Pay transparency rules in Denmark
No. Denmark missed the deadline. A bill amending the Equal Pay Act was tabled in Parliament on 8 October 2026 and has not yet been passed. The proposed start is now 1 March 2027.
Denmark's MPs held their first debate on the bill
What happened
On 22 October 2026 the Danish Parliament held its first debate on the pay transparency bill. The bill now goes to a group of MPs, called a committee, to look at in detail. There has been no final vote yet.
What it means for you
Nothing new applies to you in Denmark yet. Plan for the rules to start on 1 March 2027 if Parliament passes the bill. If you have 150 or more staff, your first pay report would come by 1 September 2028.
Dates to know
- 1 March 2027Planned start of the new rules.
- 1 September 2028First pay reports for employers with 150 or more staff.
Source: Folketingstidende (Danish Parliament). We check this page every week. Last checked .
The EU Pay Transparency Directive (Directive (EU) 2023/970) is an EU law designed to close the gender pay gap by forcing pay openness. It requires employers to share pay ranges with job applicants, bans asking candidates about their salary history, gives staff the right to know what colleagues doing the same or equal-value work are paid on average by gender, and makes larger employers report their gender pay gap to authorities.
Where an unexplained gap of 5% or more appears in a job category, the employer must run a joint pay assessment with worker representatives to fix it.
Each EU country had to write the Directive into its own national law by 7 June 2026. Denmark is implementing it by amending its existing Equal Pay Act (ligelonsloven), but that amendment is still a draft bill, not yet law.
Current status in Denmark
Denmark's bill is before Parliament, but no pay transparency law is in force yet as of 9 November 2026.
On 26 February 2026 the Danish Ministry of Employment published a draft bill, "Forslag til lov om aendring af ligelonsloven" (Bill amending the Equal Pay Act), to bring Directive (EU) 2023/970 into Danish law. It went out for public consultation, which closed on 27 March 2026. The minister tabled the bill in the Folketinget (Danish Parliament) on 8 October 2026 as bill L 68. The first reading took place on 22 October 2026 and the bill has been sent to committee. It has not been adopted, so none of the new duties bind employers today. The government now proposes the rules take effect on 1 March 2027, two months later than the 1 January 2027 date in the consultation draft and well after the EU's 7 June 2026 deadline, to give companies more time to adjust. A general election was called on the same day the consultation draft was published, and the final wording can still change while Parliament considers the bill. For now, the existing Equal Pay Act and equal-treatment rules continue to apply unchanged.
What will change for an employer
Once in force, employers will have to be open about pay before hiring, stop asking about salary history, give staff pay information on request, and (for larger firms) report their gender pay gap.
The draft introduces several new duties for whoever is the legal employer. Before an interview, applicants must be told the starting pay or pay range for the role. Employers will be banned from asking candidates about their current or previous pay. Existing staff will gain the right to ask for their own pay plus the average pay, split by gender, for colleagues doing the same work or work of equal value, with a response due within two months. Employers will need clear, gender-neutral criteria for setting pay and pay progression. Larger employers will have to report their gender pay gap to the authorities, and where an unexplained gap of at least 5% shows up in a job category and is not fixed within six months, they must carry out a joint pay assessment with employee representatives. A new body, the Labour Market Institute for Equal Pay (Arbejdsmarkedets Institut for Ligelon), is proposed to oversee these rules.
Reporting thresholds, timing and first report
The draft centres on employers with 100+ staff, with the first reports for the largest employers (150+ and 250+) due by 1 September 2028; smaller bands may be drawn in later under conditions.
The draft bill's reporting duty is built around employers with at least 100 employees, using Denmark's official DISCO job-code wage statistics, with Statistics Denmark (Danmarks Statistik) generating the underlying figures. The bill as tabled (new section 5 c) has the first pay reports for employers with 150 or more staff (and 250+) sent out by 1 September 2028, covering the prior calendar year. Smaller employers in the 50-99 band may also be brought in under specific conditions (for example where at least eight employees of each gender sit in the same six-digit DISCO category), and the proposal signals a phased approach with a later first-report date of 1 September 2031 and, for some bands, a three-yearly rather than annual cadence. These threshold and cadence details are taken from the draft and law-firm analysis and could change before adoption, so treat the exact bands and dates as provisional until the final Act is published.
What Teamed handles in Denmark
- Starting pay before interview
- DISCO job codes
- Pay requests within two months
At a glance
| Pay shown in job ads | Proposed |
|---|---|
| Salary-history question banned | Proposed |
| Gender pay-gap reporting from | 100 or more (proposed) |
| First report due | 1 September 2028 (proposed) |
| Penalties | Not yet set |
Key figures
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Transposition status | Bill L 68 tabled in the Folketing on 8 October 2026; first reading held 22 October 2026 and referred to committee; not adopted (source) |
| Instrument name | Forslag til lov om aendring af ligelonsloven (Bill amending the Equal Pay Act) (source) |
| Published for consultation | 26 February 2026 (source) |
| Consultation deadline | 27 March 2026 (source) |
| Proposed entry into force | 1 March 2027 (moved from 1 January 2027 in the consultation draft) (source) |
| Pay info before interview | Starting pay or pay range disclosed to applicants before interview (proposed) (source) |
| Salary history ban | Employers prohibited from asking applicants about current/previous pay (proposed) (source) |
| Right to pay information | Own pay plus gender-split averages for same/equal-value work; two-month response (proposed) (source) |
| Reporting threshold | 100+ employees core; 50-99 under conditions (8 of each gender in same DISCO-6 category) (source) |
| First report due | 1 September 2028 for employers with 150+ (and 250+) employees; 1 September 2031 for 100-149 (and qualifying 50-99) (source) |
| Joint pay assessment trigger | Unjustified gender pay gap of at least 5% in a job category, not remedied within 6 months (proposed) (source) |
| Oversight body | Labour Market Institute for Equal Pay (Arbejdsmarkedets Institut for Ligelon); reports generated by Statistics Denmark (source) |
| Penalties | Not yet specified in the draft; expected to align with existing Equal Pay Act enforcement (source) |
Frequently asked questions
Has Denmark passed the EU Pay Transparency Directive into law?
No. As of 9 November 2026 it is still a bill. The Ministry of Employment consulted on a draft from 26 February to 27 March 2026, and the minister tabled the bill in Parliament on 8 October 2026 (bill L 68). Parliament has not adopted it. The proposed start date is now 1 March 2027.
When will the new rules take effect in Denmark?
The tabled bill proposes 1 March 2027. The consultation draft had said 1 January 2027, but the government moved the date to give companies more time. Both dates are after the EU's 7 June 2026 transposition deadline, which Denmark has missed, and the date could still change while Parliament considers the bill.
Do I have to publish salaries in Danish job ads now?
Not yet. There is no in-force legal duty. Under the draft, you would have to tell applicants the starting pay or pay range before the interview, but that obligation only begins once the bill becomes law (proposed 1 March 2027).
Which employers will have to report their gender pay gap?
The draft centres on employers with at least 100 employees, with smaller employers (50-99) potentially drawn in under conditions tied to gender balance within a job category. The first reports for the largest employers (150+ and 250+) are expected by 1 September 2028. Exact bands and dates are provisional until the final Act.
If Teamed is our Employer of Record, who is responsible for compliance?
Teamed is the legal employer of your Danish staff, so once the law is in force Teamed carries the statutory pay transparency duties - pay-range disclosure, the salary-history ban, pay-information requests and any reporting. You set the role and budget; Teamed handles the Danish-law compliance.
Pay transparency is moving at different speeds across the EU. When Teamed is your legal employer in Denmark, these duties sit with us: compliant pay ranges, the salary-history rule, employee pay-information requests, and reporting where it applies. We track the law as it changes so your hiring stays compliant.
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