What employers need to know before June 2026

The draft Act on strengthening the right to equal pay introduces clear and enforceable obligations for employers. While equal pay is already a legal principle, this proposal focuses on how employers must prove compliance in practice through job evaluation, pay transparency, reporting, and corrective action.

Below is an easy overview of the most important points for employers.

Want to know more about the implementation in Poland? Watch our latest webinar on the topic.

1. Job evaluation becomes mandatory

Employers will be required to carry out job evaluations for positions or types of work. These evaluations must be based on objective and gender-neutral criteria such as skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Where relevant, soft skills must also be taken into account.

This means employers need a structured and documented approach to determining which jobs are equal or of equal value. Informal or historical job classifications will be difficult to defend. Employers without a clear job architecture or grading system should expect this to be one of the most significant changes.

The draft law also foresees support, as the minister responsible for labour must provide an analytical tool to help employers perform job evaluations.

2. Pay-setting rules must be clear and documented

Employers must define objective and gender-neutral criteria for setting pay, pay levels, and pay increases. Employees must have access to this information.

For employers with fewer than 50 employees, there is still an obligation to explain pay increase criteria upon request within 14 days.

In practice, this requires employers to move away from undocumented discretion. Pay decisions can still reflect performance or competence, but the criteria must be clear, consistent, and explainable.

3. Employees gain a right to pay information

Employees will have the right to request information about their own pay level and about average pay levels for women and men in the same category of employees performing equal work or work of equal value.

Employers must respond in writing within 30 days. If the information is incomplete or unclear, employees may request further explanations.

This requires employers to be able to group employees into defensible categories and to generate reliable pay data for those groups. Poor data quality or unclear categorisation increases legal and operational risk.

4. Pay secrecy rules are largely removed

Employers may not prevent employees from disclosing information about their pay for the purpose of enforcing equal pay rights. Any contractual or internal rules that restrict this are invalid.

Employers should review employment contracts, internal policies, and confidentiality clauses to ensure they do not unlawfully restrict pay discussions.

Poland was an early adopter of the Directive. Read about their implementation journey here:

Poland to Implement the EU Pay Transparency Directive

5. Gender pay gap reporting becomes mandatory for many employers

Employers with at least 100 employees must prepare a gender pay gap report. Smaller employers may do so voluntarily.

The report must include detailed information, such as average and median gender pay gaps, gaps in variable pay, gender distribution across pay bands, and breakdowns by categories of employees.

Reporting frequency depends on employer size. Larger employers will report more often. Reports must be submitted electronically and certain data will be published by a monitoring body, allowing comparisons across employers and sectors.

This increases transparency and reputational exposure, especially where pay gaps cannot be clearly explained.

6. A 5 % pay gap triggers action

If a gender pay gap of at least 5 percent appears in any employee category and cannot be justified by objective, gender-neutral reasons, the employer must take corrective action within six months.

If no effective action is taken, the employer may be required to carry out a joint pay assessment with trade unions or employee representatives. This assessment must analyse the causes of the gap and define concrete remedial measures.

The process is designed to move employers from identifying gaps to actively correcting them, with employee-side involvement.

7. Data protection still applies but does not remove obligations

Pay data collected under the Act may only be used to enforce equal pay. Where information could reveal an individual’s pay, access must be limited to specific parties such as trade unions, labour inspectors, or the equality body.

Employers must balance transparency with data protection by carefully designing categories, reports, and access controls.

8. Enforcement and sanctions are strengthened

The draft law introduces fines ranging from PLN 3,000 to PLN 50,000 for failures such as not conducting job evaluations, not providing pay information, not reporting, or not taking corrective action.

If an employer breaches pay transparency obligations, the burden of proof may shift to the employer to show that pay differences are objectively justified.

Compensation for employees must be at least the minimum wage and may include pay arrears, benefits, lost income, and interest.

9. What employers should start doing now

Employers should begin preparing well before the law enters into force on 7 June 2026.

Key steps include building or formalising job evaluation and grading systems, documenting pay and pay increase criteria, defining employee categories for equal work or work of equal value, ensuring payroll and HR systems can produce required pay gap data, reviewing contracts and policies for pay secrecy clauses, and preparing for consultation with trade unions or employee representatives.

Final takeaway

This draft law shifts equal pay compliance from principle to practice. Employers will be expected to show, with data and documentation, how pay is set, how jobs are evaluated, and how pay gaps are identified and corrected. Early preparation will significantly reduce legal, financial, and reputational risk once the rules take effect.