The EU wants salary transparency. Which countries are closest to getting there?

Sweden is preparing for a new era where people’s salaries will no longer be a secret.

The Nordic nation is on track to become one of the first countries in the European Union to be ready to implement the bloc’s 2023 pay transparency directive. Under the new rules, companies operating within the EU will be required to disclose salary information when advertising job vacancies and will be prohibited from asking candidates about their pay history.

Employees will also have the right to request information from their employers about average salaries for coworkers with similar duties.

The rules aim to “combat pay discrimination and help close the gender pay gap in the EU,” according to the Council of the European Union. In 2023, women in the EU earned on average 12 per cent less than men, according to Eurostat. In Sweden, the gap was 11.2 per cent.

Last month, the Swedish government announced it would present a bill to implement the new EU requirements in January 2026.

A government-appointed inquiry in 2024 concluded that Sweden should amend its existing Discrimination Act rather than create a new law to comply with the EU directive.

Legal experts in Sweden say the law already contains regulations on salary audits and other measures aimed at creating equality between men and women.

“But these are internal documents, so reporting externally will be a novelty for Swedish companies,” Sanna Lindgren, a managing associate at DLA Piper Sweden, a global business law firm, told Euronews Next.

Lindgren said Sweden has a history of "over-implementing" EU initiatives and is unlikely to settle for the minimum requirements.

“Instead, we expect that Sweden will go beyond minimum requirements and also require, for example, structured cooperation with employee representatives and broader reporting duties for employers with 100 or more employees,” she added.

The new legislation also reflects a growing trend among Swedes towards openness about pay.

According to a survey from the Swedish job search platform Jobbland, 42 percent of Swedes are willing to share their salary information and want all salaries to be publicly disclosed in the workplace.

However, as written the new law will not entitle workers to access the individual salaries of their colleagues.

Several other EU countries have already presented draft bills as the deadline for member states to transpose the directive into national law approaches in June 2026.

Last month, for example, Slovakia presented its own draft pay transparency law. The government chose to introduce a standalone pay transparency act instead of amending the existing labour code.

The draft law is pending approval from the Slovak cabinet later this month. 

Meanwhile, the Finnish government’s working group published draft legislation to amend its equality act in May, and the Dutch government’s bill, presented in March, has been pending parliamentary approval since the government collapsed in June.

Regional governments in countries such as Belgium have also taken steps toward implementing pay transparency rules.