Equal pay for men and women

On March 26, 2025, the bill for the law to establish equal pay for equal or equivalent work was published. It aims to establish objective, gender-neutral pay structures for equal work or work of equal value. Examples of what the bill envisions:

Recruitment and selection must already provide information about starting salary and one may not ask about current salary.
Job titles must be gender neutral and recruitment processes non-discriminatory. During employment, employees are given the right to request information on individual and average salary levels, broken down by categories of employees doing the same work or work of equal value. That information must then be provided within two months.
Employers must set objective, gender-neutral criteria to determine salary and wage levels, and for employers with more than 50 employees, the same applies to determining salary growth.
Furthermore, employees should not be contractually restricted from disclosing their wages.
There will also be a reporting and internal communication requirement for employers with more than 100 employees regarding the wage gap. Wage gaps between different categories of employees performing equal or equivalent work must be reported. The frequency of reporting will depend on the size of the employer.
Employers must identify, remedy and prevent discriminatory pay gaps through an action plan if wage reporting shows a gender pay gap of more than 5% that cannot be justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria that has not been addressed within six months.
Fines of up to EUR 10,300 per violation will apply for non-compliance.
Finally, the Works Council will have a right of consent.

This bill stems from the Equal Pay Directive adopted at the European level on April 24, 2023. The Netherlands must implement the Directive in Dutch law by June 7, 2026 at the latest. Between March 26 and May 7, 2025, it was possible for anyone who wished to do so to provide input on the bill through the Internet consultation. A total of 36 responses were submitted. It is possible that changes will still be made to the bill, then the proposal must go to the Council of State and then the Lower and Upper Houses as well. So it remains to be seen whether the Netherlands will meet the set implementation deadline.