🇧🇬 Bulgaria files Government-approved pay-transparency bill in Parliament

Bulgaria’s Government-approved Directive 2023/970 bill has been formally filed in the National Assembly. The filed text confirms recruitment and worker-information duties, 100+ reporting, a 5% joint-pay-assessment trigger and staged reporting/JPA dates; the bill is not yet law.

The filed bill advances Bulgaria beyond the May consultation draft and provides the controlling parliamentary text. It confirms salary/range disclosure and a salary-history ban, objective gender-neutral pay criteria, a two-month worker-information right with annual notice, 100+ reporting to the Commission for Protection against Discrimination, annual reporting for 250+, triennial reporting for 100–249, and a 5% joint-pay-assessment trigger where the gap is unjustified and remains uncorrected for six months. General provisions would take effect on State Gazette promulgation if enacted unchanged, while reporting/JPA starts 7 June 2027 for 150+ employers and 7 June 2031 for 100–149.

Bulgarian employers can now prepare against a much more concrete parliamentary proposal: recruitment pay-disclosure and salary-history controls, objective pay/progression criteria, annual worker-rights notices, a two-month information workflow, and same/equal-value category data. Employers with 150+ should prepare 2026 payroll/category data for the proposed 2027 reporting phase. The text can still change in Parliament, and the detailed reporting/assessment method will depend on an ordinance after promulgation.