Malta: Pay transparency on recruitment coming in 2025

Employer Action Code: Act

Legal Notice 112 of 2025 amends Malta’s Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Regulations (part of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act) and partially transposes EU Directive 2023/970 on Pay Transparency, focusing specifically on the directive’s pre-employment and access to information during active employment requirements. Overall, the directive aims to ensure equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women by giving employees extensive new rights to information about their own pay and the pay of their male and female peers. Malta’s amended act will come into force on August 27, 2025, two months after its official publication and 10 months ahead of the June 7, 2026 deadline for all EU member states to fully transpose the directive’s provisions into local law.

Key details

The two key provisions are:

• Employers must inform all job candidates about the position’s initial pay or pay range. In the event the employer is covered by a collective bargaining agreement, its provisions related to pay levels must also be communicated to job candidates. The information must be provided before employment starts, which differs from the EU directive where the information must be provided before the job interview
• Employers must respond within two months to written requests from active employees for details on their own pay level as well as the average pay levels for categories of employees performing the same work; unlike the EU directive, this does not extend to employees doing work of equal value. Under the amendments, “pay level” refers to gross annual pay and the corresponding hourly amount

Employer implications

Employers should review their recruiting and HR processes to ensure compliance with the upcoming requirements. Employers should also monitor future transpositions of other provisions of the EU directive. According to Eurostat, in 2023, Malta’s gender pay gap was 5.1% (versus the EU average of 12.0%).

Contacts

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Tamsin Sridhara

Global Pay Equity Lead

email Email

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Eva Jesmiatka

Europe Pay Equity Lead, WTW

email Email phone + 44 20 7170 2039

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