Good practice

EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970/EU)

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EU Directive 2023/970 obliges employers across 27 member states to disclose salary ranges, grant employees pay-comparison rights, and report gender pay gaps — with mandatory corrective action if the gap exceeds 5%.

13 %

EU average gender pay gap at transposition deadline (2026)

EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970/EU)

Details

Maturity: Scaling
Promoter: European Commission – DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
Period: 2023-present
Keywords: pay equity, pay transparency, gender pay gap, employment law, EU legislation

Context

Directive 2023/970/EU, adopted 10 May 2023, is the first binding EU-wide pay-transparency instrument, requiring salary-range disclosure, worker pay-comparison rights, mandatory gender pay-gap reporting for employers with 100+ staff from June 2027, joint pay assessments where the gap exceeds 5%, and a reversed burden of proof.

Results

As of the June 2026 transposition deadline the EU average gender pay gap stood at approximately 13%, having stagnated for a decade; empirical impact cannot be assessed until the first mandatory employer reports are due in June 2027.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-21
European Commission – DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion — accessed 2026-06-21
EUR-Lex — Directive 2023/970/EU full text — accessed 2026-06-21
European Commission — EU action for equal pay — accessed 2026-06-21
Council of the EU — Pay transparency overview — accessed 2026-06-21

Attachments

Source image

Quality score: 89/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported

Top 16% in this catalogue (719 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Transferability / replicability3/3

Binding on all 27 EU member states with mandatory transposition by June 2026, and has already influenced pay transparency legislation in non-EU jurisdictions studying the model.

Impact on gender equality1/1

Directly targets the documented 13% EU gender pay gap by making structural pay inequities visible and legally actionable across all large employers for the first time at EU level.

Effectiveness0/1

Transposition deadline only passed in June 2026; first mandatory employer pay gap reports are not due until June 2027, so empirical impact on pay gaps cannot yet be assessed.

Efficiency1/1

Regulatory mechanism leverages existing national equality bodies and courts with no new agency required; cost proportionate relative to the projected reduction in the gender pay gap.

Evaluated outcomes1/1

European Parliament Research Service published an implementation appraisal; EIGE released a gender-neutral job evaluation toolkit in March 2026 in direct support of the Directive.

Sustainability1/1

Embedded in EU primary law, binding on member states with penalty clauses, and subject to a Commission review by June 2033; structurally permanent in the EU legal order.

Achievement / evidence1/1

Directive formally adopted and published in OJ May 2023; EIGE/Commission gender-neutral job evaluation toolkit launched March 2026; several member states completed transposition before the June 2026 deadline.

Gender-mainstreaming embedding1/1

Mainstreams pay equity structurally into recruitment, pay-setting, collective bargaining, judicial enforcement, and annual corporate reporting across all sectors and member states.

Curator validation1/1

Primary source is EUR-Lex (official EU legal text); secondary source is EIGE (the EU's dedicated gender equality body) — both authoritative and fully verifiable.

Cite this

Evidoria. EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970/EU). Persistent ID: f453b204-516d-46de-a9e4-54b0a0b331cb.

Export as decision brief (PDF)

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