The Pay Transparency Directive – Frequently Asked Questions

The most important change is that employers and recruiters may no longer ask applicants about their current salary or salary history.

In addition, employers and recruiters must inform applicants of the starting salary or the salary range for the role they are applying for. That information can be included in the job advertisement or communicated in another way. It is important that the applicant has this information prior to the salary negotiations.  

Finally, job advertisements are being assessed more strictly for gender-neutrality. We recommend screening your vacancies accordingly. 

No, this is no longer permitted.  

It is not mandatory to include a salary in the job advertisement. However, the salary must be shared with the applicant before salary negotiations begin.  

Yes, the Directive does not prohibit asking about salary expectations. Note that this can create difficult situations, for example if the expectation differs from the salary of colleagues in equivalent roles. Any deviation from the average salary for equivalent roles must be justified by objective criteria.  

You must investigate whether the difference can be explained by objective, gender-neutral criteria. If that is not possible, you must correct the pay gap.

The Directive explicitly sets out the criteria for determining whether a role is equivalent:  

• Skills: education, knowledge, qualifications, experience, and capabilities required to perform the job.  
• Effort: intensity, concentration, and the physical and mental demands that the job entails. 
• Responsibility: degree of autonomy and decision-making power, financial impact, managerial duties, ensuring safety, and care for people or resources. 
• Working conditions: the actual working environment (physical conditions, working hours, irregularity, and exposure to hazards). 

The Directive also refers to soft skills as an important additional factor in determining the weight of a role. 

The employer may, beyond the criteria mentioned above, set additional objective criteria that meaningfully explain pay gaps.  

Note that these objective criteria are not always the same as those used in existing job classifications. 

“Pay” covers all elements that can be valued in money. In addition to base salary, meal vouchers, bonuses and group insurance contributions fall within the definition of “pay”.  

Acceptable criteria include: experience, competencies, and level of autonomy. It is not recommended to include individual output in base salary progression. Employee output is better rewarded through variable pay.  

Not necessarily. When a pay gap is identified within a company or job category, you must determine whether it can be objectively explained (for example, by greater experience or additional qualifications).

For equivalent roles (as defined by the Directive) market value can vary considerably (for example, according to benchmarks). A pay gap due to labour market scarcity is acceptable provided the difference is demonstrable through long-term statistical evidence and does not exceed what is strictly necessary to compensate for the market shortage. Referring to a benchmark alone is therefore not sufficient.

Yes. As an employer, you must apply the applicable salary scales. If you pay an employee less than the applicable scale or the correct category, you risk sanctions. 

The wage norm for 2025–2026 is set at 0%, which means that, in principle, total labour costs should not increase, except in a few exceptional cases. Increases linked to salary scales are permitted. Adjusting a salary to place an employee in the correct job category appears to be consistent with the wage-norm legislation. 

As noted above, salary-scale increases can be granted. The wage norm considers average total labour cost per full-time equivalent rather than individual salaries. Employers can also make the overall remuneration package more attractive by offering alternative compensation (for example, meal vouchers, group insurance, or a cafeteria plan). Note that such alternative compensation also falls within the definition of “pay” and therefore must be based on objective and gender-neutral criteria.

Equivalent work is work determined to be equivalent based on non-discriminatory and objective, gender-neutral criteria, including skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. If roles are equivalent according to these criteria, employees in those roles are entitled to the same level of salary.

Sectoral job classifications assign employees according to various criteria. Many of these classifications were already gender-neutral under the previous Directive. The new Directive, however, goes further and explicitly defines what is meant by objective and gender-neutral criteria. Therefore, sectoral job classifications must be reassessed against the criteria of the new Directive. 

For some sectors — for example PC 200 — the existing classification may be insufficient to justify salary categories within a company. The reference roles in class D are not always equivalent in terms of skills, effort and responsibility. If a company relies on the sectoral classification, it must ensure that its use of that classification does not result in a pay gap.

• Employees have a right to information about:  
  • salary policy, salary levels and salary progression; and 
  • their individual salary and the average salary for comparable roles, together with additional clarification about that information.  
• Employees must be informed annually about their right to information and how to exercise it.  

Employees can request the information from the employer. They may also request it through employee representatives or through the equality body.

The requested information must be provided within a reasonable period, and in any case within two months.

The right to information includes the possibility to request further clarification. As an employer, you must provide clarifications within a reasonable period, and in any case within two months.

Yes. Employers may not prohibit employees from sharing information about their salary with others.

To a colleague 

Yes. Employees may ask a colleague directly whether they are willing to share information about their salary voluntarily (see “May employees share their salary with others?”). 

To the employer 

No. Employees may not ask their employer for a colleague’s individual salary. They are only entitled to information about their own individual salary and to the average salary for employees in the same category. 

We need to wait for the national legislation, but it is expected that Belgium will not require disclosure of information that would (directly or indirectly) reveal an individual employee’s salary.  

Yes. This obligation applies to every employer in the public or private sector within the EU. It also means that companies outside the EU must comply with the right to information when they employ staff within the EU.

Yes, at least when you employ more than 100 employees. Currently, in the private sector there is a two-yearly reporting obligation for employers with an average of 50 employees. It is expected that the threshold of an average of 50 employees will be adopted in the implementing legislation, since the Directive makes clear that existing protection in Member States should not be reduced.

This is not yet fully clear; we need to wait for the national legislation. The expectation is that reporting will apply per technical business unit.

The reporting obligation is broader than the current two-yearly salary-structure analysis report. Under the Directive, employers must report the following data:

• the gender pay gap; 
• the gender pay gap in additional or variable components;  
• the median gender pay gap;  
• the median gender pay gap in additional or variable components; 
• the share of female and male employees receiving additional or variable components; 
• the share of female and male employees in each salary quartile; and 
• the gender pay gap between employees, broken down by employee categories and by regular base salary and additional or variable components.

Although no official standard model exists yet, a template is currently available for the existing salary structure analysis report. An official model may be provided in the implementing legislation.

• Employers with more than 250 employees must report annually as of 7 June 2027. 
• Employers with 150 to 249 employees must report every three years as of 7 June 2027. 
• Employers with 100 to 149 employees must report every three years as of 7 June 2031.  
• Employers with fewer than 100 employees may report voluntarily, unless national law sets a lower threshold (see “Do I have to report as an employer?”).

Yes. The obligation applies to all joint committees (both blue-collar and white-collar employees), without exception.

Yes. Temporary agency workers fall within the scope of the Directive.  

The application at the level of the user company can only be confirmed once the Directive has been transposed into Belgian law. 

With the supervisory authority designated by the Member State. In addition, you must share information about the gender pay gap by employee category with all employees and with employee representatives. On request, you must also make this information available to the labour inspectorate and the equality body.

We must await national legislation. By analogy with the Act of 22 April 2012, this will usually be the works council. 

If there is no works council, you will probably need to share the information with the Committee for Prevention and Protection at Work. If there is no CPPW, you must share the information with the union delegation. If there is no union delegation, you must share the information directly with the employees.

The Directive provides various sanctions and consequences for employers that fail to comply. National law may impose, among other measures: 

• Compensation to affected employee(s): full payment of overdue salary, compensation for loss of opportunities and non-material damage, and any interest; 
• Penalty payments imposed by competent authorities or national courts; 
• Reversal of burden of proof: the employer must demonstrate that unequal salary or discrimination did not occur;  
• Reimbursement (in part) of the employee’s legal costs;  
• An order to develop and implement a salary structure and criteria for salary progression (by the court); 
• A fine calculated based on the employer’s total payroll.

Yes. If you employ staff within the EU and do not comply with the Directive (and/or the implementing legislation), you risk sanctions regardless of the size of your company.