The Directive · Germany
Status in Germany.
Germany transposes the Directive by revising or replacing the Pay Transparency Act (EntgTranspG). This page tracks the status and what it means in practice.
Current transposition status
As of 25 September 2026 · Status may change
- Germany missed the 7 June 2026 deadline. Until a new law is in force, the existing EntgTranspG continues to apply. KPMG Law
- In a written answer published on 16 July 2026, the Federal Government said the lead ministry (BMBFSFJ) has prepared a bill for a low-bureaucracy transposition, is still clarifying individual questions, and will then start the legislative procedure. Bundestag, hib 587/2026
- Public-sector employees may, under certain conditions, rely on the Directive directly. For private employers, courts must read existing law in line with the Directive; how far they will go is open. KPMG Law
Recommendations, not law
What the government commission recommended
The commission's final report of 24 October 2025 recommends, by majority:
As of 25 September 2026 · Status may change
| Topic | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Reporting scope | Reporting only for employers with at least 100 employees, with digital templates from the government |
| Pay basis | Actual pay paid, not target pay; voluntary extras and benefits without a link to work performance excluded |
| Hourly pay | Calculated on contractual hours |
| Right to information | Once a year, on the previous year's gross pay; no detailed breakdown by component |
| Work of equal value | No German definition beyond Art. 4; science-based job evaluation tools not mandatory |
| Co-determination | No new co-determination rights; the works council acts as worker representative in the joint pay assessment |
| Collective agreements | No agreement on privileging bound employers or on a presumption of adequacy; only relief when forming worker groups and longer deadlines |
KPMG Law, commission recommendations (updated 9 June 2026) Bundestag, hib 587/2026 (16 July 2026)
What changes relative to the EntgTranspG
As of 25 September 2026 · Status may change
The EntgTranspG gives an individual right to information only in organisations with more than 200 employees; the Directive applies to all employers (Art. 7).
Pay ranges must be shared with applicants before the interview (Art. 5), which the EntgTranspG does not require.
Reporting changes from a narrative report for employers with 500+ staff that publish a management report (§ 21 EntgTranspG) to defined metrics for employers from 100 staff (Art. 9). A joint pay assessment follows unjustified gaps of 5% or more (Art. 10).
§ 4 (5) EntgTranspG presumes collectively agreed pay is adequate. Whether collectively agreed pay keeps a privilege is open. The government commission could not agree on privileges or a presumption of adequacy for employers bound by collective agreements; the final law decides.
The German commission recommended excluding voluntary benefits from pay more broadly than the European Commission's FAQ suggests; the final law decides.
What to do now, regardless of the final law
Waiting doesn't save the groundwork.
- Build one clean job inventory.
- Evaluate jobs with an analytical, gender-neutral method.
- Define pay bands for every grade.
- Write down your pay progression rules.
- Calculate your gap by worker category once, before you have to.
- Combine pay data from all sources into one dataset.
- Involve the works council early.
The groundwork is the same whatever the final law says.
Start the groundwork now