Do job ads need a salary? EU country guide (2026)

Whether a job ad must include a salary depends on the country, not on the directive: Directive (EU) 2023/970 (Article 5) only guarantees that applicants receive the initial pay or pay range either in the vacancy notice or before the first interview, and it leaves each member state free to make the advert itself mandatory or not. So the honest answer to “do job ads need a salary” is “in some EU countries yes, in others no, and the map is still being drawn in 2026.”

This article is practitioner guidance, not legal advice. National implementations differ; confirm specifics for your market with counsel.

Does the EU directive actually require salary in the job ad?

No. This is the single most common misconception about the directive, and it is wrong. Article 5 of Directive (EU) 2023/970 gives applicants “the right to receive” the initial pay level or its range, and it specifies that this information can be supplied “in a published job vacancy notice, prior to the job interview or otherwise.” That is an either/or. An employer that tells every candidate the pay range by email before the first interview has met the EU floor even with a salary-free advert.

What the directive does require everywhere, from the moment national law applies, is narrower than “salary in the ad” but still concrete:

1. Give applicants the initial pay or pay range before any salary negotiation, at the latest before the first interview.
2. Do not ask candidates about their current or previous pay history (Article 5, reinforced by Recital 33).
3. Keep job vacancy notices and job titles gender-neutral and run a non-discriminatory recruitment process.

The “salary in the advert” question sits on top of that floor. It is a national choice, and that is where the country-by-country split begins.

What is the directive’s deadline, and did countries meet it?

The transposition deadline was 7 June 2026 (Article 34), and most member states missed it. The European Commission confirmed in 2026 that the date would not move and that infringement proceedings under Article 258 TFEU can follow for late states. Despite that, as of mid-June 2026 only a small group of countries had a full implementing law in force, while several of the largest labour markets, including Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands, were still in draft or targeting effective dates in 2027.

For recruiters this creates an awkward gap. The directive’s protections do not become enforceable in a country until that country’s law takes effect. So in June 2026 the practical rules in, say, Germany or the Netherlands are still the old national rules, even though the EU obligation to transpose has technically been breached. The direction of travel is certain; the exact local switch-on date is not.

Which countries make salary in the job ad mandatory, and which do not?

The table below summarises the position as of June 2026. Treat the “in-ad” column as the headline practitioner question: does the pay range have to be printed in the advert, or is “before the interview” enough? Dates and statuses are moving, so re-check before you rely on any single row.

Country	Salary in the advert?	Status as of June 2026	Expected effect
Belgium	Trending yes (stricter than EU floor)	Fragmented by region; Flanders decree set for 7 June 2026, federal private-sector text not yet public	Range in vacancy notices once federal text lands
Ireland	Trending yes (stricter than EU floor)	Draft Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill; not on the summer priority list, so delay likely	Fixed range in all ads, plus pay-history ban
Poland	Either/or, in force	Recruitment-stage rules in force since 24 December 2025	Pay in ad or before interview; broader bill expected later
Netherlands	No (before interview only)	Transposition delayed; target 1 January 2027	Pay before interview, not in the ad
Germany	Not yet specified	No draft published; deadline missed	Amends existing Pay Transparency Act, timing open
France	Not yet specified	Draft published; targeting 1 January 2027	Reporting threshold dropping to 50 employees
Spain	Not yet specified	Royal Decree consultation closed 8 May 2026; no text yet	Pending

Two patterns stand out. Belgium and Ireland are using transposition to go beyond the EU minimum and put the range in the advert. The Netherlands is deliberately staying at the floor. Everyone else is, in practice, still drafting.

Is salary in the job ad mandatory in the Netherlands?

No, and Dutch commentators explicitly flag “you must now put salary in the ad” as a myth. The Dutch implementation proposal requires employers to share pay information with the applicant before the interview, not in the published vacancy. The Netherlands has also postponed its law, targeting an entry into force of 1 January 2027, with reporting obligations first applying to the 2027 year rather than 2026. The European Commission stated on 18 December 2025 that it does not accept the postponement, but until the Dutch act is in force, the in-ad requirement simply does not exist there.

The takeaway for Dutch-market recruiters is not “ignore it.” It is “prepare the before-interview disclosure and the pay-history ban now, and do not let a vendor or a LinkedIn post scare you into thinking the advert itself is legally required to carry a range.” If you want the line-by-line of what a compliant vacancy should contain regardless of jurisdiction, see the pay transparency job ad checklist.

What about Belgium and Ireland, which go further?

Belgium and Ireland are the two markets where “salary in the ad” is genuinely heading toward mandatory, so cross-border teams should default to the stricter standard there. In Belgium the picture is regional: a Wallonia-Brussels Federation decree was adopted in September 2024 and has applied to French-speaking public-sector employers since 1 January 2025, the Flemish draft decree is set to enter into force on 7 June 2026, and the federal private-sector text, which is expected to require minimum and maximum pay in vacancy notices, had not been published as of April 2026. Belgian drafts also point toward referencing the applicable collective bargaining agreement in the notice.

Ireland’s draft, the General Scheme of the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill published on 15 January 2025, would require employers to publish salary ranges in all job advertisements and would prohibit asking about pay history. The catch is timing: the bill was not on the government’s summer priority list, so a meaningful delay past 7 June 2026 looks likely. The obligation is coming; the exact start date in Ireland is not yet fixed.

What should recruiters do across borders right now?

Default to the stricter rule for any role you advertise in more than one country, and standardise on putting a real pay range in the advert. It is the only approach that is compliant in every jurisdiction at once, it removes the risk of getting a moving transposition date wrong, and it is where the whole market is heading anyway. A pan-European campaign that omits pay in Brussels or Dublin while including it in Warsaw is harder to administer than just publishing the range everywhere.

A practical operating checklist:

1. Publish a genuine pay range in every EU advert, written as “EUR 40,000 to EUR 60,000” rather than a vague label. Phrases like “competitive salary” do not satisfy the requirement; see why competitive salary no longer works.
2. Remove every pay-history question from forms, screening calls and ATS templates.
3. Keep job titles and ad copy gender-neutral, as Article 5 requires.
4. Track the transposition status per market and date-stamp your internal guidance, because Belgium, Ireland, Spain and others are still moving.
5. If you are an agency, agree with each client who owns the pay-range obligation in the advert; the duty does not disappear because a third party posted the role.

That last point matters for staffing firms in particular. We cover the division of responsibility in detail in the guide on the directive for recruitment agencies, and the broader EU picture in our overview of pay transparency and job ads.

How Recruitifly helps

Recruitifly runs posting compliance checks before a vacancy goes live, so the system flags a missing pay range, a vague “competitive salary” label, or a stray pay-history question on the form before a candidate ever sees it. Because the rule differs by country, the checks are configured per market, which means a single pan-European campaign can carry the right disclosure in each jurisdiction without a recruiter memorising seven transposition timelines. For agencies, the Agency Hub keeps the pay-range obligation attached to the role no matter who posts it, and the Fly assistant can draft a compliant range and gender-neutral copy on request. You can see the posting controls on our features page.

Recruitifly is in private beta. If pay-transparency-ready job posting is on your 2026 roadmap, talk to us and join the beta.