BNR reports that employer organisations, including AWVN, warn that many companies are not ready for the EU pay transparency rules. SMEs in particular risk getting stuck. Not because employers oppose transparency, but because execution is missing: objective job clusters, complete reward data, reliable 5% checks on base pay and gross hourly pay and a process for pay information requests. That is exactly the gap Payqual is built for.
Last update: May 13, 2026 · Reading time: 4 minutes
Directive (EU) 2023/970 obliges employers to do three things most SMEs have never done. On top of those three sits the keystone of the whole law: the 5% threshold that reverses the burden of proof.
Ban on asking about pay history. Salary range mandatory in the vacancy or before the interview.
Every employee may request their own pay and the average pay levels by gender within their job category.
Employers with 250+ staff report annually (first report by 7 June 2027 covering 2026). 150–249 every three years, also starting in 2027. 100–149 every three years from 2031.
Above a 5% unjustified difference in base pay or gross hourly pay within a job category, a mandatory joint pay assessment with the works council (OR) follows (WGBMV art. 10d; directive art. 10), with reversed burden of proof (art. 18).
The law is workable for multinationals with an HR analytics department. For a manufacturer with 140 employees and a single HR advisor, it isn't. Three concrete execution problems:
The directive requires objective, gender-neutral grouping based on skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions (art. 4). Who belongs in the same group as the senior technician? Three subjective choices in and you're 5% off.
A fair comparison corrects for tenure, education, performance and part-time factor. A raw average produces false positives and false negatives.
Personal data shouldn't leave the HR environment unnecessarily. That rules out the consultant's standard Excel sheet.
The debate often centres on the formal deadline. For HR, the real question is more practical: can you already explain today which jobs are equivalent, which reward components count and why a gap is or is not objectively justified? At many companies, the answer is still no.
Many organisations have job titles, but no objective, gender-neutral clustering based on skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. Without that clustering, pay gaps cannot be compared fairly.
Salary, variable pay, allowances, car benefits, budgets and working hours are often spread across HRIS, payroll and separate files. The directive requires one auditable reward picture.
A base pay or gross hourly pay difference below or above 5% is only useful if you can show which factors were weighed. A raw Excel export is too fragile for that.
That is why waiting for the final Dutch legal text is risky. The execution basis must exist before the first report or the first pay information request.
The warning from AWVN and other employer organisations is not only about timing. It is mainly about execution. Companies have to do two things at once that often do not yet exist in HR processes:
Describe their job architecture objectively and gender-neutrally.
Test differences in base pay or gross hourly pay within those clusters against the 5% threshold.
That is the link with Payqual: software makes this repeatable. Not one report for one deadline, but a working system for job clusters, data integrations, 5% checks on base pay and gross hourly pay, substantiation and pay information requests.
Three steps you can take this month, even without the law definitively gazetted. They also yield reusable building blocks: what you do now for the job architecture, you'll reuse for pay information requests and reporting.
Two people with the same title may belong in different clusters. Two people with different titles may belong in the same cluster. Start with the four statutory factors in art. 4.
Bonuses, company car, work-from-home allowance, study budget — anything that counts as "remuneration" under the directive has to be in. Not just the gross monthly salary.
Waiting until the first report means you'll have no time to correct differences in base pay or gross hourly pay within the six months art. 10d gives you before a joint pay assessment becomes mandatory.
Because the obligations require more than a legal memo or salary export. Employers must group jobs objectively, complete reward components, test differences in base pay or gross hourly pay and substantiate answers to information requests. Many SMEs do not yet have the data, processes and tooling in place.
Reporting on 2030 requires your job architecture, pay policy and data registration to be in order by 1 January 2030. Building an objective, gender-neutral job architecture takes one to two years; data integrations with AFAS or Visma three to six months; a works council consent track on pay policy another three months. Anyone reporting in 2031 must begin by 2028 at the latest. Moreover, the right to information (art. 7) and the burden of proof (art. 18) apply independently of the reporting deadline.
AFAS and Visma are payroll administration systems: they deliver accurate gross amounts, variants and components. They do not deliver a job cluster classification based on art. 4 criteria (skills, effort, responsibility, working conditions). For the 5% threshold on base pay or gross hourly pay you need a layer on top of your HRIS that clusters, compares and substantiates the deviation objectively.
The reporting obligation starts at 100 employees. Pay information requests, gender-neutral job evaluation and burden of proof apply to every employer.
Female judges discriminated and companies failing to report: two news stories showing why pay transparency is urgent.
Back pay, fines, exclusion from procurement and talent loss. The full risk landscape of the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
Payqual helps companies exactly where AWVN warns they are exposed: from loose HR data to objective job clusters, 5% checks on base pay and gross hourly pay, reporting and information-request processes. This turns pay transparency from a one-off compliance project into a manageable process.