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 (Burgenland, Upper Austria and Styria regional public-service routes) | Upper Austria regional public service: own pay level plus sex-disaggregated average pay levels for the same/equal-value group, initially via a workers' representative or equality body. Styria regional public service: own pay information and average pay of the relevant employee group, broken down by sex, via the Styrian Equal Treatment Commissioner. |
| Belgium | In force | 2 months | Own individual pay level and sex-disaggregated average pay levels for workers performing the same work or work of equal value (Flemish public-sector scope). |
| 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 | Pending | No national rule identified | – |
| Cyprus | Proposed | 2 months | – |
| 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 | Not transposed | No national deadline identified | – |
| 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 | 10 Sep 2026 | Private sector: maximum two months from the request. Public sector: response deadline to be fixed by decree. | Own remuneration level plus sex-disaggregated average remuneration levels for workers in the same category performing the same work or work of equal value. Where disclosure could reveal identifiable third-party pay, an indirect response route is proposed. |
| Germany | Pending | 3 months under the legacy non-tariff-employer procedure (§15(3)); other statutory procedures differ | Statistical comparator and pay criteria under the existing Entgelttransparenzgesetz, generally in establishments with more than 200 employees |
| Greece | 1 Nov 2026 | 2 months | Own pay and sex-disaggregated averages for active workers doing the same/equal-value work, using the same temporal and calculation basis. |
| Hungary | Pending | – | – |
| Ireland | Pending | No Directive-specific response deadline identified | – |
| Italy | In force | 2 months, in writing; the request right may be exercised no more than once per year | Average pay levels, broken down by sex, for categories performing the same work or work of equal value. Art. 7 does not expressly reproduce the Directive's separate right to the worker's own individual pay level. |
| Latvia | Proposed | 2 months | – |
| Lithuania | Pending | 2 months | Own monthly hourly pay and sex-disaggregated average monthly hourly pay for employees in the same job category; annual hourly averages are added from 2028. |
| Luxembourg | In preparation | – | – |
| Malta | In force | 8 days | Individual pay level plus average pay levels broken down by sex for categories performing the same work or work of equal value. |
| Netherlands | Proposed | 2 months | – |
| 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 | Own individual pay plus sex-disaggregated average pay for worker groups performing equal work or work of equal value. |
| Romania | Proposed | 30 working days | – |
| 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 plus sex-disaggregated average pay levels for the category performing the same work or work of equal value, subject to a privacy restriction where another individual's pay could be identified. |
| Slovenia | Pending | – | – |
| 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 every answer is calculated from the same data and sent on time. See how Pay Information Requests works.