This two-page checklist audits the five immediate requirements that apply to every EU employer from 7 June 2026 — regardless of company size, and regardless of whether your member state has finished writing its national law. For each one: what the law requires, the question to ask yourself, and what to do if your answer is no.
Used by founders and HR leads across Portugal, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Two-minute read. No fluff.
It takes two minutes to read. It takes considerably longer to fix the gaps it finds.
The checklist will be in your inbox within a few minutes. Check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive — and add corneli@paygrit.eu to your contacts to make sure future updates reach you.
Something prompted you to look for this — a conversation with your accountant, a LinkedIn post, a letter that landed on your desk and made you uneasy. That instinct is correct.
The most dangerous assumption in the market right now is that EU Directive 2023/970 is a reporting story — that the real deadlines are years away, and that companies under 100 employees can wait. That assumption is wrong, and it is already costing companies their legal position.
Six obligations came into force on 7 June 2026 for every employer in the EU. They are not phased by headcount. If your gender pay gap within any group doing work of equal value exceeds 5% — and you cannot justify it with documented, objective evidence — you face a Joint Pay Assessment. That is a formal, published process with uncapped back-pay liability. The burden of proof sits entirely with the employer.
The checklist tells you whether that risk is already live in your business.
Your employment contracts may contain pay secrecy clauses that are now unlawful. The checklist tells you what to do with every contract currently in place — and what a compliant addendum must say.
Every job advert must include a salary range. 'Competitive salary' is not compliant. The checklist tells you what a compliant range looks like — and the formatting mistake that most employers make when they add one.
Any employee can request a written pay comparison against colleagues doing work of equal value. You have two months to respond. The checklist tells you whether you have the framework to make that response possible.
If an equal pay claim is brought, it is the employer who must prove the pay difference is justified — not the employee who must prove discrimination. The checklist tells you what documentation you need, and where the gaps usually are.
If your gap exceeds 5% within an equal-value group and cannot be justified within six months, a Joint Pay Assessment is mandatory. The checklist walks you through a mock audit on your own payroll — before someone else runs it for you.
It takes two minutes to read. It takes considerably longer to fix the gaps it finds.
The checklist will be in your inbox within a few minutes. Check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive — and add corneli@paygrit.eu to your contacts to make sure future updates reach you.
You are ahead of most EU employers. The next step is verifying that your documentation holds up to scrutiny — not just that the processes exist.
You have made a start. The unticked points are where your legal exposure sits. Prioritise Points 3 and 4 first — they underpin everything else.
The gaps are significant, but they are closeable. Start with the job evaluation framework — it unblocks every other point on this list.
The checklist is complete and actionable on its own. You do not need to buy anything to use it. Paygrit is not a law firm — the checklist tells you what EU Directive 2023/970 requires and where companies typically fall short. Legal sign-off is yours to obtain.
Job evaluation frameworks. Salary band structures. Gender pay gap analysis. The four documents every EU employer is legally required to have — built on your data, your roles, and your pay structure. Not templates. Working documents.
If you would rather understand your full compliance exposure before downloading anything, the readiness scorecard gives you a personalised Red / Amber / Green rating across five dimensions in three minutes.
Take the readiness scorecard →