Updated: March 2026 — updated to reflect France's draft transposition bill, published March 2026.
Pay transparency isn't new. It's been part of the French compliance landscape for the best part of a decade. The Index de l'égalité professionnelle femmes-hommes (Gender Equality Index) has required companies with 50 or more employees to calculate, publish, and act on a structured equality score every year since 2019.
Yet despite this, France's gender pay gap remains at 11.8% (broadly in line with the EU average). When you strip out differences in working time and seniority and compare men and women in equivalent roles, a 3.8% adjusted gap still persists. It's that adjusted figure that matters most under the Directive: any gap above 5% in a worker category will require action.
This is where the EU Pay Transparency Directive (directive sur la transparence des rémunérations) comes in, and France isn't treating it as a light-touch compliance exercise.
A preliminary draft bill sent to social partners on 6 March 2026 shows France going well beyond the Directive's minimum requirements: lower reporting thresholds, salary ranges mandatory in job postings, an expanded role for works councils, and heavier sanctions than the Directive demands.
This guide covers the current legal landscape in France, what the Directive introduces, how France's transposition is taking shape, and how to prepare.
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France's current pay transparency regime is anchored in the Loi pour la liberté de choisir son avenir professionnel (2018), which introduced the Index de l'égalité professionnelle femmes-hommes (known widely as the Index Egapro).
The Index applies to all private-sector employers with 50 or more employees. Every year, by 1 March, employers must calculate their score, publish it publicly on their company website, and report it to the Ministry of Labour via the dedicated platform.
The Index is scored out of 100 across four indicators for companies with 50–249 employees, and five for companies with 250 or more: the adjusted gender pay gap by job category (40 points), differences in individual pay increase rates (20 points), the proportion of employees receiving a pay rise after returning from maternity leave (15 points), gender parity among the ten highest earners (10 points), and – for larger companies – differences in promotion rates (15 points).
Employers scoring below 75 must implement corrective measures within three years.
Failure to publish the Index, act on a low score, or demonstrate the effectiveness of measures taken can result in financial penalties of up to 1% of annual payroll.
Beyond the Index Egapro, two additional pillars shape France's pay equity landscape:
The core concept of travail de valeur égale (work of equal value) already exists in French employment law, taking into account professional knowledge, experience, responsibilities, and physical or mental strain.
This gives France a foundation for EUPTD implementation that many other member states are only now building. That said, the Directive, and France's draft bill, expands the definition further.
All 27 EU member states are required to transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive into national law by 7 June 2026.
France published a preliminary draft transposition bill on 6 March 2026, sending it to social partners ahead of a consultation on 19 March.
The bill is unlikely to be enacted before the June deadline (parliamentary debate is expected by the end of 2026), but the direction is clear and preparation cannot wait.
Unlike some member states that have mirrored the Directive closely, France's draft treats the Directive as a floor. Lower thresholds, a more prescriptive remediation process, a stronger role for works councils, and robust financial sanctions all point to one of the more demanding transpositions in the EU.
Under the Directive, all employers must provide salary information to candidates before their first interview. France's draft bill goes a step further: salary ranges must appear in the job advertisement itself, not just be available on request before interview.
Where no job posting is published (for example, in a direct approach), the employer must provide the salary range in writing before or during the recruitment process.
The draft bill also introduces an explicit ban on asking candidates about their pay history during current or previous employment. Employers who fail to include salary ranges in job advertisements face a fixed penalty of €450 per breach.
This marks a fundamental shift in recruitment practice. Across France's labour market and compensation framework, remuneration has historically been a matter of individual negotiation, with little obligation on employers to set or disclose ranges in advance. That approach will no longer be legally compliant.
Under the Directive, all employees gain a proactive right to request pay information, without needing to suspect discrimination or take legal action.
Specifically, employees can request:
Under France's draft bill, this request can be made directly to the employer, or via trade union representatives or the CSE (Comité Social et Économique – the Works Council).
Employers must respond within a timeframe to be set by decree, and must remind employees annually of this right.
Where the employee's category is too small to allow disclosure without identifying individual pay levels, the employer is not required to share the information (due to GDPR), but must inform the employee accordingly.
Key difference from current French law: Pay information rights today are primarily exercised via the CSE or in the context of a discrimination claim before a court. The EU Pay Transparency Directive creates a direct, individual right available to any employee, regardless of whether they suspect any wrongdoing.
France already operates a gender pay gap reporting regime through the Index Egapro. The Directive replaces this with a more granular, standardised framework, but France's draft bill retains its existing lower threshold rather than raising it to the Directive's 100-employee minimum.
All employers with 50 or more employees must report all seven indicators.
The main variation by size is frequency: companies with 50-249 employees report the category-level pay gap indicator every three years, while companies with 250 or more employees must report all indicators (including the category-level gap) annually.
What must be reported (same across all in-scope employers):
Reports will be published on the Ministry of Labour's website – marking a shift from the current model where only the overall Index score is published. The seven specific indicators will be defined by decree.
The Directive's 5% threshold rule requires employers to take action where a gender pay gap in a worker category exceeds 5% and cannot be justified on objective, gender-neutral grounds.
For employers who exceed this in any worker category, France's draft bill replaces the Directive's single joint pay assessment requirement with a sequential, multi-stage procedure involving the CSE at each step:
Stage 1 – First declaration: If a significant gap is identified, the employer must either justify it with objective, gender-neutral criteria (and consult the CSE on those justifications) or immediately begin negotiations on corrective measures.
Stage 2 – Six-month correction window: Where the gap cannot be justified, the employer has six months to remedy it via collective agreement or unilateral decision, then re-report the indicator following further CSE consultation.
Stage 3 – Second declaration: If the gap remains unjustified or uncorrected, the employer must conduct a joint assessment with employee representatives.
Stage 4 – 12-month deadline: A collective agreement or action plan must be filed with labour authorities within 12 months of the declaration period opening.
The exact threshold that triggers this process will be set by decree, and France has explicitly left open the possibility of setting it below 5%, which would be stricter than the Directive's baseline.
For companies with 250 or more employees, a completed joint pay assessment remains valid for three years (covering two reporting cycles), though annual reporting and CSE consultation obligations continue throughout.
The Directive restructures how pay discrimination claims work in court.
The draft bill also expands the comparators employees can use in discrimination claims: employees may compare their pay to that of someone previously employed in the same role, or to employees at other companies covered by a shared collective agreement at group or unité économique et sociale level.
To understand the significance of France's implementation, the table below sets out a side-by-side of what the law currently requires, what the Directive mandates, and the practical impact on French employers.
Requirement | Current French Law | EU Pay Transparency Directive | Impact on France |
|---|---|---|---|
Pay equality principle | Yes – Code du travail Art. L. 3221-2: equal pay for equal work/value | Yes, same principle | ✓ Reinforces existing law |
Gender pay gap reporting | Annual Index Egapro (5 indicators, composite score) for 50+ employees | Standardised 7-metric reporting for 100+ employees | NEW: 7 indicators replace the Index; France retains 50-employee threshold. Reporting includes public category-level data for the first time. |
Public disclosure | Score published; no category-level detail | Full public disclosure required | NEW: Moves from composite score to granular public reporting |
Standardised reporting format | Employer methodology flexible within Index framework | Yes – mean, median, quartiles, by category | NEW: Eliminates methodological flexibility |
Salary range in recruitment | No requirement | Required before interview | NEW: France goes further – mandatory in the job posting itself. €450 per non-compliant advert. |
Salary history ban | Not addressed in law | Explicit prohibition | NEW: Changes hiring practice industry-wide |
Right to pay information | Via CSE or discrimination claim only | Proactive individual right and annual reminder | NEW: Direct right for any employee, regardless of suspicion of discrimination |
5% threshold with action requirement | No formal threshold mechanism | 5% gap triggers joint pay assessment | NEW: France introduces a multi-stage CSE process; threshold may be set below 5% |
Works council (CSE) role | Consulted on Index results | Consulted for joint pay assessment | EXPANDED: Formal CSE opinion required at multiple stages; transmitted to labour authorities |
Burden of proof | Employee establishes presumption; employer justifies | Employer must disprove on non-compliance | NEW: Full reversal where transparency obligations breached |
Pay secrecy clauses | Not explicitly addressed | Banned | NEW: Prohibited immediately on enactment |
Penalties | Up to 1% payroll for Index failures | Proportionate, dissuasive sanctions | STRENGTHENED: Up to 1% payroll; 2% for repeat breaches; €450 fixed per breach of individual obligations |
France's implementation is further along than most member states, but also more complex, because France already has obligations that the Directive would otherwise replace, and has chosen not to weaken them.
On 6 March 2026, the Ministry of Labour sent a preliminary draft bill to national union and employer organisations. The bill at this stage covers only private-sector employers (Title One). Provisions for public-sector employers (Title Two) are still being finalised.
France is unlikely to meet the 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. Parliamentary debate is expected by the end of 2026, with most provisions entering into force no later than one year after promulgation.
Retaining the 50-employee threshold. The Directive's minimum reporting threshold is 100 employees. France has explicitly chosen to maintain its existing 50-employee scope – bringing significantly more SMEs into the full transparency framework than most EU member states will require.
Replacing the Index Egapro entirely. The current five-indicator Index will be abolished and replaced with the seven-indicator framework specified by the Directive. Employers who have built compliance programmes around the Index will need to adapt their data infrastructure.
DSN automation remains unconfirmed. It had been expected that France's existing payroll reporting system, the Déclaration Sociale Nominative (DSN), would automate the calculation of at least some of the seven indicators, reducing administrative burden. The draft bill does not confirm this. It remains to be clarified by decree.
Several details are still subject to decree, including:
The bill is not yet law, but enough is settled to act now. The employers who will find compliance straightforward are those who have already invested in their pay infrastructure – job architecture, salary bands, and gender pay gap analysis — before the deadlines land.
Here are four key steps to get prepared:
For context on how salaries and compensation are structured in France and what employee benefits form part of the total package, these articles provide useful grounding.
The time to start is now. By the time the bill is enacted and implementing decrees are published, organisations that have already built their pay infrastructure will be in a far stronger position, both for compliance and for the employee conversations that greater transparency will inevitably prompt.
We've put together an EUPTD checklist to help you work through these preparation steps for your company. Go to the checklist →
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