Broadly defined pay transparency has become the subject of numerous discussions in connection with the implementation into Polish law of Directive 2023/970/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council. Although full implementation of the Directive is still underway (and will likely take place later than originally anticipated), significant changes regarding recruitment have been in force since 24 December 2025. The first several months of applying the new regulations have demonstrated that, although the provisions themselves are relatively brief, they raise many interpretative doubts among both employers and candidates.

What must a candidate be informed of?

Under the new regulations, a job candidate should be informed of remuneration – its initial amount or range – based on objective and neutral criteria, particularly with regard to gender. By introducing the option of informing the candidate of a salary range, lawmakers responded to market realities, where the budget for a given position is often imprecisely defined and depends, among other things, on the professional profile of a specific candidate. In this context, however, it is important that the given range provide as specific a picture of the offer as possible. It cannot be excessively broad, as such a definition could be regarded as circumventing the law and failure to comply with the statutory obligation.

Importantly, the regulations refer to a broad definition of remuneration, covering all its components regardless of their name and nature, as well as other work-related benefits granted to employees in both monetary and non-monetary forms. This means that, in addition to the basic salary, recruiters should also provide candidates with information on applicable bonuses, awards, Christmas vouchers or meal vouchers (to the extent relevant to the recruitment in question).

In addition to financial information, the regulations also require that candidates be provided with information on “relevant provisions of a collective agreement or remuneration regulations” if the employer is covered by a collective agreement or has remuneration regulations in place. The word ‘relevant’ is of key importance here, as the obligation does not entail providing the candidate with all pay regulations in force within the organisation. The employer should provide only those regulations (or their extracts) that will actually apply to the candidate if employed in the position covered by the recruitment process in question. In practice, one way to fulfil this obligation may be to provide the candidate with an extract from relevant internal regulations.

Should the pay scale be disclosed in the job advertisement?

Once the scope of information to be provided to the candidate has been determined, the question arises as to when (or rather, by when) this obligation must be fulfilled. The regulations introduce a three-tier structure in this regard, specifying that such information should be provided:

• in the job advertisement,
• before the interview – if no recruitment for the position has been advertised or no information has been provided in an advertisement,
• before the employment relationship is established – if no recruitment for the position has been advertised or the information has not been provided either in the advertisement or before the interview.

The deadline for providing the required information should therefore be deemed to be ‘before the employment relationship is established’. However, of key importance in the regulations is the provision that the duty to provide information must be fulfilled at a time ‘allowing the candidate to familiarise themselves with the information and ensuring informed and transparent negotiations’. This means that remuneration information cannot be provided to the candidate too late – shortly before the employment relationship is established, or ‘at the last minute’.

The regulations do not exactly specify how this requirement should be interpreted. Therefore, it should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all circumstances, in particular the nature of the position for which recruitment takes place. In any case, the candidate should have sufficient time to review the offer and make a counter-proposal and engage in any further negotiations with the prospective employer.

Words matter – gender-neutral language in recruitment

The new regulations have also introduced much-discussed standards of language neutrality. These require job advertisements (including job titles) to be gender-neutral and to be conducted in a non-discriminatory manner for the recruitment process.

We have already discussed this issue in detail on our portal, along with examples of practical solutions for ‘neutralising’ recruitment language. To summarise, the following solutions are most common in practice:

• adding the feminine form or a feminine ending to the masculine version,

• using the ‘default’ grammatical gender (masculine) whilst including designations in brackets, such as (m/f) or (m/f/n), where ‘m’ stands for male, ‘f’ for female, and ‘n’ for non-binary or other gender identities,
• using a descriptive form with a note referring to all genders (e.g. “any gender”),
• use of the so-called x-form (the letter ‘x’ at the end of a word),
• use of an underscore (the “_” symbol at the end of a word),
• use of the personal form, which involves a descriptive definition of the job role.

The question sometimes arises as to what should be done when the nature of a particular role, for example, due to specific physical requirements such as the need to lift heavy loads appears to be suited exclusively to a particular gender. In this context, the standards of gender-neutral language still apply. The recruiter may specify in an advertisement all the conditions and requirements associated with a position, thereby naturally narrowing the pool of potential candidates. However, no advertisement should appear that is linguistically tailored to only one gender.

Limits on recruitment questions: previous earnings versus financial expectations

Finally, a ban has been introduced into the Labour Code on asking candidates questions about remuneration in current or previous employment. This means that any questions directly or indirectly aimed at learning about a candidate’s previous earnings are unacceptable.

At the same time, this does not mean that candidates cannot be asked about their financial expectations during the recruitment process. If questions are not phrased in a way intended to ascertain the candidate’s previous salary level, they constitute a natural and permissible part of negotiating terms of employment.

Joanna Dudek

Aleksandra Wójcik