EU Pay Transparency Directive legislation at a glance

Overall, the draft legislation in the Netherlands stays very close to the EU Directive’s baseline guidance. Here is how the draft legislation addresses some key elements:

• Employees have the right to information about how their pay compares to that of others in similar roles; employers must respond to requests within two months. This follows the general EU guidelines.
• Organizations with 150 or more employees will first report on June 7, 2028; those with 100-149 employees will first report on June 7, 2031. For the larger employers, this is a year behind the EU guidelines.
• For reporting: If there are subsidiaries within an organization, each subsidiary will report independently (unless the parent company determines the compensation policy).
• If the staff includes temporary workers from an agency, the organization will submit a two-part report (one for the organization’s own employees and another for temporary agency staff). Job categories must be the same for both reports.
• Data protection: If an employee may be identifiable based on pay information, this information may only be used to enforce the right to equal pay. Also, workers councils should not have access to individual employees’ pay information.
• When pay structures are governed by collective agreements, the involved parties (trade unions and/or workers council) must agree on the objective criteria.

The main difference between legislation in the Netherlands and the EU Directive is the effective date. Due to the governmental turmoil during the drafting process, the Dutch government announced in 2025 that it would not make the 2026 deadline. The expected implementation date is January 1, 2027. We also note that the Dutch draft legislation requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide easy access to the criteria used to determine pay.