Job evaluation laws by country

Spain has the European Union's clearest job-evaluation mandate. Royal Decree 902/2020 requires employers to value jobs using a defined factor system governed by three legal criteria — adequacy, completeness and objectivity — to underpin a compulsory pay audit. Employers with 50 or more staff must comply.

Belgium requires the gender-neutral analysis of sectoral job classifications under its 2012 gender pay gap law and collective agreement CBA 25ter. The government publishes an official checklist for building gender-neutral job classifications, making analytical evaluation effectively mandatory.

Germany's Pay Transparency Act guarantees equal pay for equivalent work, judged on qualifications, responsibility and working conditions, and recommends objective job-evaluation methods. A 2025 expert commission has paved the way for a stricter transposition law lowering the reporting threshold to 100 employees.

France guarantees equal pay for work of equal value in its Labour Code and measures employer pay gaps through the Gender Equality Index. The Index is indicator-based rather than a factor-based job evaluation, and is being reformed to align with the EU Directive's equal-value concept.

The Netherlands guarantees equal pay for work of equal value under its equal-treatment framework but does not yet prescribe a job-evaluation method. Its transposition of the EU Directive — expected around 2027 — will strengthen works-council rights and extend scope to agency workers.

Sweden requires employers to run an annual pay survey analysing equal work and work assessed to be of equal value, weighing knowledge, skills, responsibility and effort. In March 2026 Sweden announced it would not legislate to transpose the EU Directive, citing its collective-bargaining model — a notable compliance gap.

Finland requires employers with 30 or more staff to produce an equality plan including a pay survey, with comparability drawn from internal job-evaluation frameworks. A government proposal to transpose the EU Directive was issued in December 2025.

Ireland's Employment Equality Acts define work of equal value by skill, physical and mental requirements, responsibility and working conditions — requiring analytical comparison to establish or defend a claim. The government confirmed in May 2026 that it would miss the EU transposition deadline.

Italy was among the first states to transpose the EU Directive, via Legislative Decree 96/2026. It anchors 'work of equal value' primarily in national collective-bargaining classification systems rather than employer-designed evaluation frameworks.

Poland's Labour Code guarantees equal pay for work of equal value and lists the criteria of qualifications, responsibility and effort — close to the classic compensable factors, though no defined evaluation method is mandated. Transposition adds tighter response deadlines and an annual notice duty.

Austria combines an equal-treatment law with biennial income reports for larger employers, but does not prescribe a factor-based job-evaluation method. As of spring 2026 it had no published draft transposing the EU Directive.

Portugal's Law 60/2018 promotes equal pay between women and men with a pay-gap evaluation mechanism, but does not prescribe a factor-based job-evaluation method. As of spring 2026 no draft transposing the EU Directive had been published.

Denmark's Equal Pay Act guarantees equal pay for work of equal value but relies on a statistics-based model rather than a prescribed factor-based job evaluation. It is expected to miss the EU transposition deadline, with implementation around 2027.

Bulgaria is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Croatia is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Cyprus is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Czechia is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Estonia is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Greece is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Hungary is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Latvia is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Lithuania is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Luxembourg is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Malta is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Romania is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Slovakia is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

Slovenia is bound by the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires employers to evaluate jobs using objective, gender-neutral criteria — skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. National transposition details and any pre-existing equal-value statute should be confirmed for this country.

The UK Equality Act defines equal value by the demands of a job — effort, skill and decision-making — and makes an analytical job evaluation study decisive in equal-pay claims. A non-analytical, whole-job scheme has no legal effect, so factor-based evaluation is effectively required to defend pay decisions.

Switzerland requires employers with 100 or more staff to conduct an internal equal-pay analysis every four years, have it verified independently, and inform employees of the result. The free federal Logib tool uses a regression model with a 5% tolerance threshold — a statistical mandate rather than factor-scoring.

Iceland is the first country in the world to make equal-pay certification legally compulsory. Employers with 25 or more staff must obtain accredited certification of an Equal Wage Management System under standard ÍST 85, classifying jobs analytically by responsibility, effort, competence and working conditions. It is the strongest job-evaluation mandate anywhere.

Norway guarantees equal pay for work of equal value — assessed on expertise, effort, responsibility and working conditions, even across different professions — and requires employers with 50 or more staff to map pay by work of equal value every two years. The EU Directive is not yet incorporated into the EEA Agreement.

Liechtenstein guarantees equal pay for work of equal value and requires gender-neutral application of job-classification criteria, but imposes no mandatory analysis, reporting or certification. Like Norway, it awaits incorporation of the EU Directive into the EEA Agreement.

Canada has the world's deepest explicit job-evaluation regime: the four compensable factors — skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions — appear verbatim in the federal Pay Equity Act and every provincial pay-equity statute. The federal Act, Quebec and Ontario cover private as well as public employers; Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland & Labrador cover the public sector.

South Africa requires jobs to be objectively assessed against named compensable factors — responsibility, skills and qualifications, physical, mental and emotional effort, and working conditions — when an equal-value pay dispute arises. The factors are set out in binding regulations and a Code of Good Practice, making this the strongest mandate outside Europe and Canada.

Brazil's 2023 Equal Pay Law guarantees equal pay for work of equal value — defined by equal productivity and technical perfection — and requires employers with 100 or more staff to publish semi-annual pay-transparency reports and adopt action plans where inequality is found. Fines reach up to 3% of payroll.

Chile guarantees equal pay for 'the same work' under Article 62 bis of its Labour Code — narrower than the equal-value standard of ILO Convention 100, which Chile ratified in 1971. No factor-based job evaluation is required.

Mexico's Federal Labour Law guarantees equal pay for equal work where the job, working day and conditions are equal — not the broader equal-value standard — and requires no factor-based evaluation. Pay-transparency reform proposals are advancing but the core standard remains 'equal work'.

Australia empowers the Fair Work Commission to order equal remuneration for work of equal or comparable value, and since 2022 to address historical gender-based undervaluation across occupations. 'Work value' is assessed by the tribunal rather than mandated as an employer method, with the care-economy reviews the leading examples.

New Zealand's Equal Pay Act assesses pay-equity claims on work value across skills, responsibilities, conditions and degrees of effort — factors written into the statute. A major May 2025 amendment raised the threshold to 70% female over ten years, imposed a strict comparator hierarchy, and discontinued all 33 existing claims.

South Korea requires equal wages for work of equal value within the same business and lists statutory criteria — skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions — making it closer to an explicit factor mandate than most of Asia. Enforcement remains comparator-based, with no mandated point system.

The Philippine Labor Code prohibits paying a female employee less than a male employee for work of equal value, using the equal-value standard but prescribing no factor-based method. The relevant article was renumbered from 135 to 133.

Japan's Labor Standards Act prohibits sex-based wage discrimination but only for the same work, with no equal-value job-evaluation requirement. Japan ratified ILO Convention 100 in 1967, and ILO bodies have repeatedly criticised the gap between that commitment and its narrower domestic law.

India's Code on Wages guarantees equal pay for the same work or work of a similar nature — not the broader equal-value standard — and prescribes no job-evaluation method. India has ratified ILO Convention 100, leaving a gap between treaty and domestic law.

The United States guarantees equal pay for substantially equal work under the federal Equal Pay Act, but has no federal equal-value or job-evaluation mandate, and is the headline non-ratifier of ILO Convention 100. Some states have introduced comparable-worth or pay-equity measures that go further.