June 7, 2026, was supposed to mark the transposition into French law of the European directive on pay transparency. That date has passed, but the French law has not yet been enacted.
For HR directors, this does not mean either “everything is already mandatory” or “we still have two years to do nothing.”
The main European guidelines are well known: providing information to candidates, clearer compensation criteria, employees’ right to information, and enhanced reporting.
The real question now is: What is certain, what still depends on French law, and which projects can we reasonably start without delay?
Status Update as of August 30, 2026
Directive (EU) 2023/970 was adopted on May 10, 2023, and was to be transposed by Member States no later than June 7, 2026.¹
France did not meet this deadline. On August 25, 2026, the Minister of Labor announced that the bill would be presented to the Council of Ministers on September 9, 2026.²
The minister mentioned a vote before the end of 2026 and implementation beginning January 1, 2028, but this timeline has not yet been enshrined in law.²
The European directive aims to strengthen the enforcement of the principle of equal pay for women and men for the same work or work of equal value.¹
This last concept is essential. Two employees do not necessarily have the same job title even though they perform work of comparable value.
To analyze these discrepancies, the company must therefore be able to describe and compare its jobs based on objective criteria. This is where the issue goes far beyond simply listing a salary in a job posting.
Behind transparency lie much more fundamental questions: How are jobs classified? Why is a certain salary level associated with a particular position? What criteria determine career advancement?
In 2024, in the French private sector, women’s average wage was 21.8% lower than men’s. The gap was 14.0% on a full-time equivalent basis and narrowed to 3.6% for the same job performed at the same workplace.⁴ These three figures reflect different realities. In particular, the 3.6% gap cannot be interpreted as a pure measure of wage discrimination: INSEE specifies that certain individual characteristics, such as experience or seniority, are not taken into account in this comparison.⁴ The directive therefore seeks not so much to produce a single figure as to make the gaps more visible and their justifications more verifiable.
The timeline should be divided into two categories: what the European Union has already definitively adopted, and what France has yet to incorporate into its domestic law.
| Status | What We Know |
| Certain | Directive (EU) 2023/970 has been adopted, and the deadline for its transposition expired on June 7, 2026. |
| Certain | European requirements pertain, in particular, to hiring, employee communication, compensation criteria, and the reporting of discrepancies. |
| As of August 30, 2026 | France has not yet enacted its implementing law. |
| Announced | The bill is scheduled to be presented to the Cabinet on September 9, 2026. |
| Contemplated | The Minister of Labor mentioned that the measure would take effect on January 1, 2028. |
| To be confirmed | The exact terms for replacing the current index, any additional French thresholds, and the specific rules governing penalties. |
This distinction is important. A draft proposal or ministerial statement allows for planning ahead, but should not be presented as a rule that has already been adopted and is in effect.
The French timeline may still change as part of the transposition process.
It all depends on the specific requirement in question. Contrary to a common misconception, the 100-employee threshold applies to European reporting, not to the entire regulatory framework.
| Requirement set forth in the directive | Threshold specified in the directive |
| Information on Compensation During the Hiring Process | No specific threshold |
| Prohibition on Requesting a Candidate’s Salary History | No specific threshold |
| An Employee's Right to Certain Information Regarding Compensation | No specific threshold |
| Transparency of the criteria used to determine compensation | No specific threshold |
| Annual Reporting | 250 or more employees, effective June 7, 2027 |
| Reporting every 3 years | 150 to 249 employees, effective June 7, 2027 |
| Reporting every 3 years | 100 to 149 employees, effective June 7, 2031 |
The directive also allows Member States to require companies with fewer than 100 employees to file reports. It also provides for the possibility of exempting employers with fewer than 50 employees from the requirement regarding the accessibility of criteria for pay increases.¹ The French transposition must therefore be read carefully before establishing the final scope.
The directive stipulates that the candidate must be provided with the initial salary level or range early enough to allow for informed negotiations. This information may, for example, be included in the job posting or provided prior to the interview.¹
In other words, “mandatory salary disclosure in all job postings” is an oversimplification. French law may go further when transposing the directive, but that is not exactly what the European text says.
Employers will no longer be allowed to ask a candidate about the compensation they currently receive or received in previous jobs.¹ The goal is simple: to prevent any past undercompensation from serving as a starting point for future negotiations.
This will require a review of application forms, interview guidelines, and certain recruitment practices.
Employees must have easy access to the criteria used to determine their compensation, their compensation level, and their career advancement.
These criteria must be objective and non-sexist.¹ This is probably the most fundamental challenge.
A policy that currently relies on “the manager’s experience,” “the expected level,” or “industry norms” will need to be sufficiently formalized to explain why two jobs are comparable and why two salaries may legitimately differ.
Employees will be able to request information about their individual pay levels as well as the average pay levels—broken down by gender—for categories of workers performing the same work or work of equal value.¹
This does not mean, therefore, that an employee can ask, “Exactly how much does my coworker Pierre earn?” The information provided consists of average figures by category, not the publication of individual salaries.
For the companies concerned, the reporting requirements set forth in the directive include seven items of information, including the overall pay gap, the gap in variable compensation, the median gaps, and the gaps by employee category.¹
When an average disparity of at least 5 percent arises in a category—and cannot be justified by objective, non-gender-biased criteria—and is not corrected within six months, a joint compensation review must be conducted with employee representatives.¹
A 5% discrepancy does not, therefore, automatically constitute “discrimination.” It is the combination of several conditions that triggers the provision.
Transparency does not mean making all salaries public. Rather, it aims to restore balance in access to information.
Once the law is implemented, a job candidate will be able to negotiate without having to disclose their previous salary. Employees will also have access to new information to help them understand how their pay compares to that of people doing similar work.
The directive also strengthens the rules regarding the burden of proof. When an employer has failed to comply with certain transparency obligations set forth in the directive, the employer will bear the burden of proving the absence of discrimination, except in cases of clearly unintentional and minor violations.¹
In France, there is already a shift in the burden of proof in cases of discrimination: the employee must present evidence suggesting that discrimination occurred, and it is then up to the defendant to justify its decision with objective evidence unrelated to any discrimination.⁵
This lends new importance to the traceability of salary decisions: criteria, job classifications, history of raises, and justification for discrepancies.
This is precisely one of the areas where a distinction must be made between the directive and future French law. The directive requires member states to provide for effective, proportionate, and dissuasive penalties, including fines.
It also provides for full compensation for damages suffered by an employee in the event of a violation of the principle of equal pay, with no predetermined cap.¹
It also requires States to ensure compliance with equal pay requirements in public procurement and allows for the exclusion of certain bidders from a procurement process in the event of violations that meet the specified conditions.¹
However, the exact amounts of future French penalties have not been finalized as of August 30, 2026. The figures taken from draft versions of the bill should therefore not be presented as penalties that are currently in effect.
FALSE. June 7 was the deadline given to France to transpose the directive. As of August 30, 2026, the French law has not yet been adopted.²
IN PART. The directive requires that information regarding the level or range of compensation be provided sufficiently in advance, but allows for it to be disclosed in the job posting, prior to the interview, or by other means.¹
FALSE. The 100-employee threshold applies to reporting requirements. Several transparency obligations set forth in the directive do not have a workforce threshold.¹
FALSE. The right to information specifically covers average pay levels broken down by sex for the same work or work of equal value.¹
FALSE once the directive has been transposed. The European text explicitly prohibits this practice.¹
FALSE. Today, French companies with at least 50 employees are still required to calculate and publish their Index each year.³
FALSE. The 5% threshold is part of the joint assessment mechanism provided for in the directive, along with two other conditions: the absence of an objective and non-sexist justification, and the failure to take corrective action within six months.¹
It’s understandable to wait for the final French text before changing a clause or a form. But it’s much less understandable to wait to find out where compensation data is located or how jobs are classified.
Fixed salary, variable pay, bonuses, job category, position, location, history: Do you really know how to generate a reliable and comparable overview of this information?
Before generating any reports, you must be able to consolidate your compensation data and identify inconsistencies. An HRIS software can facilitate this consolidation. It does not determine for you what constitutes a legally justified discrepancy.
To compare jobs of equal value, we still need to know what each job actually entails.
Outdated job descriptions, different titles for the same position, and categories inherited from multiple acquisitions: this project can be particularly time-consuming in a mid-sized company.
Start with the major job categories and the criteria that truly set them apart: skills, responsibilities, job requirements, or level of autonomy.
Why does one person receive a raise while another does not? What criteria determine a pay increase? Who can make an exception to the pay scale, and why?
The quarksUp module allows you to manage your compensation and NAO campaigns, with data accessible by entity, branch, or team, and tracking of pay raise campaigns.
When compensation depends in part on individual or group goals, consideration must also be given to the rules governing performance-based compensation : a criterion is only truly justifiable if it is understandable, enforceable, and well-documented.
Don’t wait for the first official report to discover an anomaly. Calculate the variances for a few job categories, then ask yourself the most useful question: Could we explain this result to an employee, an employee representative, or an auditor?
The goal is not simply to identify a discrepancy. It is to verify whether the rationale for it is based on accessible data and a consistent criterion.
Review job postings, ATS forms, and interview guides. In particular, identify questions about previous compensation and prepare how you will communicate the proposed compensation.
The Recruitment module can be used to post your job openings and to streamline the process from a single platform.
Transparency can bring to light discrepancies that are known but have never been formally documented. It can also reveal differences that are perfectly justifiable but have never been explained.
We must therefore address both aspects: correcting what needs to be corrected and explaining what can be explained. A pay scale does not become credible simply because it exists in a file. It becomes credible when HR, managers, and employees understand the logic behind it.
A single-site company with a single database does not approach the issue in the same way as a group consisting of ten companies, multiple collective bargaining agreements, and different payroll systems.
In a mid-sized company, challenges often start with the small details:
The primary goal, therefore, is not necessarily to standardize all compensation. It is to make the data comparable and the rules understandable. A group-wide pay scale can certainly retain local variations, provided that the reasons for those variations are understood.
This is also where a system capable of consolidating compensation data by company, location, and employee group offers more value than a series of separate Excel files.
Will pay transparency be mandatory in France in 2026?
The directive was to be transposed by June 7, 2026, at the latest, but as of August 30, the French law has not yet been adopted. Employers remain subject to the obligations already in effect in France, notably the Professional Equality Index for the companies concerned. The new measures will depend on the final French text and its implementation schedule.² ³
The final French schedule has not yet been finalized. The directive stipulates that candidates must be informed, early enough in the hiring process, of the starting salary or salary range for the position. This information may be provided in job postings or before the interview.¹
The directive requires companies with 250 or more employees to file reports starting in 2027; companies with 150 to 249 employees must file reports every three years starting in 2027; and companies with 100 to 149 employees must do so starting in 2031.
This monitoring is based on several indicators related to pay gaps and requires reliable data on employees and job categories.¹
A change to the Index is planned as part of the transposition process, but the final details have not yet been adopted. For now, companies with at least 50 employees must continue to calculate and publish the indicators currently required; therefore, existing practices should not be interrupted pending the future law.³
No. Employees will be able to obtain information about their own pay levels, as well as information on average pay levels—broken down by gender—for people performing the same work or work of equal value. This does not, therefore, involve accessing individual payroll data or a coworker’s specific salary.¹
The directive requires member states to provide for effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions, as well as a right to compensation in cases of discrimination.
However, the specific measures applicable to French companies will depend on the implementing law: the amounts and terms of the penalties should not yet be considered final.¹
Start by ensuring the accuracy of payroll data, clarifying job and position classifications, and then formalizing the rules for setting and adjusting salaries.
It is also necessary to review recruitment practices, the quality of available information, and the ability to produce future reporting indicators.
An HR management tool can then help consolidate and monitor this data over time.
The first step is to verify the availability and quality of payroll data, information on job positions, employee categories, variable components, and the various locations.
This preparation then facilitates the generation of future metrics and minimizes the need for manual adjustments during the reporting process.
An initial audit can focus on existing rules, the extent to which they are formalized, and how they are actually applied within teams. The goal is, in particular, to identify practices that are difficult to explain, poorly documented decisions, and discrepancies between stated rules and their implementation.
The legal validity of the arrangement must be assessed based on the company’s specific circumstances.
This is often helpful. Outdated or overly general job descriptions make it difficult to compare jobs and justify differences in pay. Updating them also helps to better document the responsibilities, expected skills, and levels associated with each position.
Recruitment, salary increase campaign management, payroll data, and performance management tools are among the first processes to review. It is important to verify what information is collected, who can modify it, and whether it remains consistent across the various HR systems.
Managers will need to be able to apply common rules and explain their decisions consistently. It is therefore helpful to provide them with simple guidelines, review certain management practices, and clarify what information can be shared with employees. The quality of this preparation will be just as important as the tools used.
Pay transparency is not about publishing a large table listing all salaries. Above all , it requires companies to be able to answer three simple questions: How are jobs compared? How are salaries determined? And how are pay gaps justified?
The more these responses are based on implicit habits today, the more important it is to get started early.
Do you want to organize and better manage your compensation data?
1. European Parliament and Council of the European Union, Directive (EU) 2023/970 of May 10, 2023, on pay transparency.
View Directive (EU) 2023/970 on EUR-Lex
2. LCP - National Assembly, “Pay Transparency: The Bill Transposing the European Directive Was Presented to the Council of Ministers on September 9,” August 25, 2026.
Read the article by LCP - National Assembly
3. Ministry of Labor and Solidarity, “Professional Equality Index: Calculation and FAQs,” updated June 30, 2026.
View the official FAQs on the Professional Equality Index
4. INSEE, “The Gender Pay Gap in 2024,” INSEE Focus No. 377, February 26, 2026.
View the INSEE study
5. Labor Code, Article L1134-1, Légifrance.
View Article L1134-1 on Légifrance
