24 November: Equal Pay Day: wage transparency for women and men

24 November 2025 was Equal Pay Day in the Netherlands: the day of the year when men have earned on average as much as women in a whole year. How can the European Directive on wage transparency ensure that men and women are paid equally?

From Monday 24 November until the end of the year, women in the Netherlands are symbolically working “for free”. Things seem to be moving in the right direction: the date in 2025 has been moved ten days closer to the end of the year. But we are still a long way from 31 December. This is a good reason to reflect on the status of legislation relevant to equal pay for men and women.

Directive on wage transparency between men and women

The Social and Economic Council describes the unequal pay of men and women for the same work as “a persistent problem”: figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) for 2024 show that the average hourly wage for women is still 10.5% lower than that for men. This is despite the fact that wage discrimination has been prohibited in the Netherlands since 1975. A major cause of this persistent pay gap is the lack of transparency around pay.

That is why the European Directive 2023/970 of 10 May 2023 (hereinafter: the Directive) came into force on 7 June 2023. The aim of this Directive is to increase transparency about the remuneration of men and women in order to combat wage discrimination against women. Employees are often unaware of whether colleagues in equal or equivalent positions with the same number of years of experience earn more or less than them.

The rules of this Directive must be incorporated into national legislation by 7 June 2026 at the latest. The bill that regulates this for the Netherlands is the Act implementing the Directive on pay transparency between men and women. We have listed the most important changes for you below.

Pay structures

Employers must establish pay structures based on objective and gender-neutral criteria, such as skills and responsibilities. Employers must use the pay structures to establish categories of employees who perform equivalent work.

With the entry into force of the bill, the consent of the works council will be required for various aspects of the remuneration policy. These include:

• the remuneration structure or job evaluation system;
• the objective and gender-neutral criteria underlying the pay structure;
• the classification of employees into categories;
• the way in which unjustified pay differences are addressed;
• the evaluation of remuneration.

It is striking that the European directive does not require the works council to actually approve the pay structure; consultation, for example, would have been sufficient. However, the Dutch legislator has opted for this. The first three points mentioned above must be agreed with the works council before reporting and evaluation.

Companies with 150 or more employees – which are the first to be subject to the new reporting obligation – would be wise to involve the employee participation body in a timely manner when drawing up or revising the remuneration structures for the various job categories. This will prevent delays and ensure that the policy is widely supported.

Transparency

The directive obliges employers to provide applicants and employees with relevant information about salary and remuneration policy:

• Employers must inform applicants about the starting salary or remuneration scale. This information must be included in the job advertisement or provided before salary negotiations. In addition, employers are not allowed to ask about salary history. This is to prevent existing wage discrimination from continuing with new employers.
• Employees are entitled to information about the criteria that are used to determine workers’ pay, pay levels and pay progression.
• Employees are entitled to request written information about their individual pay level and the average pay levels broken down by sex, for workers within equivalent job groups at the employer. The employer must provide this information no later than two months after the date on which the request was made.

Reporting obligation

Employers with at least 100 employees must report on the gender pay gap within their organisation. This involves data on the average pay differences within the organisation. Lower-level regulations will specify exactly which pay components employers are required to report on.

Employers must also report pay differences between categories of employees who perform the same or equivalent work and communicate this internally within the organisation. The frequency of reporting depends on the number of employees employed by the employer:

• 100 to 149 employees: every 3 years, with the first report due no later than 7 June 2031.
• 150-249 employees: every 3 years, with the first report due no later than 7 June 2028.
• 250 or more employees: every year, with the first report due no later than 7 June 2028.

If the report shows that the pay gap cannot be objectively justified, employers must take measures to remedy the difference within a reasonable period of time.

In the case of pay differences of 5% or more in a category of employees that cannot be explained on the basis of objective criteria and that have not been remedied within six months of the report, employers must carry out a pay evaluation in order to resolve unjustified pay differences.

Supervision and enforcement

Employee representatives, such as the works council, have a role to play in internal checks.

The Netherlands Labour Authority will monitor compliance with the new rules. For each violation, the Labour Authority can impose a fine of up to EUR 10,300 (the maximum amount for 2026 may differ) per employee.

Date of entry into force

It is expected that the Netherlands will not meet the deadline of 7 June 2026. According to the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, more time is needed to shape the national rules and their implementation in such a way that employers can effectively fulfil their obligations. The target date for entry into force is currently 1 January 2027.

Employment and dismissal lawyer

Companies must already start preparing for how this legislation will be implemented and how they can comply with it. Russell Advocaten will be happy to advise you on this matter. You can also contact us if you have any other questions or disputes regarding employment law. Please contact us: