What does the Pay Transparency Directive change?

The Directive moves equal-pay compliance from a purely reactive model toward documented pay structures, accessible information and measurable employer responsibilities.

For Romanian companies, the most important practical point is timing. The Directive required Member States to adopt the measures necessary for transposition by 7 June 2026. That European deadline does not mean that every employer in Romania can apply one uniform checklist without checking national legislation. Romanian employers should separate the EU minimum requirements from the domestic rules that define procedures, authorities, sanctions and any additional obligations.

Employer readiness navigator

Use the controls below to see the main question that should be addressed in each workstream.

Recruitment transparency and salary history

Under Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2023/970, job applicants are entitled to information about the initial remuneration or range for the position, set according to objective and gender-neutral criteria. The information must be supplied early enough to permit informed and transparent negotiation, for example in the job advertisement or before the interview.

The Directive also prohibits employers from asking applicants about their pay history in current or previous employment. This affects more than a single interview question. Recruitment teams should review application forms, recruiter scripts, interview templates, reference checks, automated screening flows and agency instructions.

Job titles and vacancy notices should be gender-neutral and recruitment should be organised in a non-discriminatory manner. A salary range is not meaningful if it is so broad that it conceals the employer’s real pay position. The employer should be able to explain the objective criteria used to set the range and the criteria used to determine the final offer.

Employee rights to pay information

The Directive gives workers a right to request, in writing, information about their individual remuneration level and the average remuneration levels, broken down by sex, for categories of workers performing the same work or work of equal value. Remuneration is broader than basic salary and may include relevant variable or supplementary components under the applicable framework.

Employers should create a controlled process for receiving, verifying and answering requests. The response should use a defensible job-category methodology and should not disclose identifiable salary information about another individual. The Directive contemplates a written response within two months, subject to the wording of the national implementing rules.

Employers must also communicate the right to request pay information and the prohibition on retaliation at least once a year. Pay secrecy clauses cannot be used to prevent workers from disclosing their own pay for the purpose of enforcing equal-pay rights. Confidentiality obligations may still protect personal data and legitimate business information, but they should not be drafted as a disguised prohibition on exercising statutory rights.

Objective pay structures and work of equal value

Pay transparency cannot work without a defensible method for comparing roles. The Directive refers to objective, gender-neutral criteria including skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. Other factors may be relevant if they are genuinely connected to the work and applied consistently.

Employers should avoid relying only on job titles. Two positions with different titles may involve comparable value, while identical titles may cover materially different responsibilities. The assessment should address qualifications, experience, technical and non-technical skills, decision-making, emotional or physical effort, working environment, hazards and scheduling requirements where relevant.

Soft skills must not be undervalued because they are associated with traditionally female-dominated roles. A pay architecture should therefore explain how the employer evaluates communication, organisation, care, negotiation, customer-facing work and other relevant skills without allowing subjective stereotypes to determine pay.

Gender-pay reporting thresholds

The Directive establishes phased reporting obligations for employers with at least 100 workers. The number of workers, the reporting reference period, the calculation methodology and the route through which information is supplied must be checked against the national implementing framework.

Reported information may include the overall gender pay gap, gaps in supplementary or variable components, the distribution of workers across pay quartiles and gaps by worker category. Employers should not wait until the first report is due to discover that payroll data, job categories or variable-pay records cannot be reconciled.

When does a joint pay assessment become relevant?

Where the reported pay difference reaches at least 5% in a category of workers, is not justified by objective and gender-neutral criteria and has not been remedied within the period contemplated by the Directive, the employer may need to carry out a joint pay assessment with worker representatives. The exact procedure and competent bodies depend on national implementation.

A joint pay assessment is not a substitute for ordinary pay governance. Employers should first test whether the job categories are coherent, whether remuneration components have been captured consistently, whether part-time and full-time work have been treated correctly and whether objective explanations are documented rather than reconstructed after a complaint.

The process can involve identifying the scale and causes of the difference, reviewing the criteria used for pay and proposing remedies. Worker representatives may have a role in the assessment. Employers should therefore prepare a secure data room, a methodology note and a process for handling questions without disclosing unnecessary personal data.

Remedies, enforcement and burden of proof

The Directive requires Member States to establish effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties and to provide effective remedies for workers who suffer loss because of pay discrimination. The amounts and domestic enforcement mechanisms are matters for Romanian implementing legislation and should not be invented in an employer guide before the current national text is verified.

Remedies may include recovery of underpaid remuneration, compensation for loss, interest and other forms of relief available under the applicable law. The Directive also strengthens access to evidence and can affect the allocation of the burden of proof where transparency obligations have not been respected. Romanian employers should therefore treat documentation as part of substantive compliance, not as an administrative afterthought.

Employers should also protect workers and their representatives from retaliation for exercising pay-transparency rights. A complaint, pay request or discussion about remuneration should not be treated as misconduct merely because it creates an uncomfortable management conversation.

Romanian employers: what to prepare now

Even while national implementation is being confirmed, employers can take low-regret steps that do not depend on a particular Romanian form or sanction. The aim is to understand the organisation’s pay logic, identify data gaps and avoid recruitment practices that are difficult to defend later.

• Map roles and create a working classification for the same work and work of equal value.
• Document objective, gender-neutral criteria for pay ranges, progression and variable remuneration.
• Remove salary-history questions from forms, scripts, recruiter instructions and agency briefs.
• Decide when and how the initial salary or range will be communicated to candidates.
• Review confidentiality clauses so they do not restrict lawful equal-pay discussions.
• Create a written route for employee information requests and assign responsibility for responses.
• Test whether payroll and HRIS data can produce reliable gender and worker-category comparisons.
• Check how bonuses, allowances, benefits, overtime and other remuneration components are recorded.
• Prepare a confidential process for investigating unexplained pay differences.
• Monitor Romanian transposition legislation, implementing acts and guidance from competent authorities.

How should multinational groups prepare their Romanian entities?

Groups operating in more than one Member State should avoid copying a group policy into Romania without a local legal review. The Directive provides a common minimum framework, but the Romanian transposition law may determine the language, reporting channel, authorities, consultation rights, sanctions and interaction with existing equal-treatment rules.

The Romanian entity should be able to identify its own workers, roles, pay components and reporting threshold even where payroll or HR systems are centralised abroad. Group-level data may support the analysis, but it should not obscure the Romanian employer’s responsibilities or transfer personal data without an appropriate legal and security framework.

Multinationals should also reconcile the Directive with recruitment practices used by external agencies, shared-service centres and automated tools. A policy is useful only if it reaches the people who write job advertisements, conduct interviews, approve offers and answer employee requests.