What the directive says
Article 7 of Directive (EU) 2023/970 gives every worker the right to request and receive two things in writing:
- their own individual pay level, and
- the average pay levels, broken down by sex, for the category of workers doing the same work as them or work of equal value.
Workers shall have the right to request and receive in writing […] information on their individual pay level and the average pay levels, broken down by sex, for categories of workers performing the same work as them or work of equal value to theirs.
Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 7(1)
Read the full article in the official text on EUR-Lex. Each member state writes the right into its own law, so the details in your country may differ.
What it means in practice
Who can ask
Any worker, either directly or through workers’ representatives or an equality body. If the answer is inaccurate or incomplete, the worker can ask for clarification and is entitled to a substantiated reply.
What they receive
Their own pay level and the average pay of their category, separately for women and men. Pay level means gross annual pay and the corresponding gross hourly pay. The right covers averages, not the salary of a named colleague.
How fast the employer must answer
Within a reasonable time, and no later than two months from the request. National laws add their own details, such as how often a worker may ask.
What the employer must do every year
Tell all workers, once a year, that the right exists and how to use it.
No pay secrecy
Contract terms that stop workers from disclosing their own pay are prohibited. The employer may require that averages received through a request are used only to exercise the right to equal pay.
Country by country
When the right applies and how fast employers must answer depends on each country’s law. The table comes from our tracker and changes when a country’s law moves.
| Country | Pay information request right | Time to respond | What employees receive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | Pending | 2 months for individual information in Burgenland, Upper Austria and Styria. Burgenland clarification of incorrect/incomplete individual data: at most 2 months; reporting-data explanations: 4 weeks in Burgenland and Styria. | Burgenland: own and sex-disaggregated average pay of the employee's same/equal-value group; direct request or through representatives/equality commissioner. Upper Austria: same/equal-value group defined by pay-scheme placement, initially through representation/equality body. Styria: own and relevant-group averages by sex through the regional commissioner. Existing private GlBG report access is a separate internal reporting right. |
| Belgium | Pending | Flemish Article6: reasonable time, maximum2months after request. Article8reporting clarification: reasoned response within reasonable time. No matching French Community or federal individual-request SLA verified; do not generalise2months nationwide. | Flemish Article6: own individual level and sex-disaggregated averages within same/equal-value categories; Article3objective/gender-neutral grouping. French Community15/4annual written-information notice from2026. Flemish Article7category reporting also supplies preceding4years on request if available; this is distinct from the individual Article6request reference period. |
| Bulgaria | Proposed | 2 months initially; 14 days for justified clarification (proposed) | Own remuneration plus sex-disaggregated average remuneration for workers doing the same work or work of equal value; where disclosure risks identifying another worker's individual pay, information is routed via the enterprise union and/or Commission for Protection against Discrimination. |
| Croatia | Proposed | Proposed139.f(9):60days from request, written accurate/complete response; additional explanation within30days under139.f(10). Wording of(9)cross-refers only to(1), while proposed penalty228(1)(34)also covers(4); clarify receipt-output deadline consistency. | Proposed139.f(1),(4): own pay level and male/female average levels/annual90.a receipts for same-category equal/equal-value workers employed by that employer. Identifiability safeguards in139.l(4)-(5)route sensitive data through representatives/equality body. Litigation comparator evidence under135.a is broader and may span employers/time where same legal sources govern. |
| Cyprus | Proposed | Proposed Article8(2): reasonable period,maximum2months after individual request; reasonable additional clarifications under8(3)have no separately fixed deadline. Article10(10): explanations of reported pay-gap data due within1month. Draft only. | Proposed Article8: own individual pay and sex-disaggregated averages for same/equal-value categories. Article13(3)restricts identifiable third-party data to representatives,inspector or Ombudsman,who advise without disclosing actual individual comparator pay. Article24historic/cross-employer single-source evidence concerns litigation; Article10four-year history concerns reports. |
| Czechia | Partly in force | 2 months for initial information and justified clarification (proposed) | Own remuneration and sex-disaggregated average remuneration for the employee's work group (proposed). |
| Denmark | 1 Mar 2027 (proposed) | 2 months | Own individual pay level and sex-disaggregated average pay levels for the same work or work of equal value (proposed). |
| Estonia | Pending | 15 working days for a written explanation where an employee alleges §6(2) discrimination (SoVS §7(2)); TLS §28(2)(12) own-pay data has no separate statutory deadline identified. No Directive-style comparator-average response SLA is enacted. | – |
| Finland | 1 Jan 2027 (proposed) | 2 months | Own pay and sex-disaggregated averages for the same/equal-value worker group. If those averages would directly or indirectly identify another worker's pay, the proposed §6g routes the group information to a personnel representative or the Equality Ombudsman rather than directly to the requester; no fixed statutory minimum group size is specified. |
| France | Proposed | Proposal: private response period set by decree, capped at2months; public individual-information response period set by Conseil d’État decree. Neither is a currently operative transposed SLA. Separate explanations of reported indicators have decree-set deadlines. | Proposed L.1142-7: own pay and sex-disaggregated averages for the same equal/equal-value category. L.1142-7-1: employer withholds identifying third-party information and tells requester; it does not itself create an indirect equality-body response. Category reporting has a separate CSE-only privacy route. Article7historic/cross-employer comparators concern litigation evidence. |
| Germany | Pending | 3 months under the legacy non-tariff-employer procedure (§15(3)); other statutory procedures differ | Existing §§11-12,16: opposite-sex comparison within the same establishment/employer; generally more than200 workers; no comparator disclosure with fewer than6 opposite-sex comparators; tariff/statutory and non-tariff comparator routes differ. These disclosure limits do not restrict all equal-pay claims. |
| Greece | In force | 2 months | Own pay and sex-disaggregated same/equal-value category averages; CircularA.II requires active workers and consistent temporal/calculation bases for individual and comparator values. Identifiable-person data are restricted to representatives/Inspectorate/Ombudsman under Article 13, without disclosing individual coworkers' real pay. Historical/single-source comparators under Article 18 concern dispute proof, not an unrestricted information-request population. |
| Hungary | Pending | Unclear | Unclear |
| Ireland | Pending | No Directive-specific response deadline identified | – |
| Italy | In force | Written comparator information within 2 months; at most one request per year. Article 7(5) requires a reasoned clarification response but states no separate clarification deadline. | Sex-disaggregated average annual/hourly levels for same-work/equal-value categories under Articles3-4 and7. Article4(5) allows comparison across employers sharing a law/CCNL or multi-company group pay rules. Article11 restricts identifiable-worker pay to representatives/INL/equality bodies; advice to workers without revealing individual colleague pay. |
| Latvia | Proposed | 2 months | Proposed: employer-defined non-arbitrary categories doing the same work or work of equal value, using objective gender-neutral criteria with representatives where present. Litigation comparator rules in§15 can extend to a common pay-setting source and non-contemporaneous workers. |
| Lithuania | Pending | 1 month; supplementary explanations within 2 months of the original request | Same employer-defined same/equal-value job group, sex-disaggregated monthly and annual metrics. Identification-risk data go only to representatives, VDI or LGKT, which inform worker about>=5%gap without exposing identifiable pay. Litigation common-source comparisons underDK26(4) are broader than routine requests. |
| Luxembourg | In preparation | Unclear | Planned, not yet enacted: averages by sex for workers performing the same work or work of equal value; detailed grouping mechanics remain unpublished. |
| Malta | In force | 8 days in writing under6(2); representative may submit a follow-up within12 days after that period; unresolved/inaccurate/incomplete information at45 days from first request is an offence. Clarification under6(4)has no separately fixed response deadline. | Regulation6: own pay level and sex-disaggregated averages for equal/equal-value worker categories. Identifiable-pay information is restricted to representatives/Equality Body / Monitoring Body under19(3). Regulation8's cross-employer/single-source and historic comparator rules concern proof in discrimination proceedings, not an unrestricted employee data-access right. |
| Netherlands | Proposed | Within a reasonable period, at most2months for initial information (draft10b(3)); reasoned clarification under10b(2), with no separate express deadline there. Report explanations separately have a2month deadline under10c(6). | Draft10b(1): own individual pay level plus sex-disaggregated average levels for same/equal-value categories. Proposed11 permits single-source and noncontemporaneous/hypothetical comparisons. Government36949-6 rejects minimum-group withholding solely because colleague pay may be inferable; GDPR minimisation/security and equal-pay-only purpose remain (10f). |
| Poland | Partly in force | Without undue delay, at most 30 days for initial information and clarification (proposed) | Own pay level and sex-disaggregated average pay levels for workers performing the same work or work of equal value (proposed under UC127). |
| Portugal | Proposed | 2 months | Proposed Art3-A: own pay level and sex-disaggregated averages for equal/equal-value groups. Art2(1)(k)-(m): same-employer work/group definitions and objective grouping with representatives where applicable. Art4-D permits other evidence if same-employer opposite-sex comparator cannot be established; it does not automatically expand the information dataset. |
| Romania | Proposed | 30 working days | Proposed Art7: own pay and sex-disaggregated same/equal-value category averages. Arts3(2),18 permit wider single-source comparisons and non-contemporaneous/hypothetical evidence for proving discrimination; this is not an unrestricted cross-employer information-request dataset. Art11 restricts disclosure of identifiable colleagues' pay. |
| Slovakia | Pending | 2 months for the initial written response; 30 days for additional justified explanation/details if the information is inaccurate or incomplete. | Own pay level and sex-disaggregated averages for same/equal-value categories, formed under §2(1)(h)/§3 after representative consultation. Under §6(1)(b)/§10(3), identifiable coworkers' pay is restricted to representatives, inspectorate and SNSLP; workers receive advice without the protected averages/individual pay. Methodology §5.2 excludes former or fictional workers from current categories. Broader single-source/historical/hypothetical litigation comparisons under §13 are distinct. |
| Slovenia | Pending | Unclear | Unclear |
| Spain | Proposed | 2 months | Own pay level and sex-disaggregated average pay levels for categories performing the same work or work of equal value |
| Sweden | Not transposed | No Directive-specific response deadline identified | – |
How to prepare
- Group roles into categories of equal value using objective, gender-neutral criteria such as skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. Without categories there is no average to give.
- Agree on the pay definition. Annual and hourly gross pay, including the variable and in-kind components your national law counts.
- Plan for very small categories, where an average could point to one person. Some national laws set rules for this.
- Set up one request channel and a log, so every request gets a written answer within the deadline.
- Prepare the annual notice that tells everyone about the right and how to use it.
- Check contracts and policies for clauses that forbid employees from talking about their pay.
Questions employers ask
Evenpay keeps your job categories, pay data and request log in one place, so answers are calculated from the same data and each request can be tracked against its deadline. See how Pay Information Requests works.