Italy has become one of the first EU member states to implement the Pay Transparency Directive. Legislative Decree 96/2026 came into force on 7June 2026, in accordance with the EU’s timetable. The Decree applies to both public and private sector employers, with some obligations differing depending on the size of the business.
Below we provide a short overview of the new rules for Italian employers. As can be seen from this, Italy has stayed relatively close to the wording of the Directive and has not sought to “gold plate” the provisions. Its existing national collective bargaining agreement framework also plays a key role in the new pay transparency landscape, with such agreements providing the basis for assessing key concepts such as “same work” and “work of equal value”.
Transparency during recruitment
Job advertisements and job vacancy announcements must now indicate the initial salary or pay band for the role, and employers are prohibited from asking candidates about their current or previous remuneration, including via third party recruiters.
Transparency in remuneration
The Decree requires all employers to make the criteria used to determine (i) pay, (ii) pay levels and (iii) economic progression accessible to employees. The only exception is for companies with fewer than 50 employees, which will not be required to share the criteria for economic progression, but must comply with the other information obligations.
“Pay” for these purposes means basic wage or salary and all sums and assets paid by the employer directly or as a payment in kind to an employee in relation to the employment relationship, including supplementary or variable components, such as bonuses, commission, etc.
“Pay level” means the gross annual salary and the corresponding gross hourly salary, excluding non-structural individual economic benefits such as any salary components which are recognised as personal, discretionary or temporary and not generally available to the same category of employees and based on objective individual criteria. So, for example, the so-called “superminimo”, i.e. discretionary amounts paid in addition to the minimum salary provided under the relevant national collective bargaining agreement would not be caught. Structural contractual elements forming part of standard remuneration (including 13th and 14th salaries, indenitta di funzione, scatto di anzianita, terzo elemento) are typically included, subject to further interpretative guidance. Other individual allowances (e.g. function allowances) and payments linked to actual performance or working time (e.g. overtime, supplementary, night, Sunday and holiday work) appear to fall outside the concept of “fixed and structural pay”.
Employers will be able to satisfy the above obligations by providing the existing information required at the start of an employment relationship, to the extent this includes details of the employee’s classification level, starting salary, and the applicable collective bargaining agreement. For those employers that apply a national collective bargaining agreement signed by unions that are representative at the national level, this obligation will be deemed to be fulfilled by referring to the criteria, classification levels, and remuneration in the collective bargaining agreement, as well as any second-level company agreements.
Right to information
Employees will be entitled to request directly (or via their representatives or equality bodies) information (in writing) on the average pay levels broken down by gender for categories of employees performing the (i) same work or (ii) work of equal value to them. The employer must provide this within two months of the request.
“Same work” for these purposes means work involving identical tasks or tasks attributable to the same classification level established by the relevant national collective bargaining agreement.
“Work of equal value” means work performed in different but comparable tasks according to the pay classification levels established by the relevant national collective bargaining agreement.
Employers must inform all employees annually of their right to receive this information and how they can exercise this right. An employer will be able to satisfy this obligation by posting this information on the company’s intranet or in a reserved area of the website, which should at least make things administratively more straightforward for employers.
For companies with 50 or fewer employees, the Decree allows different methods for providing this information to ensure that the pay of a specific individual cannot be easily identified, thus protecting the employee’s privacy. A subsequent Labor Ministry decree will set out simplified procedures to avoid the direct or indirect identification of individual workers. In practice, these are likely to consist of standard formats, templates, or electronic channels developed by the Ministry to provide the requested information to employees, as well as dedicated technical support and operating instructions, defined in the implementing decrees, also to ensure anonymity and compliance with the GDPR.
Pay gap reporting and joint assessments
The Decree also establishes the obligation to submit formal, periodic “Gender Pay Gap Reports” to the Monitoring Body for companies with at least 100 employees.
For employers with between 100 and 149 employees, data must be collected by June 7, 2031, and every three years thereafter; for employers with between 150 and 249 employees, data must be collected by June 7, 2027, and every three years thereafter; for employers with at least 250 employees, data must be collected by June 7, 2027, and annually thereafter.
In the case of a joint assessment (which is triggered when the gender pay gap exceeds 5%, has not been justified on the basis of objective and gender-neutral criteria, and has not been corrected within six months of the disclosure of pay information), employers are required to adopt, in cooperation with employee representatives, the necessary measures identified as appropriate to address and remedy unjustified pay differences within a reasonable timeframe following the conclusion of the joint assessment.
Employee representatives for these purposes will be the members of RSU (Rappresentanze Sindacali Unitarie) or RSA (Rappresentanze Sindacali Aziendali) or, in their absence, the local representatives of the trade unions which signed the collective bargaining agreement applied by the company and to whom employees may legally grant specific mandates. The RSA and the RSU are alternative employee representative bodies – the main difference between them is in their composition – the RSA is appointed by the relevant unions and the RSU is elected directly by the workforce.
Implications for employers
The Decree is now in force and therefore Italian employers should be taking the following steps:
- Review and update job advertisements/job vacancy announcements to ensure they include the relevant salary/salary band information.
- Train Talent Acquisition Teams and managers with involvement in recruitment on the new requirements.
- Audit recruitment processes to ensure they are compliant, including that candidates are not asked about their remuneration at their current or previous employers.
- Ensure processes are in place to comply with individual employee information requests
- Assess current headcount levels to determine which pay gap reporting obligations apply and the relevant deadlines.
At this stage, it is still a bit too early to fully assess the practical impact of the new legislation, as the official text has only recently been published and Italy is still awaiting further interpretative guidance and commentary on a few key aspects. In particular, several open issues remain including, for example, how the rules will apply to agency workers and the practical extension of certain obligations.
Another relevant point is the distinction between “pay” and “pay level”. The latter appears to be a more limited concept, as it excludes non-structural and individual discretionary elements of remuneration, such as bonuses and other variable incentive payments, as well as the so-called “superminimo”, i.e. discretionary amounts paid in addition to the minimum salary provided under the national collective bargaining agreement.
This could be significant in practice, as such elements are often the ones used to justify or conceal individual pay differentiation, including in potential discrimination scenarios. It remains to be seen how this distinction will be interpreted in light of the overall purpose and spirit of the Directive.
Overall, while Italian employers are generally attentive to these developments, it is likely that the practical impact will depend heavily on how the implementing rules and subsequent interpretations develop. In the meantime, as set out above, employers should be reviewing their job advertisements, pay structures, and internal remuneration criteria, and ensure they have processes in place to respond to employee information requests and pay transparency obligations, even if some aspects remain to be clarified.