Croatia has missed the European deadline for introducing new rules that should give workers easier access to salary information.

Member states were required to transpose the Pay Transparency Directive into their legislation by 7 June 2026. According to data from the international law firm Linklaters, updated on 8 September, Croatia is among the 11 members that have officially announced amendments but have not yet published even a draft law.

Only five members have adopted the regulations

So far, the Directive has been fully transposed by Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovakia. Another 11 members have published legislative proposals, while Croatia has remained in the last group of countries that have confirmed they are working on amendments but have not yet presented their text to the public. Croatia is therefore not the only one that is late, but it belongs to the members that have made the least progress in the process.

Back in May, the Government, through the Ministry of Labour, confirmed that it was preparing amendments to the Labour Act, and at the end of August Minister Alen Ružić said that the law was ready and should be sent under an urgent procedure. However, the proposal has still not been published, nor has a public consultation been opened, after which debate in Parliament and the adoption of the law would follow. Because of this, it still cannot be stated with certainty how Croatia will regulate each individual obligation, including whether the salary range will have to appear in every job advertisement. For now, the Ministry of Labour has confirmed only the direction of the announced changes.

Salary would have to be known before the interview

European rules guarantee candidates that before a job interview they receive the starting salary amount or the expected range, and the employer would no longer be allowed to ask them how much they earned in their previous job. This information can be stated in the advertisement or delivered to the candidate in another way before the interview, so the Directive itself does not prescribe that the salary must be written in every advertisement. Employees could also request information on the criteria according to which salaries and promotions are determined, as well as on the average salaries of women and men performing the same or equally valuable work.

Companies will have to explain differences

Employers with 150 or more employees should start reporting on pay differences in 2027, while that obligation for companies with 100 to 149 employees begins in 2031. A difference of at least 5 percent is not automatically prohibited, but if the employer cannot justify it with objective reasons and does not correct it within six months, it will have to thoroughly review its pay system with workers’ representatives. Until Croatia publishes and adopts its own law, however, these obligations cannot be presented as new rules that already apply to Croatian employers.