Romania publishes first draft law transposing EU Pay Transparency Directive for consultation

Romania has released its first Draft Law transposing Directive (EU) 2023/970 on pay transparency and equal pay for women and men for equal work or work of equal value. The Draft Law has been published on the website of the Ministry of Labour and is open to public consultation until 8 April 2026 after which it will be submitted to the Romanian Parliament for enactment.

The Draft Law follows the framework set out in the Directive, but introduces Romania-specific features including tighter deadlines, concrete institutional designations and enhanced procedural protections for employees.

The following article highlights the key provisions of the Draft Law likely to affect business operations and workforce planning.

Key features 

Pay information required from the recruitment stage: Pay information must appear in the job vacancy announcement on the employer's website or any publicly accessible platform or must be communicated in writing to the candidate before the recruitment interview. Companies should review their hiring processes and job advertisement templates to ensure readiness for this requirement.

Shorter response deadlines for pay information requests: Where the Directive allows employers up to two months to respond to employee pay information requests, the Draft Law shortens this to 30 working days. The same 30-working-day deadline applies to requests for clarifications and supplementary information, and queries relating to reported pay data.  A single 30-working-day extension is possible. This compressed timeline means that employers will need robust internal processes to collect, verify, and disclose pay data promptly.  

Annual notification obligation towards employees: Employers must inform all employees annually by the end of Q1 of their right to request pay information and the procedures for exercising such right. Companies should consider building this notification into their existing annual compliance or HR communication cycles.

Deadline for remediation of unjustified pay gaps: The Draft Law introduces a 90-working-day deadline for employers to remedy unjustified pay differences, extendable by a maximum of six months in justified circumstances. Companies should begin reviewing their existing pay structures now in order to act swiftly once the law enters into force.

Employees access to pay information through a public authority: Employees will have the opton to request pay information not only directly from the employer, but also through the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD). In such cases, the CNCD will approach the employer on the employee’s behalf, obtain the relevant pay information and transmit it to the employee. Employers should be prepared for the possibility of receiving formal information requests from the NCCD and ensure that their data collection and reporting mechanisms can accommodate such enquiries.

Broad comparator framework for equal pay assessments: The Draft Law adopts a wide-ranging approach to determining whether employees are in a comparable situation for equal-pay purposes. The assessment is not limited to employees of different genders employed within the same company or employed at the same time as the employee concerned. Instead, the comparison may extend to relevant remuneration elements established by law or by an applicable collective bargaining agreement at group-of-undertakings level, industry collective bargaining level, national level or the level of the parent company within a group of undertakings. Where no actual comparison can be identified, the Draft Law permits the use of any other evidence to demonstrate alleged pay discrimination, including statistical data or a comparative analysis of how an employee would have been treated in a comparable situation. This broad comparison framework is particularly relevant for employers operating across multiple entities or sectors, since it significantly expands the scope of potential equal pay claims beyond the boundaries of a single-employment relationship.

Administrative fine levels: The Draft Law sets the defined administrative fine levels for non-compliance: RON 10,000 to 20,000 (EUR 2,000 to 4,000) for first-time violations, and RON 20,000 to 30,000 (EUR 4,000 to 6,000) for repeated violations. Fines are imposed by the Territorial Labour Inspectorates. 

Consequential amendments to other laws: To align Romanian legislation with the provisions of the Draft Law, amendments have been added to normative acts such as the Labour Code and Law No. 202/2002 on equality between women and men, etc. Employers should monitor these amendments closely since they may have broader implications for HR policies and employment practices.

Looking ahead

The provisions outlined above represent a selection of the Draft Law’s most significant features. Since the text remains subject to amendment during the public consultation period and the parliamentary process, companies in Romania should treat the current draft as the direction of travel rather than a final destination. 

Companies, however, should begin now to assess the impact of these proposals on their pay structures, reporting capabilities, and HR processes so that they are able to comply once the final legislation is enacted.

For more information on this Draft Law, contact your CMS client partner or the CMS experts who contributed to this article.