In this article
The EU Pay Transparency Directive ((EU) 2023/970) requires every employer in the EU — including a three-person kitchen hiring its first cook — to state a pay range or a starting salary in a job vacancy, and bans asking a candidate what they earned in their previous job.
The Directive dates from 2023 and gave member states two years to transpose it into national law. That window closed on 7 June 2026 — now over two months ago — and the European Commission has confirmed there will be no extension. Even so, at the time of writing the large majority of member states missed that deadline: a handful of countries, including Slovakia, Italy, Lithuania and Malta, have transposed the Directive in full; Belgium, Ireland and Poland have done so partially; most other member states are still at draft-bill stage or have published nothing at all.
What almost every article about this Directive tells you is that the heaviest obligation — an annual or three-yearly report on the gender pay gap — only kicks in at 100 employees, and even then not until 2027 or 2031. That is correct, and it is exactly why so many independent operators close the tab after the first paragraph. The problem is that two entirely different obligations — no more asking about salary history, and a pay range in your job ad text — apply to every employer, from employee number one, whether or not your own country has finished transposing the Directive.
This guide works through the seven numbers behind the Directive one at a time, in the order they hit your business: first what already binds you regardless of size, then what only becomes relevant once your business grows. At the bottom, check your own next job ad against a small tool that tells you exactly where you stand.
This article describes an EU Directive; it is not legal advice. Transposition varies by country and, in mid-2026, is still very much in motion — check the exact wording of the implementing law in your own country, or ask a lawyer or your payroll provider, the same way you already would for the rules on flexi-jobs.
Why you assumed this was not your problem yet
The reason every newsletter about this Directive opens with the gender pay-gap report is not that it matters most to most employers. It is that it is the easiest part to explain: one clean threshold, one clean percentage, and a story about large companies that reads well. An obligation that applies from employee number one, with no threshold and no small-business exemption, makes a duller headline — but it is the obligation that changes your very next interview, starting today.
The distinction is simple once you see it. The Directive contains two families of rules. The first family covers how you hire: what a job ad must state, and what you may no longer ask a candidate. That family has no floor — it applies from your first employee onward. The second family covers how you report on the pay gap inside your existing team, and that one does carry a threshold, plus a timeline that only starts running in 2027.
For an independent hospitality business with anywhere from three to thirty staff, that means in practice: the reporting obligation is almost certainly never going to apply to you. The two hiring rules already do, starting with your very next vacancy — and that is exactly the part most summaries skip.
The 7 numbers, and what each one means for your business
The first three numbers apply to every employer, however small, and are already binding today. The next four only become relevant once your business grows considerably — for most readers of this page that stays a theoretical scenario, but it is worth knowing exactly where the line sits.
1. 7 June 2026
That is the date by which every EU member state should have transposed the Directive into its own national law — two years after it formally entered into force in 2023. The European Commission has confirmed there will be no further extension, and can open infringement proceedings against a member state that stays behind.
Even so, the picture on the ground in mid-2026 is patchy. Slovakia, Italy, Lithuania and Malta have by now transposed the Directive in full. Belgium, Ireland and Poland have transposed parts of it — often precisely the hiring rules, because those are the easiest to legislate separately. Most other member states are still sitting with a draft bill in parliament, or have published nothing at all at the time of writing.
None of that slows down what follows. A directive formally binds the member state, not the employer directly — but once a country finishes transposing it, that national law applies immediately, and in several countries with retroactive effect back to the deadline. And as above, a number of member states already have something in force. So do not wait for an announcement in your own country's press: check the status where you operate, and in the meantime assume the two rules below already apply.
The deadline has passed. Transposition has not. But two rules were never waiting on your country.
"Partial" usually means exactly the two hiring rules above — they are the easiest to transpose separately, and the first to take effect.
2. 0 employees
This is the number that reframes the whole subject. The gender pay-gap reporting duty — the one almost every article about this Directive opens with — carries a threshold of 100 employees. The two hiring rules carry no threshold at all. They apply from your very first employee, whether you are a sole trader hiring a second cook or a chain with ten locations.
That is not sloppy drafting, it is the point. EU lawmakers wanted to tackle the pay gap at the moment it is created — during hiring, when a salary is first agreed — rather than only measuring after the fact how skewed the distribution has become. A reporting duty only makes sense once a workforce is large enough to say something statistically meaningful; a rule about what goes in a job ad and what you may ask a candidate works exactly the same whether there is one employee or a thousand.
In practice: a three-person kitchen hiring its second cook falls squarely within the scope of the two rules below. There is no size floor beneath which your business is too small to have to follow them — and if you are still trying to make that hire in the first place, this Directive changes nothing about the challenge our article on finding restaurant staff describes, only what you are allowed to put in the ad.
3. 0 salary-history questions
That is the number of questions you may still ask about what a candidate earned in a previous job, or earns now. The Directive bans that question outright, in every form: not directly to the candidate, not through a reference check with a previous employer, and not through a roundabout question that amounts to the same thing.
The reasoning is that a previous salary is often already the outcome of a pay gap, and negotiating on top of it simply carries that gap forward to the next employer. The obligation is flipped around instead, and the responsibility sits with you: you must state the starting pay or a pay range in the job ad itself, or at minimum communicate it to the candidate before the first interview. What you may no longer do is wait for the candidate to reveal their current salary and negotiate from there.
In practice this is the easiest of the seven rules to comply with today: strike the salary-history question from your application form and your interview questions, and put a figure or a range in your next job ad instead. Our job-ad writer is built exactly around this — pay is the lever that drives the most applications, and stating a range is no longer just good advice, it is now the legal baseline.
4. 2 months
This number is not about candidates but about your existing team. Article 7 of the Directive gives every worker the right to formally ask what colleagues in work of equal value earn on average, broken down by sex. From the moment that request formally arrives, you have two months to respond.
That right is entirely separate from the 100-employee reporting threshold above — it applies to every employer, exactly like the hiring rules. The difference is that this is not about a job ad, but about an existing staff member demanding transparency about what the rest of the team earns for equal-value work.
For a small business this is today the least likely of the three universal rules to be triggered — but it is also the one you are worst prepared for if it is. A pay structure you can explain by role, seniority and responsibility, written down before anyone ever asks, is the only preparation that actually holds up.
5. 100 employees
This is the threshold below which the gender pay-gap reporting duty — the obligation most coverage of this Directive focuses on — does not apply at all. Below one hundred employees, you currently have no report to prepare or publish, full stop.
Cross it, and the timeline runs in three bands. Between 100 and 149 employees, you only have to report for the first time from June 2031, then every three years. Between 150 and 249 employees, that duty starts earlier, from June 2027, also every three years. From 250 employees, you report annually, likewise starting June 2027.
For the vast majority of independent hospitality businesses in Europe — from a single venue to a small chain of a few locations — this is genuinely good news that rarely gets said out loud: the reporting duty is a theoretical scenario you will most likely never reach. The two rules from numbers 2 and 3 above are what actually matters today.
Four rungs, rising by headcount. Most independent businesses stand on the bottom one.
Standing on the bottom rung? Then numbers 2 and 3 above are your entire homework. The rest of this page is worth knowing, not worth planning for today.
6. 5%
This number only comes into play once an employer is already above the 100-employee reporting threshold and has actually reported. If that report shows an unexplained pay gap of 5% or more between men and women in the same job category, or in work of equal value, the employer must give an objective, gender-neutral explanation — and if it cannot, a mandatory joint pay assessment follows, carried out together with worker representatives.
That makes this the most theoretical of the seven numbers for this page's audience: it presupposes a reporting duty that itself only starts at 100 employees. A kitchen, café or bistro that never comes close to that will never see this mechanism triggered at all.
The underlying logic is still worth applying regardless of the threshold: if you can explain, yourself, why two people in the same role are paid differently — experience, hours, responsibility — you stand on firmer ground in every conversation about pay, from a job interview to a pay review, long before any percentage ever comes into it.
7. 1 comparator
This is the number most underestimated by small employers, because — unlike the reporting threshold — it is not tied to headcount at all. Article 18 of the Directive governs the burden of proof in a pay-discrimination dispute, and it flips what you are used to entirely: one colleague of the other sex earning more for work of equal value is enough to shift the burden of proof from the worker onto you, the employer.
Normally, whoever files a discrimination complaint has to prove that discrimination occurred. Under this Directive it works the other way around the moment one visible pay difference exists: you then have to demonstrate that the difference is objectively justified — by role, experience, hours or responsibility — and not by sex.
This applies to every employer, from day one, at the smallest dispute — not only from 100 employees upward. The only defence that works is a pay logic you can already write down and explain today, not an explanation invented after the dispute has already started. A staff handbook that documents your pay policy is exactly the kind of thing that settles this conversation in advance.
Check your next vacancy
Fill in how many people your business employs, whether your draft job ad already states a pay range, and whether you were planning to ask a candidate what they currently earn. Everything runs in your own browser — nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored.
The checker first shows whether you meet the two universal rules, then where you land on the reporting ladder — usually reassurance, not extra work.
Pay transparency check
3 questions, an instant answer.
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This checker describes the core of the Directive, not a complete legal analysis. Exact transposition differs by country — check your own national law or ask a lawyer.
Notice that the first two rules in the checker never depend on the headcount you enter — that field only changes the bottom block, about the reporting ladder. That is the whole point of this article: the two rules already binding today are independent of your size, while the rules that do depend on size will most likely never touch most readers of this page.
Try changing the headcount and watch at which threshold the bottom block changes — most independent businesses will find that, even after real growth, remarkably little shifts.
What to do this week, this month and this quarter
You do not need to process seven numbers at once. This order covers what already matters today, and leaves the rest until it ever becomes relevant.
This week — your very next job ad
- Strike every question about current or previous salary from your application form and your interview questions.
- Put a salary or a pay range in the text of your next job ad, or agree that you will state it before the first interview.
- Rewrite that ad with our job-ad writer — it is built specifically around a stated, correct salary.
- Track every open application on one board with the hiring board, so nothing falls through the cracks.
This month — put your pay logic on paper
- Write down, for every role in your team, what determines pay: experience, hours, responsibility, seniority.
- Test that logic on two people in the same role earning different pay — can you explain the gap without referring to sex?
- Put that pay logic in a staff handbook, so it lives on paper, not only in your head.
- Keep that documentation on file: it is exactly what you would need if anyone ever asks about average pay by sex.
This quarter — track transposition in your own country
- Check the transposition status in your own country again — in mid-2026 it still shifts month to month.
- Ask your payroll provider or accountant whether a concrete national text now exists for your sector.
- If your business is growing towards multiple locations, keep the 100-employee threshold in mind now, not as next year's problem.
- Come back to this page once your country finishes transposing — today's two rules will not change, but the detail around them will.
Two rules, no threshold, already binding today
The gender pay-gap reporting duty that almost every article about this Directive opens with is, for the vast majority of independent hospitality businesses, a theoretical scenario — a 100-employee threshold most will never reach, on a timeline that only starts running in 2027. That is true, and it is exactly why it is not the part that deserves your attention today.
What does matter today fits in two sentences: put a salary or a pay range in your next job ad, and stop asking what a candidate used to earn. Neither rule carries a size floor, and both apply regardless of how far transposition has progressed in your own country.
Do that, put your own pay logic on paper in a staff handbook, and the rest of this Directive becomes exactly what it should be for most independent businesses: something worth knowing, not something worth losing sleep over today.