On 21 May 2026, the Bill imple­ment­ing the Pay Trans­par­ency Dir­ect­ive for men and women was sub­mit­ted to the House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives by the Min­is­ter of Social Affairs and Employ­ment. There are no major sur­prises left. The Act is expec­ted to enter into force by 1 Janu­ary 2027 at the latest, provided it is adop­ted by both the House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives and the Sen­ate. This Act intro­duces the oblig­a­tion for employ­ers with more than 100 employ­ees to report on the gender pay gap between men and women. For employ­ers with 150 or more employ­ees, the first year to be repor­ted on will be the cal­en­dar year 2027. In the explan­at­ory memor­andum accom­pa­ny­ing the Bill, it is stated that the admin­is­trat­ive bur­den for employ­ers is expec­ted to be man­age­able. The Min­istry of Social Affairs and Employ­ment will also provide tools to sup­port employ­ers in this regard and to sim­pli­fy pro­cesses.

The most sig­ni­fic­ant change that all employ­ers, regard­less of size, must pre­pare for con­cerns the trans­par­ency oblig­a­tions towards employ­ees. These will enter into force as of 1 Janu­ary 2027. From that date, employ­ers must, upon request, provide employ­ees in writ­ing with inform­a­tion about their indi­vidu­al level of remu­ner­a­tion and the aver­age levels of remu­ner­a­tion, broken down by gender, for cat­egor­ies of employ­ees per­form­ing the same or equi­val­ent work, and for oth­ers on the basis of gender-neut­ral cri­ter­ia. It is these oblig­a­tions which we expect employ­ers should already begin pre­par­ing for. Fail­ure to com­ply with an inform­a­tion request and/or oth­er trans­par­ency oblig­a­tions under the Act may lead to a reversal of the bur­den of proof: the employ­er must then demon­strate that there is no pay dis­crim­in­a­tion. Employ­ers should take into account poten­tial claims by employ­ees in this con­text. Fur­ther­more, the Act intro­duces addi­tion­al oblig­a­tions to share inform­a­tion with the works coun­cil and with any employ­ee rep­res­ent­a­tion body for employ­ers with more than 10 and few­er than 50 employ­ees.

In broad terms, the Bill thus fol­lows the already estab­lished line, although cer­tain aspects have been fur­ther cla­ri­fied, such as the defin­i­tion of “employ­er” and what con­sti­tutes remu­ner­a­tion.

Below are sev­er­al key amend­ments briefly explained.

Clear dis­tinc­tion between mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment (super­vi­sion)

The Bill provides for a clear dis­tinc­tion between mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment. The mon­it­or­ing func­tion is ves­ted in the Dir­ect­or­ate for Ser­vices, Part­ner­ships and Imple­ment­a­tion, which, on behalf of the Min­is­ter of Social Affairs and Employ­ment, is author­ised to carry out this task. This mon­it­or­ing body will primar­ily col­lect, ana­lyse, and pub­lish data on pay dif­fer­ences at the sys­tem level. By con­trast, the Labour Inspect­or­ate is respons­ible for super­vising com­pli­ance with the stat­utory oblig­a­tions and may take enforce­ment action, includ­ing the impos­i­tion of admin­is­trat­ive fines and pen­alty pay­ments.

In doing so, the Min­is­ter responds to the advice of the Coun­cil of State to cla­ri­fy, as soon as pos­sible, which author­ity will per­form this role.

Exceed­ing the imple­ment­a­tion dead­line

Although the Coun­cil of State has poin­ted out the con­sequences and risks of exceed­ing the imple­ment­a­tion dead­line, the Min­is­ter has chosen not to adhere to the ori­gin­al timeline. The first report­ing oblig­a­tion for employ­ers with 150 or more employ­ees is set at no later than 7 June 2028, cov­er­ing the cal­en­dar year 2027. The Dir­ect­ive provides for 7 June 2027 as the first report­ing date.

Accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, this post­pone­ment is neces­sary because the envis­aged timeline is not feas­ible. This is due to the absence of fur­ther imple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions, the fact that soft­ware still needs to be developed, and that the mon­it­or­ing body is not yet able to receive and pub­lish pay reports. The moment when oth­er report­ing employ­ers (100 to 149 employ­ees) must report will, how­ever, be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the Dir­ect­ive. This means that these employ­ers must report for the first time no later than 7 June 2031 on the cal­en­dar year 2030.

Data pro­tec­tion

The explan­at­ory memor­andum expli­citly acknow­ledges that remu­ner­a­tion inform­a­tion may, in cer­tain cases, be trace­able to indi­vidu­al employ­ees and elab­or­ates on the GDPR leg­al basis for such pro­cessing. In doing so, it par­tially addresses the cri­ti­cism of the Coun­cil of State. At the same time, the response regard­ing data pro­tec­tion remains lim­ited. The legis­lat­or largely adheres to the prin­ciple of pur­pose lim­it­a­tion: data may only be used for the pur­pose of ensur­ing equal pay, without con­cretely elab­or­at­ing how com­pli­ance with this prin­ciple will be safe­guarded in prac­tice. Moreover, the decision has been taken not to intro­duce addi­tion­al pro­tect­ive mech­an­isms, such as restrict­ing access to remu­ner­a­tion inform­a­tion through inter­me­di­ar­ies — even though the Dir­ect­ive provides for such an option. As a res­ult, the ten­sion between trans­par­ency and data pro­tec­tion iden­ti­fied by the Coun­cil of State remains.

Col­leagues from HVG Law employ­ment law and EY-Pas reg­u­larly pub­lish on this top­ic. Should you have any ques­tions, please feel free to con­tact us.

Inter­ested in read­ing more about this top­ic? Please vis­it: Pay Transparency Directive – HVG Law B.V.