Since June 2026, am I entitled to know what colleagues in my role earn?

The EU deadline for greater pay transparency passed on 7 June 2026, yet Germany still has no implementing law. What you can already find out about your colleagues' pay — and what you can't.

You have heard about the new EU rules on pay transparency and are wondering whether you can now simply ask your employer what a colleague in a comparable role earns. The honest answer: it depends on the size of your organisation — and the law is currently in an unfinished, in-between state.

In short

A genuine right to information has existed in Germany since 2018, but only in organisations that, as a rule, employ more than 200 people — and even then you will not receive individual salaries, only a comparative figure for equal or equivalent work that you yourself have identified. The EU Pay Transparency Directive, which was meant to abolish this threshold and considerably strengthen your rights, ought to have been transposed into German law by 7 June 2026. That has not happened, and no draft bill has yet been published. For you, this means the older, narrower legal position formally still applies — but since the deadline passed, the courts must interpret existing law as far as possible in line with the directive. I will look at what that means in your particular case.

How I can help

• Checking whether your organisation reaches the threshold of, as a rule, more than 200 employees, and whether your comparison group is large enough
• Drafting a request for information in proper form, so that your employer cannot simply dismiss it
• Making the reversed burden of proof work for you if your employer refuses or drags its feet
• Where there is concrete evidence of pay discrimination on grounds of sex, asserting your claims within the applicable time limits

The right to information as it still stands today

The basis is the Pay Transparency Act (Entgelttransparenzgesetz, EntgTranspG). Three conditions must be met together:

Size of the organisation. The right under § 10 EntgTranspG applies only if your employer, as a rule, has more than 200 employees (§ 12(1) EntgTranspG). If you work somewhere smaller, the right currently comes to nothing — more on that shortly.

Comparable work, not a list of names. You must identify work that is equal to, or at least equivalent to, your own. You will not receive a list of names and salaries, but rather the statistical median (calculated on a full-time basis) of the average gross monthly pay of employees of the opposite sex doing that comparable work, plus up to two further pay components of your choosing (§ 11 EntgTranspG).

Minimum size of the comparison group. So that no one can use a request for information as a roundabout way of learning a single colleague’s salary, the comparable work must be carried out by at least six employees of the opposite sex. If the group is smaller, the employer may refuse the information on data-protection grounds (§ 12(3) EntgTranspG) — a common stumbling block, particularly in smaller departments or for specialised roles.

In formal terms it works like this: you make the request in text form, that is, at least by email. The employer (or the works council, where one exists) must respond within three months of receiving it. If the employer fails to respond, or refuses without giving a comprehensible reason, the burden of proof shifts to the employer in any later dispute about equal pay. You may only repeat the request after two years at the earliest, unless you can show that circumstances have materially changed.

What changes on 7 June 2026 — and what does not

Directive (EU) 2023/970 was designed to close precisely the gaps that German law still has: a right to information regardless of the size of the organisation; disclosure of the pay range in the job advertisement, or at the latest before the first interview; a ban on asking about your current pay; and a reversed burden of proof, weighing against the employer, where pay discrimination is suspected. The deadline for transposing it expired on 7 June 2026 — and there is still no German implementing law.

This does not mean that the directive automatically applies, like a German statute, between you and your employer. EU directives are addressed first and foremost to the member states and, as a rule, have no direct effect between private parties as long as no national law transposes them. So you cannot simply rely on the directive against a private employer to force disclosure that the EntgTranspG does not itself provide for.

Two things nonetheless change in practice. First, since the deadline passed, German courts are obliged to interpret existing law — the EntgTranspG and the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) — as far as possible in line with the directive. That may make a difference, for example, in borderline cases about the comparison group or on questions of proof. Second, a stricter standard may apply where the state is the employer, for instance in the public sector, because employees can, by way of exception, rely on sufficiently clear provisions of a directive against a public authority. Once a German implementing law arrives, the 200-employee threshold will in all likelihood fall — until then, we are in a transitional phase with room for interpretation.

If your organisation is smaller, or the information is refused

Without the 200-employee threshold, the specific right to information under the EntgTranspG is not open to you. That does not mean you are unprotected, however. If concrete indications mount up that you are being paid less than a colleague in a comparable role because of your sex, this breaches the prohibition on pay discrimination (§ 3 EntgTranspG) and may give rise to a claim for compensation and damages under § 15 AGG. The time limit is crucial here: the claim must be asserted in writing within two months, calculated from the point at which you became aware of the discrimination. In practice this deadline is routinely missed, because those affected want to gather evidence first rather than protect the time limit.

An example from practice

A caseworker at a mid-sized company with around 350 employees suspects that a male colleague in the same role earns considerably more. She emails a request for information about the comparative pay for her work. The employer refuses, on the ground that the work is done “by only a few” men, without stating the exact number. This is worth pressing: is the number genuinely below six, or is the information being withheld without any real basis? In the latter case, the burden of proof shifts in her favour as soon as it comes to a dispute about equal pay.

Common mistakes

• Requesting the information without identifying any specific comparable work — in which case the employer is entitled to refuse.
• Making the request only orally rather than in text form, which complicates both the running of the time limit and the ability to prove it.
• Accepting a refusal on the ground that the comparison group is too small without questioning it, even though the claim is often unsubstantiated.
• Letting the two-month time limit for compensation claims under § 15 AGG lapse while still gathering “further evidence”.
• Assuming that the EU directive already applies like a German statute — which, without an implementing law, it does not (yet) do against private employers.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to tell my boss why I want the information?

No, you do not have to give a reason. All you need to do is set out, in text form, the equal or equivalent comparable work for which you would like to know the comparative pay.

Will I be given the exact salary of a particular person?

No. You receive only the statistical median of the comparative pay of employees of the opposite sex doing the identified comparable work, not any individual’s salary.

What if my employer simply lets the three-month deadline pass?

The law provides for no grace period or duty to notify in that situation. If the information is not provided once the three months have passed, or a refusal is not given a comprehensible reason, then in any later dispute about equal pay the employer bears the burden of proving that there is no discrimination.

Does the EU directive already apply directly to me?

Not directly against a private employer, as long as no German implementing law exists. Since the transposition deadline passed, however, the courts must interpret existing law in line with the directive as far as possible, which may work in your favour in borderline cases.

I work in the public sector — do different rules apply to me?

Possibly, because employees may, under certain conditions, rely even on a directive that has not yet been transposed where the state is their employer. This depends on the individual case and should be examined specifically.

Your next step

Whether your claim holds up turns on details that are rarely possible to assess with confidence from a distance: the actual size of the organisation, the size of your comparison group, and how far interpretation in line with the directive already reaches in your case. I will look into this for you, draft the request for information so that it does not founder on formalities, and support you if it turns into a dispute about pay discrimination — where appropriate, under the umbrella of employment law.

This article provides general information and does not constitute legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. If you would like your situation assessed individually, please get in touch.

This article provides general information and is no substitute for legal advice in an individual case. Last updated: 2026-09-20.

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