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Last updated: September 24, 2026
June 7, 2026, marks the deadline by which the European Pay Transparency Directive was to be transposed into the national law of Member States. For thousands of Belgian companies, the rules are about to change: pay information for candidates, stronger information rights for employees, and reporting on the gender pay gap. Belgium, however, has not yet adopted its transposition law for the private sector. This guide explains what the directive practically imposes, to whom, according to what timeline, and why the real challenge is not legal, but organizational.
Pay transparency refers to an organization's ability to make the mechanisms that determine employee remuneration visible and understandable. It does not mean publishing everyone's salary on the intranet. It is something much more demanding: being able to explain, at every level of the company, why a specific position is paid at a certain level, according to what criteria, and how these criteria are applied consistently and non-discriminatorily.
Pay transparency covers three distinct dimensions:
Why did the European Union decide to legislate? Because voluntary approaches failed. According to Eurostat, the EU gender pay gap fell from 16.4% in 2012 to 11.1% in 2024: twelve years for barely more than five points. Yet, the principle of equal pay has been enshrined in European law since the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Since recommendations were not enough, Directive 2023/970 establishes binding obligations.
Directive (EU) 2023/970 of the European Parliament and of the Council, adopted on May 10, 2023, in Strasbourg, aims to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value. It is structured around four operational pillars.
Companies will have to inform candidates of the starting pay or its range, based on objective criteria. The directive lists several ways to do so: in the job ad, before the interview, or otherwise. Belgian law will specify the format and timing. A "salary depending on profile" with no reference point will therefore no longer be possible, although negotiation remains allowed, even outside the range. It will also be forbidden to ask candidates how much they earned in their previous job.
This represents a profound cultural shift for many Belgian recruiters. Salary negotiation can no longer rely on information asymmetry.
All employers, regardless of their size, must formalize and make accessible the objective criteria used to set salaries: classification grids, levels of responsibility, required skills, and seniority. Belgium may, however, exempt employers with fewer than 50 employees from the "pay progression" part. An employee can request to know the average pay level, broken down by gender, for the category of workers performing the same work or work of equal value. The employer must answer in writing within two months at most, and remind all employees of this right once a year.
This right to information transforms the individual relationship with salary. An employee who feels underpaid will now have the means to verify and demonstrate it.
This is the most structurally impactful obligation for larger companies. Companies with 250 or more employees will have to report on their gender pay gap every year. Those with 150 to 249 employees will do so every three years, and those with 100 to 149 employees every three years from 2031.
The report must include, among other things, the mean and median gender pay gap, the gap in variable pay, the proportion of women and men in each pay quartile, and the gap by category of workers.
If the report reveals a gap of at least 5% within a category of workers that the employer cannot justify with objective criteria and does not correct within six months, a joint pay assessment must be carried out with employee representatives, leading to corrective measures. This 5% threshold triggers an obligation to act, not a mere recommendation.
This is the most radical shift in the balance of power. The burden of proof lies with the employer: as soon as an employee presents facts suggesting discrimination, it is up to the employer to prove there was none. And if the employer has not met its transparency obligations, the burden of proof automatically falls on it.
Sanctions for non-compliance are significant. The directive requires Member States to provide for "effective, proportionate, and dissuasive" penalties, the amounts of which will be defined by Belgian national transposition. Added to this is the possibility of exclusion from public tenders and the obligation of full compensation for victims, with no upper limit.
Upon transposition of the directive into Belgian law, all companies without exception are affected by recruitment transparency obligations and the employees' right to information. There is no size threshold for these two aspects.
⚠️ Where does Belgium stand? (updated September 2026) For the private sector, the directive has not yet been transposed: no draft law was available in early September 2026. Work at the National Labour Council is on hold pending a preliminary draft from the federal government, and on June 1, 2026, Belgium asked the European Commission for a six-month extension. The Commission has refused to postpone or simplify the directive: transposition will happen, but its date is still unknown. In the public sector, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation adopted a decree on May 16, 2024, and Flanders is preparing its own. Without a Belgian law, private-sector employees cannot in principle invoke the directive against their employer: no new binding obligation applies to private employers yet. The 2012 gender pay gap law and the ban on pay discrimination, however, remain fully applicable.
For Belgian HR managers, part of the groundwork has already been laid. The 2012 law aimed at combating the gender pay gap already requires companies with an average of at least 50 workers to submit an analysis report on their pay structure to the Works Council every two years.
The European directive goes further: gap data will have to be sent to a national body, which will make it public and comparable across employers. The gap by category of workers will also have to be shared with all employees, not just their representatives. The difference is substantial.
This is where most companies will hit an uncomfortable reality. Meeting the obligations of the directive requires having a structured, documented, and defensible pay policy. For many companies with 200 to 600 employees, this is simply not the case.
Salaries have often been built organically over time: individual negotiations, profile-based adjustments, informal seniority, and recruitment pressures on certain roles. The result is a compensation architecture that no one truly controls.
Publishing data on such an architecture means exposing oneself.
1. A Documented and Gender-Neutral Job Classification :The directive requires pay structures based on objective, gender-neutral criteria. Every position must be evaluated based on objective criteria: level of responsibility, skills required, working conditions, and effort. These criteria must be written, accessible, and applied consistently.
2. Salary Grids by Job Level : This does not necessarily mean publishing every individual salary. It means defining ranges per level, aligned with the classification, and being able to explain where each employee sits within their range and why.
3. An Internal Audit of Existing Gaps : Before being forced to do so under legal pressure, do it yourself. Identify gender pay gaps within each category of comparable functions. Distinguish between justifiable gaps (seniority, performance) and unjustifiable ones. Address the latter before they turn into legal disputes.
4. Training Managers for Salary Conversations : Pay transparency will directly affect teams. The directive does not make individual salaries public, but it bans pay secrecy: employees will be able to know the average for their category, and colleagues will be free to share what they earn. An employee who notices a gap with a colleague at the same level will raise it with their manager. This manager must be equipped to explain the gap or escalate it if the discrepancy is indeed unjustified. Without training, this conversation will either be avoided or prove catastrophic.
Prepare for these questions. They are coming.
If you do not have a documented, consistent answer to these four questions, now is the time to work on them.
Legal compliance is the floor, not the ceiling.
Companies that treat pay transparency as a strategic lever rather than an administrative burden achieve measurable results in engagement and retention. The mechanics are simple: transparency reduces uncertainty, and uncertainty is a major driver of disengagement.
In Belgium, the perception gap is clear: according to an SD Worx survey published in December 2025, 52% of SMEs say they have a transparent internal pay policy, but only one in four SME employees agrees. In larger organisations, it is about one in three. In a labour market where attracting and retaining talent is a matter of survival for many companies, this is a hard signal to ignore.
Only 1 in 4 Belgian SME employees sees their company's pay policy as transparent. (SD Worx, 2025)
We must call out the risk. Enforced transparency without proper preparation can create more tension than it resolves. Discovering a pay gap without an explanation fuels distrust. The directive creates an obligation of result. The path to get there is a managerial decision.
Pay transparency is not just an HR compliance topic reserved for lawyers and payroll managers. It is an organizational diagnostic. It forces an answer to a simple, and often uncomfortable, question: do you really know how salaries are structured in your company? And can you explain it to your employees?
Three priority actions for Belgian HR managers, starting now:
This is precisely where eBloom can help you: by regularly measuring the perception of fairness and transparency within your teams, you gain a leading indicator before the directive forces your hand. Internal data is your best steering tool before it becomes an external obligation.
From HR digitalization to AI integration and new employee expectations, the human resources sector is rapidly changing. Based on responses from over 450 Belgian companies, our report gives you a head start to prepare your teams and strategy for the realities of tomorrow.
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