Pay Transparency – New Draft Bill Reveals the Scale of Changes Employers Must Prepare For

The current draft bill implementing the Pay Transparency Directive covers far more than merely reporting the gender pay gap; the new legislation will require employers to undertake a systemic overhaul of their remuneration policies.

The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy has referred for renewed public consultation a new version of the draft bill of 29 April 2026 on strengthening the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women for equal work or work of equal value, implementing Directive (EU) 2023/970 of the European Parliament and of the Council. The new draft replaces the previous version dated 12 December 2025. The deadline for transposition of the Directive expires on 7 June 2026, but the Polish law will not enter into force by that date. Given the six-month vacatio legis period, the first obligations for employers will arise at the earliest several months after the publication of the Act.

The new regulation goes far beyond the existing scope of obligations in the area of remuneration and requires a carefully considered restructuring of remuneration systems, recruitment policies, and rules governing cooperation with employee representatives. The key changes, described in more detail below, include:

• Mandatory job evaluation: employers will be required to assess the value of work for all positions based on objective, gender-neutral criteria; in unionised workplaces, such criteria must be agreed with employee representatives;
• New information obligations: employees will have the right to request information on individual and average pay levels by gender within their category of workers; employers will be required to remind employees annually of this right and to inform job candidates about salary ranges;
• Ban on pay confidentiality clauses: provisions in employment contracts, workplace regulations, and collective bargaining agreements restricting disclosure of one’s own remuneration will be null and void by operation of law;
• Gender pay gap reporting: mandatory for employers with at least 100 employees (annually for employers with more than 250 full-time equivalent employees and every three years for employers with 100–249 employees), with an extensive scope of data including, among other things, the median pay gap and pay quartile distribution;
• Joint pay assessment: triggered where a gender pay gap of at least 5% exists in any category of workers and the employer neither justifies nor eliminates it within the prescribed period; and
• Sanctions and new risks: fines ranging from PLN 2,000 to PLN 60,000, a reversal of the burden of proof onto the employer in discrimination disputes, and optional exclusion from public procurement procedures for entities with an unjustified gender pay gap exceeding 5%.

Job Evaluation and Pay Structure

According to the current draft bill, the assessment of the value of an employee’s work is to be based on four mandatory criteria: skills, effort, scope of responsibility, and working conditions, potentially supplemented by additional employer-defined criteria. These criteria are to be applied uniformly across all positions.

In workplaces where trade unions operate, the evaluation criteria must be agreed with the trade union. If no agreement is reached within 30 days, the employer may temporarily apply only the mandatory criteria, but must notify the regional labour inspector of this fact. The subsequent classification of positions and determination of employee categories will also be subject to consultation obligations, meaning that the preparatory process will require dialogue with employee representatives even before the actual reporting process begins.

Right to Information and Ban on Confidentiality Clauses

An important new employee entitlement is the right to request from the employer information about the employee’s own individual pay level and the average pay levels by gender within the employee’s category of workers. The employer will have 30 days to provide an up-to-date written response covering data from the previous 12 months. Importantly, the draft does not limit how frequently employees may submit such requests. Moreover, employers will be required to remind employees of this right at least once a year.

At the same time, the draft introduces an absolute prohibition on preventing employees from disclosing their own remuneration, meaning that any provisions in contracts, workplace regulations, or collective bargaining agreements restricting such freedom will be null and void by operation of law.

The draft also expands the catalogue of offences against employee rights. Once the new provisions enter into force, offences will include, among other things, failure to provide job candidates with remuneration information in accordance with Article 18³ca of the Polish Labour Code introduced in December 2025, as well as the use of non-gender-neutral job titles in recruitment advertisements. Importantly, the definitions of “remuneration” and “work of equal value” in the Labour Code will also be clarified.

Gender Pay Gap Reporting

The gender pay gap is an entirely new concept in Polish labour law. It is the percentage difference between the average (or median) remuneration of men and women within a company. It is calculated as follows: the average salary of women is subtracted from the average salary of men, the result is divided by the average salary of men, and then multiplied by 100%. For example, if men earn an average of PLN 10,000 and women earn an average of PLN 8,500, the gender pay gap amounts to: (10 000 − 8 500) / 10 000 × 100% = 15%.

The gender pay gap reporting obligation will apply to employers employing at least 100 employees (calculated in annual work units, including temporary agency workers on the user employer’s side). Employers with at least 250 employees will be required to report annually, while employers with 100–249 employees will report every three years.

Reports will have to be submitted electronically to the monitoring authority by 31 March of a given year. The scope of the required data is extensive and includes, among other things, the gender pay gap (separately for total remuneration and variable components), the median pay gap, the percentage of employees receiving variable remuneration components, pay quartile distribution, and – most importantly – the pay gap broken down by categories of workers. Detailed formulas for the indicators are to be specified in a separate regulation.

Joint Pay Assessment

Where the gender pay gap analysis reveals the irregularities specified in the draft legislation, a joint pay assessment will be required. The joint assessment procedure is triggered by the cumulative fulfilment of the following three conditions:

• the report shows a gender pay gap of at least 5% in any category of workers;
• the employer has failed to justify the gap on the basis of objective, gender-neutral criteria; and
• and the employer has failed to implement effective corrective measures by 30 September of the year in which the report was submitted.

The joint assessment is carried out in consultation with trade unions (or employee representatives) by 30 November and includes an analysis of the causes of pay disparities as well as the identification of corrective measures. The employer is required to implement those measures within no more than 10 months from completion of the assessment, which in practice may involve revising remuneration policies, changing promotion rules, or implementing a new job evaluation system.

Sanctions, Burden of Proof, and Public Procurement

In order to ensure effective enforcement of the new regulations, the legislator intends to introduce an entire range of new instruments into the Polish Labour Code. Breach of the obligations arising under the Act will be punishable by a fine ranging from PLN 2,000 to PLN 60,000. An employee whose right to equal pay has been violated will be entitled either to compensation for non-material damage of no less than the statutory minimum wage or to damages covering full recovery of unpaid remuneration and benefits in kind, compensation for lost profits, and default interest.

A key change also concerns the rules governing the burden of proof in cases involving unequal treatment in remuneration. Where an employer has breached pay transparency obligations, the burden will rest on the employer — regardless of the extent to which the employee has substantiated the claim — to demonstrate that the differentiation was based on objective, gender-neutral reasons. Departure from this rule will only be possible if the employer proves that the breach was clearly unintentional and insignificant. Claims will become time-barred three years from the date on which the injured party became aware, or could reasonably have become aware, of the violation.

The draft also amends the Public Procurement Law and the Concession Contracts Act by introducing a new optional ground for excluding contractors whose gender pay gap exceeds 5% in absolute terms in any category of workers and cannot be justified by neutral criteria. A contractor may avoid exclusion if, within six months of submitting the report, it eliminates the pay gap or provides a valid justification for it.

Entry into Force

The Act is to enter into force six months after its publication. The first gender pay gap report will cover the period from the date the Act enters into force until the end of that calendar year and will be submitted:

• by 7 June 2027 – by employers employing at least 150 employees; and
• by 7 June 2031 – by employers employing between 100 and 149 employees (for the preceding calendar year).

What Should Be Done Now

The scale of the proposed new obligations is so significant, and the process of agreeing job evaluation criteria with employee representatives so time-consuming, that organisations which begin preparations only after the Act is promulgated may fail to complete implementation before the deadline for the first report (7 June 2027 for employers with at least 150 employees). The latest version of the draft already contains sufficiently concrete solutions to enable organisations to begin planning the necessary changes.

Based on our experience to date, including supporting employers within corporate groups where gender pay gap rules already apply, we recommend undertaking parallel actions in the following areas:

• Conducting a remuneration structure audit: inventorying positions, reviewing criteria used to differentiate remuneration, and identifying remuneration components that cannot be justified on the basis of objective and gender-neutral criteria;
• Developing a job evaluation system: preparing evaluation criteria and categories of workers, taking into account the obligation to agree or consult them with employee representatives; importantly, the system should reflect the actual working realities within the organisation;
• Reviewing documentation: amending employment contract templates, remuneration regulations, workplace regulations, and recruitment advertisements, including the removal of pay confidentiality clauses and the adaptation of recruitment processes;
• Preliminary calculation of the gender pay gap: carrying out simulations of the indicators subject to reporting obligations in order to identify areas of risk and prepare any necessary corrective measures before the first report is submitted;
• Training managers and HR personnel: providing substantive preparation for individuals responsible for remuneration decisions and recruitment processes, with particular emphasis on the new prohibition against asking candidates about their salary history, the obligation to provide salary ranges before recruitment interviews, and the principles of ensuring objectivity in decisions concerning pay rises and promotions;
• Developing a procedure for handling employee information requests: preparing response templates and a workflow for requests concerning information on individual remuneration levels and average remuneration levels by gender for categories of workers performing work of equal value — within a period not exceeding two months; and
• Integrating the new rules with existing anti-discrimination and whistleblowing policies: ensuring consistency between the new procedures and existing anti-bullying and anti-discrimination regulations, as well as whistleblowing channels, including the possibility of anonymously reporting irregularities relating to remuneration.

Our employment law team actively monitors the progress of the legislative process and supports clients in preparing for the new obligations — from audits and the development of job evaluation criteria, through dialogue with employee representatives, to the review of internal documentation and training. If you would like to discuss the implications of the proposed regulations for your organisation, we encourage you to contact our legal team.