Greece’s new pay-transparency rules take effect on Sunday, November 1, requiring private-sector employers to explain how they set wages and to give job candidates pay information before the first interview.
The rules implement Law 5316/2026, which transposed the EU’s pay-transparency framework into Greek law. A Labor Ministry circular says the measures apply to employers, workers and job applicants in the private sector under the ministry’s authority.
The change is wider than a requirement to include a figure in a job advertisement. Every employer, regardless of workforce size, must maintain a written pay structure that allows jobs to be compared using objective, gender-neutral criteria. Those criteria must include skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions, and may also consider factors such as seniority and relevant interpersonal skills.
What changes before a job interview
Job candidates have the right to receive the starting salary or salary range before their first interview. The figure must be based on objective, gender-neutral criteria. Applicants must also be told which collective agreement provisions apply to the position, when relevant.
Employers may not ask candidates about their salary history. Recruitment notices and selection rules must also avoid references to gender, family status or criteria that create direct or indirect gender discrimination.
The aim is to keep an applicant’s previous pay from becoming the starting point for a new salary negotiation. That matters in a country where the gender pay gap has remained a persistent European issue, even as Greece has recorded growth in women’s participation in management.
Workers gain a right to compare pay
Employees may request written information about their own pay level and the average pay, broken down by gender, for people doing the same work or work of equal value. Employers must respond within a reasonable period and no later than two months after receiving the request.
Companies must also notify their staff every year about this right and explain how to use it. The information process must comply with personal-data and confidentiality rules.
The ministry’s statement says workers who believe they have suffered pay discrimination can pursue administrative or judicial remedies. The law also provides protection against retaliation for people who assert equal-pay rights.
These provisions arrive while pressure on Greek workers’ incomes and the rising cost of living in Greece have kept wage levels at the center of public debate.
Larger employers face reporting deadlines
Businesses with at least 100 employees will have additional duties to report gender-pay data to the Greek Ombudsman. The timetable is phased.
Employers with 250 or more workers must make their first report by June 7, 2027 and report annually. Companies with 150 to 249 workers have the same first deadline but will report every three years. Employers with 100 to 149 workers begin reporting by June 7, 2031, also on a three-year cycle.
The required data include the overall and median gender pay gaps, gaps in variable pay, the share of women and men receiving variable compensation, and the gender distribution across pay quartiles. Employers must also provide workers and their representatives with category-level figures for people doing the same work or work of equal value.
For workers and applicants, the immediate change is a legal right to see more of the reasoning behind a salary before accepting a job or questioning unequal pay.
