🇳🇱 Netherlands amends pay-transparency bill and clarifies key employer duties

The Dutch Government has filed a Nota van Wijziging to bill 36 949 and published its detailed response to Parliament. The amendment fixes the salary-history burden-of-proof rule and a works-council reporting gap; the bill remains a draft targeting 1 January 2027.

The 2 September amendment expressly brings breaches of the salary-history prohibition within the bill's special burden-of-proof rule and corrects a WOR exception that unintentionally left a small group of employers outside works-council involvement in pay reporting. The accompanying Government response also confirms that pay/range information must be provided before salary negotiations, a job ad is not mandatory, workers must be notified annually about the information right, and employer management confirms report accuracy after works-council consultation. Reporting thresholds and first-report dates are unchanged.

Dutch employers can prepare against a clearer draft: provide pay/range information early enough for informed salary negotiations, remove salary-history questions, and build works-council consultation and reporting-control steps into the 100+ reporting workflow. Under the amended draft, a transparency breach including a salary-history breach can shift the burden of proof to the employer, subject to the bill's minor/unintentional-breach exception. These rules are not yet enacted.