Yes, the transposing legislation has been drafted in Poland. 

Please note that the responses below are based on the current legal framework and the published draft of the new legislation (as specified below).

i. A succinct summary of the legislation; in the summary, please include:

a. a link to the transposing legislation (with link to English translation if available, or English translation prepared by you);

• The draft act on strengthening the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women for equal work or work of equal value (the "Draft"), implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive 2023/970 (the “Directive”), has been published in Poland.

• The Draft is currently at the stage of the governmental legislative process—specifically, the public consultation stage—during which citizens, entrepreneurs, and organisations may submit comments before its adoption.

• As the Draft is relatively extensive and is likely to be subject to further amendments; it is not advisable at this stage to prepare an English translation of the Polish version. However, should you require an English translation of the Draft at this stage, we would be happy to prepare it under a separate engagement.

• Certain provisions implementing the Directive have already been introduced into the Polish legal framework and are currently in force. 

 In particular, this concerns regulations granting job candidates the right to receive information from a prospective employer regarding remuneration (or the applicable salary range), as well as, where relevant, information on applicable provisions of a collective labour agreement or remuneration regulations.

A translation of these provisions is available in a separate attachment to this questionnaire (“Attachment No. 1”).

b. the date it comes into force, and the date from which employers must comply with the implementing legislation (if different); 

The Draft shall enter into force after the lapse of six months from the date of its promulgation. The date of promulgation is not yet known.

c. any additional secondary legislation or guidance that will provide further detail on how the Directive will operate in your jurisdiction as well as when it is expected to be published?; 

• The government has published the “Guidelines for assessing and comparing the value of work in accordance with the four criteria adopted in Directive (EU) 2023/970”, as well as a job evaluation tool (available at: Wartościowanie pracy - Ministerstwo Rodziny, Pracy i Polityki Społecznej - Portal Gov.pl). 

• The use of these tools will not be mandatory. The final decision on how job evaluation is conducted rests with the employer, provided that it complies with applicable legal requirements.

• In addition, a secondary regulation shall be published, which shall specify:

 detailed information on the indicators included in the gender pay gap report,

 the methodology for calculating such indicators, and

 the templates/forms for presenting them,

taking into account the principle of equal treatment in employment, particularly the right of men and women to equal pay for equal work or work of equal value.

• The Draft introduces stricter requirements within the scope of the deadlines for providing information on individual and average levels of remuneration. 

 While the Directive requires such information to be provided within two months from the date of the request, the Draft shortens this period by obliging the employer to provide the information no later than within 30 days from the date of submission of the request.

• In addition, the Draft may be viewed as introducing more detailed and formalised information obligations compared to the Directive, particularly in the context of:

 the scope and presentation of remuneration information, and

 its interaction with existing Polish labour law instruments (e.g. remuneration regulations).

• Further, depending on the final scope of secondary regulation (mentioned above), this may further increase the level of regulatory detail beyond the minimum required by the Directive (not yet known at the moment

• Currently, Polish law does not contain comprehensive provisions on pay transparency equivalent to those envisaged in the Draft.

• Therefore, until the Draft enters into force, employers should comply with the general principles of labour law, in particular:

 the principle of equal treatment in employment,

 the prohibition of discrimination, and

 the obligation to shape remuneration in a fair and objective manner.

• Certain selected transparency-related obligations have already been introduced into Polish law (e.g. information on remuneration for job candidates), which partially anticipate the requirements of the Directive.

• Once the Draft enters into force, it is expected to supplement and specify existing general obligations rather than fully replace them.

• At this stage, the Draft does not provide for a formal transition period requiring parallel compliance with two separate regimes. Instead, employers will be required to comply with the new rules from their effective date, alongside the continuing application of general labour law principles.

When interpreting the Draft, reference should be made to the definition of an employee set out in Article 2 of the Polish Labour Code, according to which an employee is a person employed under an employment contract, appointment, election or nomination.

Pay structure shall be understood as ordered pay ranges assigned to individual positions or types of work within a given employer, resulting in particular from an evaluation of the value of work performed in a specific position or an evaluation of the value of a given type of work. The pay structure is also influenced by factors justifying differences in remuneration, including factors driving pay increases.

Apart from indicating the mandatory criteria for assessing work of equal value (skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions) and stipulating that the employer should apply the same criteria, as well as any sub criteria and additional criteria, to all positions or types of work, the Draft does not specify how employers should categorise work of equal value

• A candidate applying for a position must receive information on remuneration from the employer, in line with Article 18(3c) § 2 of the Labour Code.

• “Remuneration” covers all components of pay, regardless of their name or nature, as well as other work-related benefits, whether monetary or non-monetary.

• This includes, in particular:

 the starting level of remuneration or its salary range,

 all elements of the overall compensation package offered for the role.

• The remuneration information must be determined based on objective and neutral criteria, in particular gender-neutral criteria.

• In practice, this means that employers should provide candidates with information on the full package of benefits, including:

 basic salary,

 bonuses and awards,

 allowances,

 benefits in kind,

 equity-based instruments, and

 other pecuniary benefits.

• The scope of “remuneration” does not include:

 benefits related to the termination of employment,

 social benefits, or

 reimbursement of costs incurred by the employee (e.g. business travel expenses).

Information on remuneration should be provided to the person applying for a given position in a paper or electronic form in advance to enable familiarization with it. This information must be provided before the employment relationship is established, specifically:

• in the job advertisement, or

• prior to the job interview (if no advertisement was published or the information was omitted), or

• in any event, no later than before concluding the employment contract.

• The provisions do not differentiate this prohibition depending on whether the candidate is external or already employed by the employer. 

• It should therefore be assumed that the ban on requesting information about remuneration—both in the current and in previous employment relationships—also applies to internal candidates.

• The employer should define the factors used to determine employees’ remuneration, pay levels, and pay increases. 

• These factors should be objective and gender neutral and should exclude any direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex. 

• The use of information on an employee’s remuneration already known to the employer when determining pay in cases of internal recruitment or promotions is permissible, provided that it is consistent with these factors.

The employer shall ensure that job advertisements and job titles are gender-neutral and that the recruitment process is non-discriminatory.

The Draft specifies only that the employer is obligated to define the factors used to determine employees’ remuneration, pay levels, and pay increases in objective and gender neutral manner and should exclude any direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex. Also such factors should be provided to the employee. 

The Draft does not specify in what form the information regarding employees’ remuneration, pay levels, and pay increases should be provided. The Draft merely refers to the provision of information and access to information. It therefore appears that this information should be made available in the manner adopted by the employer, for example in internal policies.

No, the Draft does not clarify what are the "objective and gender-neutral criteria". The Draft indicates, by way of example, that factors related to pay increases may include, in particular, skills development, individual performance, or length of service.

No, there are no exemptions based on headcount with regard to the transparency of pay and pay progression policy. However, an employer employing fewer than 50 employees provides information on the factors determining pay increases only upon an employee’s request, submitted in paper or electronic form, within 30 days from the date of receipt of such request.

An employee has the right to obtain, upon request, information both on their individual level of remuneration (on an annual or hourly basis) and on the average level of remuneration (also annual or hourly), broken down by gender, in relation to categories of employees performing the same work or work of equal value.

“Remuneration level” means gross annual remuneration, calculated on the basis of the remuneration actually received by the employee and covering all components of remuneration. 

The calculation covers the 12-month period preceding the submission of the employee’s request.

Excluded from the remuneration level are: 

• monetary and in-kind benefits received by all employees or made available to all employees without the need to meet any specific conditions;

• benefits related to the termination of the employment relationship;

• social benefits;

• reimbursement of costs incurred by the employee, including business travel expenses.

The information should be provided no later than 30 days from receipt of the request.

The information should be provided in a paper or electronic form.

No, there are no exemptions based on headcount with regard to the individual right to pay information.

The employee is entitled to request for individual and average level of  remuneration information individually, through a company-level trade union organisation which represents the employee or through equality body. 

If the information provided is inaccurate or incomplete, the employee has a right to submit a request for additional and justified explanations as well as detailed information regarding the data provided. Such information may be requested individually by employee or through a company-level trade union organisation which represents the employee.

 Yes, the employer should inform employees about their right to information once a year, in a manner adopted at the employer.

The Act of 7 October 1999 on Polish language specifies that when performing obligations under labour law provisions, the Polish language shall be used if the contract is to be performed or is performed within the territory of the Republic of Poland.

The Draft stipulates that the employer may require an employee who has obtained information on the individual level of remuneration (on an annual or hourly basis), as well as on the average level of remuneration (also annual or hourly), broken down by gender for categories of employees performing the same work or work of equal value, not to use such information for any purpose other than the exercise of rights arising from the principle of equal treatment in employment. 

The employer is generally not formally required to formally amend or rescind existing pay secrecy clauses, as they shall be deemed null and void by virtue of law, however, it is advisable to amend existing contracts to ensure compliance and transparency of employment relationship.

The pay gap reporting deadlines and frequency are the same as those set out in the Directive.

The gender pay gap report includes information on:

i. the gender pay gap;

ii. the gender pay gap in relation to complementary or variable components;

iii. the median gender pay gap;

iv. the median gender pay gap in relation to complementary or variable components;

v. the proportion of female and male employees receiving complementary or variable components;

vi. the proportion of female and male employees in each pay quartile;

vii. the gender pay gap among employees, broken down by categories of employees, based on remuneration arising from the employee’s individual pay classification determined by an hourly or monthly rate and complementary or variable components.

For the purpose of verifying whether an employer is subject to the obligation to prepare a gender pay gap report and the frequency thereof, the employer converts the number of employees employed in a calendar year into annual work units. An employer who makes use of temporary agency workers shall also take such workers into account, if any. 

For the purpose of converting an employee into an annual work unit, the following formula is applied:

1 employee × number of months/days of employment × working time

Employer has a right (not obligation) to publish, especially on its website, information indicated in paragraph 7 letter a) points i-vi above. An independent monitoring body will publish this information on its website.

The employer submits the gender pay gap report to the monitoring authority by 31 March of a given calendar year, in electronic form, via the authority’s website.

Currently, there are no detailed guidelines regarding how the data will be published by the authorities. However, it can be assumed that such information will not be anonymised, as it is intended to be made available in a user-friendly and easily accessible manner, enabling comparisons between individual employers, sectors and regions.

The Draft does not specify such cases. 

No, workforce thresholds are the same as those set out in Directive. 

b) No, there are no size-specific exemptions or adjusted requirements.

The employer should take effective remedial measures by 30 September of the calendar year in which the gender pay gap report was submitted.

The Draft does not specify the remedial measures to be taken by the employer. 

Within the scope of effective remedial measures addressing an unjustified gender pay gap, the employer is obliged to take such measures, in consultation with company-level trade union organisations, the National Labour Inspectorate, or the equality body, only where these entities have requested additional, detailed explanations regarding differences in pay based on gender in connection with the submitted gender pay gap report.

In other cases, the employer is only required to inform the company-level trade union organisations, or, in their absence, employee representatives, of the effective remedial measures taken to eliminate the unjustified gender pay gap.

The Draft distinguishes between the concepts of agreement (e.g. in relation to agreeing on criteria for assessing the value of work in a given position) and consultation. In the case of a joint pay assessment, the employer, to a large extent, is only obliged to consult with company-level trade union organisations, or, in their absence, employee representatives, which means that the final decision-making power remains with the employer and the consultation process does not require obtaining their consent, but only taking their views into consideration.

However, in the case of justifying a gender pay gap, an agreement must be reached with company-level trade union organisations or, in their absence, employee representatives, confirming that the gender pay gap is justified.

The Draft requires a joint pay assessment in case of an employer employing at least 100 employees and where the following conditions are cumulatively met:

i. the gender pay gap report shows a gender pay gap of at least 5%, expressed in absolute terms, in any category of employees;

ii. the employer has not justified the gender pay gap to the company-level trade union organisations or, in their absence, employee representatives on the basis of objective, gender-neutral criteria, and no agreement has been reached with them that the gender pay gap is justified;

iii. the employer has not taken effective remedial measures to address such an unjustified gender pay gap by 30 September of the calendar year in which the gender pay gap report was submitted.

A joint pay assessment shall include:

i. an analysis of the proportion of female and male employees in each category of workers;

ii. an analysis of information on average pay levels and average hourly pay levels, including the average levels of complementary or variable components and the hourly levels of such complementary or variable components, of female and male employees in each category of workers;

iii. an analysis of any differences in average pay levels and average hourly pay levels between female and male employees in each category of workers;

iv. an analysis of the reasons for differences in average pay levels and average hourly pay levels, where such differences exist, based on objective, gender-neutral criteria,

v. an analysis of the proportion of female and male employees who benefited from a pay increase following their return from the maternity leave, leave on the terms of maternity leave, additional maternity leave, parental leave, paternity leave or childcare leave, where such an increase occurred in the relevant category of workers during the leave period;

vi. the identification of measures to remedy pay differences where they are not justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria;

vii. an assessment of the effectiveness of measures resulting from previous joint pay assessments

Employers shall provide the information from the joint pay assessment to employees, company-level trade union organisations, and the monitoring authority within 14 days from the date of completion of the joint pay assessment.

• If the information would lead to the direct or indirect disclosure of the pay of an identifiable employee (“Disclosure”), the employer shall provide access to such information exclusively to the company-level trade union organisation, employee representatives elected by employees in accordance with the procedures adopted by the given employer, the National Labour Inspectorate or the equality body. 

• Where an employee requests access to information the exposure of which would lead to Disclosure, the employer shall inform the employee directly that such information cannot be provided and that, at the employee’s request, it may be disclosed to the equality body or to the company-level trade union.

If information leading to Disclosure is exposed to the equality body or to the company-level trade union, the employer shall inform that entity that such information cannot be provided to the employee.

• Furthermore, where the employer is unable to provide to employees information that it is otherwise required to make available (gender pay gap among employees, joint pay assessment) the employer shall inform employees of the inability to provide such information and of the possibility to disclose such information, at the employee’s request, to the equality body, trade union organisation representing the employee or employee representative (if applicable), in a manner adopted at the workplace.

Any employer who fails to fulfill obligations regarding gender pay reporting or pay transparency requirements shall be subject to a fine ranging from PLN 2,000 to PLN 60,000.

An employee in respect of whom the employer has breached the principle of equal treatment in employment with regard to the right to equal pay for men and women for the same work or work of equal value shall be entitled to compensation for non-pecuniary damage in an amount not lower than the minimum wage, determined pursuant to separate provisions, or to damages covering recovery of outstanding remuneration and related benefits in kind, damages for lost profits, damages for harm caused by other relevant factors, which may include intersectional discrimination, as well as interest for delay.

Within the meaning of the Draft the ‘workers representatives’ are understood as company-level trade-unions and employee representatives i.e. representatives of the workforce elected by employees in establishments where no trade unions operate (“Representative”). Importantly, the law does not prescribe a specific procedure for their appointment, providing only that they should be elected in accordance with the procedure adopted by the given employer (e.g. by direct elections, secret ballot, etc.).

In the absence of company-level trade unions, the Draft provides that cooperation between the employer and employee representatives is required only in the context of joint pay assessments. In this respect, no exception is made to the requirement that such representatives must be elected by the employees, and that consultations or agreement procedures must be carried out in relation to the joint pay assessment.

In other cases, where no company-level trade unions are in place, the employer is entitled to act independently.

The Draft expands the role of workers’ representatives by ensuring that they are involved in consultation on the classification of positions and the establishment of employee categories in respect of which the same work or work of equal value is performed, or the same types of work or types of work of equal value are carried out. While the Directive provides that, “where applicable” employees should be classified in cooperation with workers’ representatives, the Draft goes further by making such consultation mandatory.

At the same time, their role remains primarily consultative, as the employer retains final decision-making power where no agreement is reached, after considering the views of trade unions.

If workers representatives are not engaged in the right way and/or in a timely fashion the employer is exposed to a fine ranging from PLN 2,000 to PLN 60,000 for each offence.

The Draft does not provide a detailed regulation of workers’ representatives’ rights to be consulted on pay gap information or to access the relevant methodologies. However, it does impose a general obligation on employers to involve them in this process.

In particular, an employer in which a company-level trade union operates is required, after preparing a pay gap report, to consult its results with the trade unions prior to confirming the accuracy of the information contained therein. The consultation should take place within 14 days from the preparation of the report and includes, in particular, presenting the pay gap data, disclosing the methodology applied and the results obtained, and enabling the trade unions to express their views and raise any comments or concerns.

The workers (employees) have the rights described in point 12 above, while workers’ representatives have the right to submit a request to the employer for the provision of additional, detailed explanations. They do not have any further specific powers in this regard, other than the ability to represent employees and to notify the competent authorities of breaches of employees’ rights (including offences against labour law provisions).

The National Labour Inspectorate shall provide training to facilitate the performance of their obligations under this Act.

Additionally, Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy published “Guidelines for assessing and comparing the value of work in accordance with the four criteria adopted in Directive (EU) 2023/970” and a job evaluation tool. The use of these instruments is not mandatory.

There are headcount limits. The abovementioned trainings shall be provided to employers with fewer than 250 employees. 

Wartościowanie pracy - Ministerstwo Rodziny, Pracy i Polityki Społecznej - Portal Gov.pl - Guidelines for assessing and comparing the value of work in accordance with the four criteria adopted in Directive (EU) 2023/970” and a job evaluation tool