires a safe and sound response.

7. Ensure robust data ana­lys­is and gov­ernance.

Accur­ate and access­ible data is essen­tial to meet trans­par­ency and equal pay rights.

8. Invest in train­ing and aware­ness.

Train man­agers, HR pro­fes­sion­als, employ­ee rep­res­ent­at­ives, and tal­ent teams to raise and main­tain aware­ness. Join HVG’s/EY’s EPD Read­i­ness Work­shop or let the EY PAS Reward team assist you.

9. Devel­op intern­al and extern­al com­mu­nic­a­tion strategies.

Clear com­mu­nic­a­tion, both intern­ally and extern­ally, will be cru­cial to man­age expect­a­tions and main­tain trust.

 

Strug­gling to keep your good res­ol­u­tions, or appre­ci­at­ing guid­ance in determ­in­ing the best route to Equal Pay?

Turn­ing good inten­tions into sus­tain­able com­pli­ance can be chal­len­ging. The law­yers at HVG Law and the advisors of the EY PAS Reward team (giv­en the stra­tegic alli­ance between HVG Law and EY Tax) are happy to sup­port you in achiev­ing your equal pay goals and answer­ing any ques­tions you may have regard­ing the Pay Trans­par­ency Dir­ect­ive.

Make 2026 the year your organ­isa­tion not only com­plies but leads by example.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Gender_pay_gap_statistics