Poland: Implementation of the EU Pay Transparency Directive moves closer

Employer Action Code: Act

The draft bill aims to fully transpose the provisions of EU Directive 2023/970 on right to information and pay gap reporting into national law. The law is expected to take effect on June 7, 2026, but could be subject to change before it is finalized. Separately, amendments to the Labor Code (effective December 23, 2025) introduced new pre-employment disclosure requirements (see the article Pay transparency in recruitment coming to Poland in 2025).

Key details

The draft bill includes the following provisions: 

• Temporary workers: The current draft provides that temporary agency workers should be included in right to information and pay gap reporting, with the employment agency providing the relevant details to the employer-user
• Equal work and categories of workers: Employers would be required to identify work of equal value based on the criteria in the Poland’s Labor Code (i.e., skills, effort, level of responsibility and working conditions) and any additional criteria identified by the employer. These would also form the basis of categories of workers. The employer needs to consult with the company labor union(s), for a minimum of five days and a maximum of 15, on the criteria and category of workers. The Polish government have published draft guidance on job evaluation to complement the draft regulations
• Transparency on pay setting: Companies with 50 or more employees would be required to make information on the criteria used to determine pay, pay levels and pay progression accessible to all employees
• Right to information: Workers would be entitled to request information on average pay levels, broken down by gender, for categories of workers performing work of equal value; employers would have 30 calendar days to respond. Employers would need to notify workers of their right by March 31 each calendar year
• Reporting obligation: Employers with 150 or more workers must submit their first “entity-level” gender pay gap report to the monitoring body by June 7, 2027, for June 7 to December 31, 2026. Thereafter any required gender pay gap report would need to be submitted by March 31 for the prior calendar year. Likewise, the reporting of Category of Worker pay gaps to workers and their representatives must be submitted by March 31 each year. The Polish government has received significant feedback on the truncated initial period of June 7 to December 31
• Joint pay assessment (JPA): The employer must verify to the company labor union(s), or elected employee representatives in the absence of labor unions, that any category of worker pay gaps of over 5% can be justified or have been remedied within the given six months. If the employer and employee representatives are unable to agree on the justification or on the remedial action, then a JPA is required. The current draft regulations therefore give employee representatives, not the employer, control over whether a JPA is needed

Employer implications

According to Eurostat, in 2023 the unadjusted gender pay gap was 7.8% in Poland versus the EU average of 12.0%. These developments are a significant shift in pay equity obligations for Polish employers. While the initial recruitment-related requirements are relatively straightforward, the imminent rules on right to information and gender pay gap reporting include a few significant extensions to the directive that would affect the level of work and engagement with employee representatives if taken forward in the final regulations.

Contacts

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Krzysztof Gugała

Associate Director, Rewards Data Intelligence

email Email phone +48 501 130 007

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Tamsin Sridhara

Global Pay Equity Lead

email Email

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Eva Jesmiatka

Europe Pay Equity Lead

email Email phone + 44 20 7170 2039

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