Pay transparency law 2026: what changes for you

For months everyone expected one thing: salaries would have to appear in job ads. On 5 August 2026 the Portuguese government published the text it wants to send to Parliament. That text does not require salaries in job ads.

This guide has been updated to tell you what the draft actually says, what already applies today, and what changes if the bill passes.

What changed on 5 August 2026

Portugal had to transpose Directive (EU) 2023/970 by 7 June 2026. It missed the deadline.

On 3 August the Minister for Labour, Solidarity and Social Security ordered the draft bill to be published in a Separata of the Boletim do Trabalho e Emprego, with a public consultation period of 20 days, citing the urgent need to publish the diploma.

Two things matter about this text:

• It presents itself as a partial transposition of the directive. It does not bring everything the directive foresees.
• It does not create a new law. It amends Law 60/2018, the Portuguese equal pay law, and also amends the Labour Procedure Code.

Salary in the ad: where the EU and the Portuguese draft part ways

This is the point where a lot of people were misled, this guide included until today.

The EU directive says the employer must inform the applicant of the starting salary or pay range in the vacancy notice or before the interview.

The Portuguese draft says something else. The new article 4-A gives the candidate the right to receive that information at a moment prior to the date the employment contract is signed. In other words, it can arrive at the very end, with the offer already on the table.

The draft adds that the candidate is also entitled to know, where applicable, the collective agreement provisions that apply to the position.

The company cannot ask what you earned before

Article 4-A(2) of the draft is direct: the employer cannot question candidates about the pay history of their current or previous employment relationships.

The logic is simple. When an offer is calculated from what you earned before, someone who was already underpaid stays underpaid for life. The role is worth a number, not whatever each person accepted in the past.

Breaking this rule is a very serious administrative offence under the draft.

Can they stop you talking about your salary?

Many contracts and codes of conduct include a pay secrecy clause. The draft handles that in one line of article 4:

Contract clauses or collective bargaining provisions that seek to prevent a worker from disclosing information about their pay are null.

Null means without any effect. It is not a clause to be applied with moderation: it simply stops counting.

[Depends on the case:] while the law is not published, such a clause can still be used by a company in a disciplinary case. If you are thinking of breaking a pay secrecy clause today, talk to your union or a lawyer first.

What you can ask the company for

The draft creates an information right that does not exist today with this clarity.

• Once a year, the employer must tell you that you can request your own pay level and the average levels, broken down by sex, for the group doing work equal to yours or of equal value, and how to make that request.
• Once you request it in writing, the employer has two months to answer.
• You can ask through workers' representatives or through CITE.
• In companies subject to reporting, you have the right to access the pay gap data by group of workers and to ask for further explanations, which the company must answer within 30 days.

Which companies report, and when

The draft requires companies with 50 workers or more to send the data needed to calculate seven indicators, among them the pay gap, the median gap, the gap in variable pay components and the proportion of women and men in each pay quartile. Agency workers on site count towards this threshold.

Frequency:

• 250 workers or more: every year.
• 50 to 249 workers: every three years.

Start dates in the transitional provisions:

A reading note: in this calendar the published text refers to paragraphs a) and b) of a provision that has no such paragraphs. It is an inconsistency in the text under public consultation and may be fixed before the final version.

This does not overturn the earlier version of this guide by accident: the "100 workers" cut off that used to be here came from the directive, not from Portuguese law.

The 5% rule

The path in the draft is this:

1. The labour inspectorate (ACT) finds gaps in average pay levels by sex and notifies the company to justify or present corrective measures within 90 days.
2. The ACT reviews the answer within 45 days. Gaps the company does not justify are presumed discriminatory.
3. If there is no justification and an unjustified gap of at least 5% remains, the company has 45 days to produce a joint pay assessment together with workers' representatives.
4. The company then has 90 days to implement the measures and report back to the ACT.

The joint assessment must include, among other items, the percentage of men and women who received a pay rise after returning from parental leave. That is a new and very practical point.

If you are punished for complaining

Today, Law 60/2018 presumes a dismissal or sanction to be abusive when it happens within one year of your request for a CITE opinion.

The draft changes two things:

• The presumption goes up to three years.
• It no longer depends on an opinion request: any complaint about failure to comply with equal pay rights is enough.

You still have one year, counted from the day after the contract ends, to exercise the rights linked to this protection.

In court, the draft lets the judge order full compensation for damages and interest even if you did not make a specific claim for it, and waive your court costs on fairness grounds even if you lose.

The deadline was missed. What now?

Portugal should have transposed the directive by 7 June 2026 and did not. That does not leave you with nothing.

What already applies today:

• Law 60/2018 requires the company to have a transparent pay policy, based on assessing job components against objective criteria common to women and men.
• If you allege pay discrimination, the company has to show that this policy exists and how your salary was calculated.
• You can ask CITE for an opinion, on your own or through a union representative. The company is notified to respond within 30 days and, if it does not provide the information, that counts as failing to justify the gaps.
• The ACT can notify companies with 50 or more workers to present a pay gap assessment plan within 120 days.
• Gaps the company does not justify are presumed discriminatory.

What Portuguese law still does not have: the duty to tell you the salary before you sign, the ban on asking your pay history, the nullity of secrecy clauses, and the annual information right about averages by sex.

[Common interpretation:] when a member state fails to transpose a directive, its clear and unconditional rules can normally be invoked against the state itself and against public bodies, but not directly against a private company. In practice, if you work in the private sector, your route today is still Law 60/2018 and the equality rules of the Labour Code.

What you should do now

• When applying, ask for the pay range in writing before the first interview. It is not yet a duty for the company, but the answer tells you a lot.
• If they ask what you earn today, you are not obliged to give the number. Answer with your expectation for the role.
• Keep everything: the ad, emails, the offer, your payslips. See how to read your payslip and what counts as pay.
• If you suspect a gap, ask in writing for the criteria used to set pay and progression. Then take it to CITE.
• If you are new to Portugal, start with your 10 basic rights as a worker and the working conditions the company must give you in writing.

To understand market reference levels, see also the guide to the 2026 minimum wage and the net salary calculator.

If it is your company that will have to comply: the real preparation window is short. With 250 or more workers, the first report points to June 2027 using the previous calendar year, which means the 2026 numbers are being built right now. Three things are worth sorting before the law lands: written pay and progression criteria that can be posted or published on the intranet, grouping of roles by equal work or work of equal value, and a review of pay secrecy clauses in contracts, which become null. See also the employer obligations checklist.

This guide is for information only and does not replace individual legal advice. The text of 5 August 2026 is a draft in public consultation and may change before the final version.