Poland publishes new draft legislation implementing the Gender Pay Transparency Directive

At a glance

• A new draft law dated 29 April 2026, implementing the majority of Poland's outstanding obligations under the Gender Pay Transparency Directive (Directive) has recently been published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre.
• According to the draft, the new regulations will come into force six months following their official publication.
• This means that Poland will not fully meet the Directive's implementation deadline of 7 June 2026 (albeit that some Directive obligations covering recruitment did take effect in December 2025).
• The new draft law introduces a number of changes compared to the previous version published at the end of last year, including: detailed provisions on the definition of pay; new provisions on the criteria to be used to assess the value of work; clarity on the treatment of temporary workers; an increase of the maximum fines for non-compliance to PLN60,000; and designating the relevant competent authorities.

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A new draft law dated 29 April 2026, implementing the majority of Poland's outstanding obligations under the Gender Pay Transparency Directive (Directive) has recently been published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre.

The latest version of the draft law on pay transparency introduces a number of significant amendments compared to the December 2025 version, which are aimed both at clarifying existing provisions and at strengthening the enforcement mechanisms.

Implementation date

First and foremost, the new version postpones the entry into force of the legislation by providing that it will not take effect for six months, calculated from the date of promulgation, in order to allow employers sufficient time to adapt to the new obligations. This means that Poland will not be fully compliant with the Directive by 7 June 2026. For now, pending the adoption and promulgation of the new laws, the exact entry-into-force date is not yet known.

Work of equal value

The new draft law now makes a clear distinction between mandatory and optional criteria for assessing the value of work. Mandatory criteria include skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions, while other criteria may be applied on a supplementary basis, in particular when defining employee categories.

At the same time, it is expressly stated that, when carrying out a job evaluation, employers must apply the same criteria, as well as any sub‑criteria and additional criteria, uniformly to all jobs and all types of work, thereby reducing the risk of arbitrary or selective differentiation.

The Minister responsible for labour, in consultation with the equality body, will make available on a website an analytical tool or method designed to support the process of assessing and comparing the value of work in a specific post or the value of a type of work.

A further major new element is the introduction of a mechanism which applies in the event of a deadlock in negotiations between employers and trade unions regarding the job evaluation criteria, which exceeds 30 days. In these circumstances, although the employer can then apply the mandatory criteria temporarily pending agreement (and may also apply the supplementary criteria), the employer is required to notify the competent regional Labour Inspector of the failure to agree. This effectively strengthens the preventive and supervisory role of the State Labour Inspectorate.

Pay structures

The new draft legislation also introduces a separate chapter for 'pay structures', providing a more systematic framework for understanding the different components of remuneration and how they interrelate.

These provisions are relevant both to the assessment of the gender pay gap and to the fulfilment of employee information obligations.

The draft bill provides that gross annual remuneration must be calculated on the basis of the actual remuneration received by an employee during a given period. Importantly, the provisions state that remuneration does not include equal cash or in-kind benefits received by all employees or made available to all employees without any conditions for their receipt, as well as benefits related to the termination of the employment relationship.

The provisions also states that when calculating the level of remuneration for a given employee, employers should take into account the remuneration for the period during which the employee worked for that employer in a given calendar year.

Temporary workers

The new draft bill provides that all pay transparency obligations will apply to employers that use temporary workers and employment agencies will have to provide the end-user employer with all the information they need in this regard. This means that end-users – not employment agencies - will have to include temporary workers in the calculation of their employee thresholds.  However, employment agencies will (in addition to the end user) also have to meet the obligations in respect of employees' right to request pay information, and the annual reminder of this right.

Right to pay information

In respect of employees' right to request pay information, the new draft bill confirms that pay should be calculated for the 12-month period for which pay was made, preceding the month in which the request was submitted. 

Where an employee believes they have received inaccurate or incomplete information they must specify the scope of the data which, in their opinion, requires supplementation.

The initial request, and any request for clarification, must each be responded to by the employer within 30 days.

Pay secrecy

The new draft bill also clarifies the disclosure of individual pay information. It explicitly provides that an employee may disclose information about their own remuneration regardless of the purpose of the disclosure, removing interpretative doubts that arose from the December draft bill.

Gender pay gap reporting

The new draft legislation significantly revises the rules governing gender pay gap reporting obligations. To determine whether an employer meets the employee thresholds, a new definition of annual work units has been introduced for the purpose of calculating the number of employees (using a specified formula), and the detailed scope of gender pay gap indicators to be included in the report is to be specified in a secondary regulation. These changes are intended to standardise the reporting methodology and enhance data comparability.

Under the new draft, employers that have:

• 250 or more employees must report gender pay gap data annually.
• 100 to 249 employees must report every three years.
• Fewer than 100 employees may report every three years. 

In each case, the reports must be published by 31 March of the relevant year.

The first reports for employers with 150 or more employees must be submitted by 7 June 2027, for the period from the date on which the new law enters into force until the end of the calendar year in which it enters into force. For employers with 100 – 149 employees, the first deadline will be 7 June 2031.

Employers must confirm the accuracy of the information contained in the pay gap report within 30 days of the date on which the pay gap report was drawn up (after consulting with any trade union representatives for no more than 14 days).

Remediating pay gaps

Under the new draft legislation, if an employer's gender pay gap report shows that the gap is at least 5% in absolute value in any category of employees and is not justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria, the employer will be required to take effective remedial action by 30 September of the calendar year in which the gender pay gap report was submitted.  Unjusitifed pay gaps of less than 5% must be corrected within eight months.

If no effective remedial action is taken, the employer will have to carry out a joint pay assessment in consultation with the workplace trade union organisation, and where there is more than one workplace trade union organisation at the employer’s premises, in consultation with all those organisations, by 30 November of the calendar year in which the pay gap report was submitted.

When implementing measures resulting from the joint pay assessment, employers will have to take effective remedial action within a period not exceeding 10 months from the date of providing the information from the joint pay assessment.

Designated competent authorities

The new draft legislation also explicitly identifies the competent public authorities for the purposes of compliance with the relevant obligations: the Equality Body will be the Commission for Counteracting Discrimination in Employment, while the Monitoring Authority will be the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment.

At the same time, the competences of public authorities, in particular the State Labour Inspectorate and the Commission for Counteracting Discrimination in Employment, have been expanded. Their supervisory, analytical and procedural powers have been strengthened, including the ability to act on behalf of employees in proceedings concerning breaches of the principle of equal pay.

These strengthened powers are complemented by a stricter sanctions regime, with the maximum administrative fine now also increased to PLN60,000.