One year ago we published EU Pay Transparency Directive: A Compliance Framework for CHROs and Total Rewards Leaders. At the time, every organisation was planning against a single date: 7 June 2026.
That date has now passed. Only four of the 27 member states, Italy, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia, had their national law in place by the deadline. The rest are at very different stages, and a few have chosen to move slowly on purpose.
The obvious question is when each country will finish. For commercial leaders, there is a more consequential one: what each country counts as pay. That definition determines what appears in a job advert, what an employee can ask for, and what shows up in a gender pay gap report. For sales organisations, where commissions, accelerators and bonuses can make up half or more of total earnings, it decides whether the variable side of your plan is in scope or out.
This update covers where transposition stands, how the definition of pay is diverging across member states, and what that means for the way sales compensation is designed, documented and disclosed.
First, a plain definition. An EU directive sets goals every member state must reach, but it does not bind employers on its own. Each country has to pass its own national law to put the directive into effect, and that step is called transposition. Until a country transposes, its employers follow existing national law.
Italy, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia met the June deadline. Greece followed in July, with most obligations applying from 1 November 2026. Everyone else is somewhere between an early draft and a final vote.
Status (late October 2026)
Member states
National law in force
Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Greece
Bill before parliament
France (Senate, accelerated procedure), Denmark (rules from 1 March 2027), Netherlands (target 1 January 2027)
Draft published or partial law in force
Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Belgium, Cyprus, Latvia, Bulgaria, Estonia
Early stage
Germany, Hungary, Ireland
Paused
Sweden, pending a push to renegotiate at EU level
The narrow definition only changes what an employer must disclose on request; job adverts, and in most states pay gap reports, still draw on everything paid.
Member state
Status
How pay is defined
Slovakia (Act No. 76/2026)
In force
Broad, in line with the Directive. An earlier carve out for statutory entitlements was dropped. Reports must show the gap in variable pay and the share of men and women receiving it.
Malta (Legal Notice 173 of 2026)
In force
Mirrors the Directive. Candidates can request a written breakdown of fixed and variable components.
Greece (Law 5316/2026)
In force
Broad, in line with the Directive. Main obligations apply from 1 November 2026.
Lithuania (Law No. XV-969)
In force
Broad for pay. For information requests, pay level is gross annual salary built from fixed and continuous components only.
Italy (Legislative Decree 96/2026)
In force
Broad for pay and job adverts. Pay level for information requests covers fixed and continuous elements and excludes individual, discretionary or temporary payments.
Germany (expert commission report)
Draft expected
The government’s expert commission recommends actual pay rather than target pay, and excluding voluntary optional benefits and discretionary equity such as phantom stock.
Spain (draft Royal Decree)
Draft
A partial transposition that amends Spain’s existing pay register and pay audit rules. Reporting would start at 50 employees and include variable pay.
France (Bill No. 944)
Bill in parliament
Seven pay gap indicators would replace the current Gender Equality Index for employers with 50 or more employees. Remuneration includes benefits in kind.
In our Regulatory & Compliance article, we recommended designing to the most comprehensive jurisdiction in your footprint. A plan calibrated to the strictest requirements is compliant everywhere else.
The same principle applies to the definition of pay. Build your data, documentation and disclosure around the broadest definition, all fixed and variable components on an actual paid basis. Where a country allows a narrower view for a specific purpose, such as Italy’s pay level for information requests, you can apply it as a reporting filter. You cannot easily go the other way: a programme built on base pay alone has no clean path to reporting variable pay later.
The Directive applies to employers in EU member states. A group headquartered in London, New York or Zurich is in scope wherever it employs people inside the EU, and the obligations attach to each local employing entity, not to the group.
That has three practical consequences.
Global headcount does not set the reporting tier. A group with 20,000 employees worldwide and 180 in one EU country reports on that country’s 180, under that country’s thresholds and timetable. One group can sit in several tiers at once.
Size does not exempt you from everything. Pay gap reporting starts at 100 employees, and some countries go lower. Recruitment pay disclosure, the ban on asking about salary history, and employee information rights apply to employers of every size. A small EU sales office is in scope for all of them.
A global plan still needs local disclosure rules. Many groups approve one sales compensation design at headquarters and roll it out everywhere. That remains sensible. What changes is the layer around it: job advert wording, information request responses and the data feeding each country’s report all need to reflect local definitions of pay.
For technology hubs, shared service centres and regional sales teams in Central and Eastern Europe, timing deserves particular attention. Several of these countries are still drafting, which means local rules may arrive with short notice against a reporting year that has already run.
Pay transparency touches several elements of the Sales Compensation Growth Model. It is a direct input to Regulatory & Compliance, it shapes how Pay Mix is communicated to candidates, and it depends on the documentation discipline described in Administration and Governance.
The 2026 reporting year closes in a matter of weeks. These steps can be completed now, regardless of where each country stands.
Map every EU employing entity by country, headcount and reporting tier, and note which national laws are in force, in draft or pending.
Pull actual 2026 variable pay from payroll and your sales performance management system, at employee level, and confirm the two reconcile.
Reconcile target to actual by role, country and sex, and document the objective drivers of the difference.
Inventory every pay component, including commissions, accelerators, SPIFs, discretionary bonuses, allowances and benefits in kind, and tag each as fixed or variable, structural or individual.
Document the rationale for every exception paid in 2026, and review exceptions in aggregate for patterns.
Refresh job advert templates by country so the variable element is described wherever the broad definition applies.
Test your information request process by running one request end to end for a sales role, including variable pay.
Add a regulatory check to the annual plan review, so each new national law is reflected before the next plan year launches.
The deadline has passed, the reporting year is almost over, and the definition of pay is no longer theoretical. Most member states are converging on a broad definition that includes variable pay, with narrower carve outs for specific purposes. Sales organisations that design, document and report against the broadest definition will be ready wherever their people sit. Those that treat commissions and bonuses as a separate conversation will find that the law has already joined them together.
Read the EU Pay Transparency Guide
A practical reference on the Directive’s obligations and how to build compliance into your operations.
Prepare for Your First Report
Our pay transparency and pay equity work helps you map obligations, reconcile variable pay data and document your rationale before reports are due.
See the Full Framework
The Sales Compensation Strategy & Design Guide works through all 25 design decisions, including how to treat compliance as a design input across jurisdictions.
Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Requirements vary by member state and continue to change, so we recommend consulting an employment attorney in each jurisdiction where you operate. The points above are potential considerations for designing sales compensation plans, not a substitute for legal review.