Pay transparency rights, by country
Pay transparency is not one rule but three: pay stated in a job advert, an employee's access to other people's pay, and an employer's duty to analyse pay between women and men. Only Austria makes the advert state the pay (a collective-agreement or statutory minimum). Australia is the one country here that protects an employee's freedom to discuss and ask about pay and bans contract terms that stop it, while Norway lets an employee who suspects discrimination demand written pay information. Austria, Spain and Sweden instead place the duty on the employer, through a two-yearly income report, a salary register and an annual pay survey.
| Country | Pay in job adverts | Employee access to pay information | Employer pay analysis or register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | Minimum pay must be stated, plus willingness to pay more | Income report goes to the works council, or is displayed at the workplace; employee must keep it confidential | Pay analysis report every two years (employers above a size threshold) |
| Australia | May disclose own pay and ask other employees about theirs; pay secrecy terms are banned | ||
| Spain | Access to the pay register through employee representatives | Register of average pay by sex and job group; justification if the gap is 25% or more (50+ employees) | |
| Norway | Written pay level and criteria on request if discrimination is suspected; staff may inspect pay survey results | Pay survey, with anonymised results in a public report | |
| Sweden | Annual pay survey and analysis; written documentation from 10 employees |
Country by country
Austria
- Rule
- Gleichbehandlungsgesetz §§ 9 and 11a
- The advert duty covers the minimum pay under a collective agreement or other binding norm, not the actual salary offered.
- The report duty depends on employer size: the threshold is set in § 63 Abs. 6 of another act, which is not ingested, so the number is not shown here.
in der Ausschreibung das für den ausgeschriebenen Arbeitsplatz geltende kollektivvertragliche oder das durch Gesetz oder andere Normen der kollektiven Rechtsgestaltung geltende Mindestentgelt anzugeben und auf die Bereitschaft zur Überzahlung hinzuweisen, wenn eine solche besteht ist verpflichtet, alle zwei Jahre einen Bericht zur Entgeltanalyse zu erstellenist der Bericht im Betrieb in einem allen Arbeitnehmer/inne/n oder allen gruppenzugehörigen Arbeitnehmer/innen zugänglichen Raum aufzulegenÜber den Inhalt des Einkommensberichtes ist der/die Arbeitnehmer/in zur Verschwiegenheit verpflichtet. Australia
- Rule
- Fair Work Act 2009 ss 333B and 333D
- The right is to disclose or ask; it does not oblige the employer to publish anyone's pay.
- Statute states no job-advert or employer pay-analysis duty in the ingested text, so those columns are left blank.
An employee may disclose, or not disclose, any of the following information to any other person: (a) the employee’s remunerationAn employee may ask any other employee (whether employed by the same employer or a different employer) about any of the following information: (a) the other employee’s remuneration the contract or agreement includes a term that is inconsistent with subsection 333B(1) or (2) Spain
- Rule
- Estatuto de los Trabajadores art. 28
- Employees see the register through their legal representatives, not directly.
- The justification duty applies to firms with at least fifty workers.
El empresario está obligado a llevar un registro con los valores medios de los salarios, los complementos salariales y las percepciones extrasalariales de su plantilla, desagregados por sexoLas personas trabajadoras tienen derecho a acceder, a través de la representación legal de los trabajadores en la empresa, al registro salarial de su empresa.Cuando en una empresa con al menos cincuenta trabajadoresen un veinticinco por ciento o más Norway
- Rule
- Likestillings- og diskrimineringsloven §§ 26 a and 32
- The § 32 request is open to an employee who suspects discrimination in pay setting, and the recipient must keep the information confidential.
- The reporting duty in § 26 a applies to employers with duties under § 26 second paragraph; that size rule is not quoted here.
Arbeidstakere som har mistanke om diskriminering ved lønnsfastsettelsen, kan kreve at arbeidsgiveren skriftlig opplyser om lønnsnivå og kriteriene for fastsettelsen av lønn Resultatene av lønnskartleggingen skal fremgå av redegjørelsen i anonymisert form.Virksomhetens ansatte og deres representanter, Diskrimineringsnemnda, Likestillings- og diskrimineringsombudet og forskere har rett til innsyn i resultatene av lønnskartleggingen Sweden
- Rule
- Diskrimineringslag 3 kap. 8, 13 and 14 §§
- The ingested text states the employer duty only; it does not state an individual right to see colleagues' pay.
- Documentation is required for employers with 10 to 24 employees (survey only) and for those with 25 or more (all active measures).
ska arbetsgivaren varje år kartlägga och analysera En arbetsgivare som vid ingången av kalenderåret sysselsatte 25 eller fler arbetstagare ska under året skriftligen dokumentera En arbetsgivare som vid ingången av kalenderåret sysselsatte mellan 10 och 24 arbetstagare ska under året skriftligen dokumentera arbetet med lönekartläggningen Countries not in this table yet
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States are left out: the ingested acts for those countries do not contain a pay-transparency rule (for example the German Entgelttransparenzgesetz is not ingested).
How this table was built
Every row is taken from the official, consolidated text of the statute, which LawAsked loads from each government’s legislation service.
Each figure is tied to a passage quoted word for word from that text. When the page is served, it checks that every quoted passage is still in the current text of a law that is in force; if a law is amended and its wording changes, that row is hidden until a person reviews it again.
The table shows the statutory minimum only. Collective agreements, awards and individual contracts often give more than the statute, and some countries let a collective agreement set different terms.
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LawAsked, “Pay transparency rights, by country”, https://lawasked.com/guides/pay-transparency (reviewed October 25, 2026).
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