Poland: Draft Law on EU Pay Transparency | iGlobal Law

We wrote in an earlier article from July 2025 (Poland: First Steps Taken to Implement EU Pay Transparency Directive | iGlobal Law | Global Employment Law) that Poland was moving forward with their implementation of the EU Pay Transparency Directive (the Directive).

The government has now published the official draft law. It requires all employers to carry out objective, gender‑neutral job evaluations, classify roles into clear categories, and introduce transparent pay structures. Employees will also gain stronger rights to pay information.

Organisations with at least 100 employees must report their gender pay gap and take corrective action where a gap of 5% or more appears. In addition, all employers will face new information and consultation duties with trade unions or employee representatives.

It also reverses the burden of proof in equal pay claims and introduces significant fines for non‑compliance.

Below we set out the main obligations for employers and how they will affect businesses in practice.

Main Obligations of the Draft Law

Under the new draft law, employers:

Must conduct a job evaluation for each role using objective, gender neutral criteria (skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions) and agreed sub criteria, with the criteria set in agreement with the workplace trade union organisation.
Must create employee categories based on these criteria and consult the trade union on their proposed categorisation for between 5 and 15 days.
Must introduce transparent pay structures that clearly show how equal pay for equal work or work of equal value is ensured, while still allowing objectively justified pay differences.
Must set pay setting criteria, pay levels and pay progression rules in an objective and gender-neutral way and ensure employees can access this information, with employers under 50 employees only needing to provide pay progression criteria on request within 14 days.
Must allow employees to request information about their own pay and the average pay for their employee category (broken down by gender), provide this within 30 days, and offer further clarification where the information appears incomplete.
Must remind employees by 31 March each year of their right to request pay information.
with at least 100 employees must report their gender pay gap based on data from the previous calendar year and submit reports every three years (or annually for employers with 250+ employees) by 31 March.
Must take remedial action within six months where any employee category shows an unexplained gender pay gap of 5% or more and must carry out a joint pay assessment if these measures do not resolve the issue.
Must cooperate with trade unions (or employee representatives where no union exists) on agreeing evaluation criteria, consulting on categories, reviewing pay gap reports and methodology, designing remedial measures and conducting joint pay assessments.
Must comply with broad information obligations, including providing employees and trade unions with the gender pay gap report by 31 March each year and supplying it to the State Labour Inspection and the equality body within 14 days when requested.
Must not prevent employees from disclosing their pay where this is necessary to enforce equal pay rights, although employers may require employees not to use this information for unrelated purposes.
Will bear the reversed burden of proof in equal pay disputes, with employees no longer needing to demonstrate a likelihood of discrimination.
May face fines of PLN 3,000 to PLN 50,000 for failures such as not conducting job evaluations, not providing required information, not preparing pay gap reports, not implementing remedial measures, not conducting joint assessments, or including unlawful pay secrecy wording in workplace documents.

Key Challenges and Practical Implications

There are some key practical challenges for employers to consider, these are:

There may not be enough time for employers, especially large companies to fully implement the new requirements.
The draft does not specify the period for which employers must provide individual or average pay information when responding to an employee request.
The legislation introduces very tight timeframes, sometimes shorter than those in the Directive, increasing the risk of non‑compliance and fines.
Employers with strong trade union presence will face heavier cooperation requirements, while employers without active unions will find implementation more straightforward.
The legislation applies to temporary agency workers, with the main compliance obligations falling on the user employer rather than the agency.
Several cooperation duties lack clear procedural detail, including the scope and deadlines for consultation with social partners.
Practical processes remain unclear, such as the form or format of employee pay‑information requests.

Practical Recommendations for Employers

The Act enters into force in early June 2026, so employers should begin preparations immediately due to the scale of the changes and the risk of significant penalties and discrimination claims.

Employers should:

Develop an implementation plan tailored to their organisation and identify areas that need change or carry risk.
Carry out job evaluations and agree gender‑neutral criteria and sub‑criteria.
Create employee categories and ensure these reflect the agreed evaluation criteria.
Design pay structures that comply with the new requirements and update remuneration rules and processes.
Introduce internal processes for responding to pay‑information requests and managing reporting obligations.
Designate internal responsibility for pay‑transparency compliance and information obligations.
Review contracts and internal policies to remove any pay‑secrecy wording that will become void.
Collect workforce and pay data to assess whether gender pay‑gap reporting will apply, based on full‑time equivalent calculations.
Begin training HR teams, managers and leadership on the new obligations and on handling information requests.

This is a high-level general update only. Legal advice should be obtained on specific circumstances.