Employment law in 2026 has moved beyond the idea of a “correctly completed form” towards a requirement for a demonstrable system. Act No. 76/2026 Coll. on Equal Pay for Men and Women for Equal Work or Work of Equal Value has been in force since 7 June 2026. Employers established before that date were required to introduce a pay structure by 31 July 2026 at the latest. Recruitment documentation, employment contracts, collective agreements, employers’ internal regulations and policies governing employee benefits should therefore be consistent with one another in substance and uniformly reflect the remuneration principles and criteria applied.
Recruitment: Pay Can No Longer Be Left Until the End of the Interview
The Act on Employment Services has long required employers to state the amount of the basic salary component when publishing a job vacancy. The new Act goes further. Job applicants are entitled to know the starting remuneration or its range, determined on the basis of objective criteria, as well as the relevant provisions of a collective agreement if it governs remuneration. This information must be provided before the job interview or before the contract is concluded; the obligation may already be fulfilled in the job advertisement.
At the same time, an employer must not ask about the remuneration an applicant received from a current or previous employer. Job titles and the recruitment process must be non-discriminatory. Recruitment must be linked to actual pay bands and criteria that the employer can justify.
GDPR and the protection of personal data also deserve attention. Only necessary data may be requested during recruitment. Written consent to the processing of personal data for recruitment purposes is therefore not automatically a universal solution. Processing necessary to take steps prior to entering into an employment contract may have a legal basis directly under Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR; if a CV is retained for future recruitment, the legal basis, purpose and retention period must be addressed separately.
Employment Contracts and Internal Pay Policies Must Work Together
Under Section 43 of the Labour Code, pay terms are among the essential elements of an employment contract. Section 119 requires agreement, in particular, on the forms of remuneration, the amount of the basic salary component, other components of compensation for work, and the conditions under which they are provided. If an employment contract guarantees a specific salary, it cannot be unilaterally “rewritten” by an internal regulation. Agreed terms of an employment contract may be changed by agreement between the employer and the employee, and the change must be made in writing. In practice, this means an amendment to the employment contract.
An internal pay policy should regulate job categories, pay bands, classification criteria, variable pay, bonuses and special awards for employees. The pay structure must enable comparisons between equal work and work of equal value using objective criteria. In particular, complexity, responsibility, effort, working conditions and other relevant factors, including social and communication skills, are taken into account. Where employee representatives operate at the employer, the criteria must be agreed with them.
Transparency Does Not End When the Contract Is Signed
Employees must have access to the criteria used to determine their remuneration, pay levels and pay increases; employers with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the requirement to make the criteria for pay increases available. Employees also have the right to receive written information about their own remuneration and the average remuneration levels, broken down by sex, in the category of employees performing equal work or work of equal value, provided that the information does not allow an individual’s remuneration to be identified. The employer has two months to respond and must inform employees of this right once a year.
A significant change also concerns confidentiality. Employers must not prevent employees from disclosing the amount of their own remuneration to another person; any contractual provision prohibiting this is invalid. Templates for confidentiality agreements and employment contracts should therefore be reviewed.
Minimum Wage, Job Complexity Levels and Benefits
Transparency does not replace minimum wage rules. In 2026, the minimum wage is EUR 915 per month. Minimum wage entitlements based on the level of job complexity range from EUR 915 to EUR 1,495 per month for employers whose remuneration terms are not agreed in a collective agreement. From 2027, the minimum wage will be EUR 972, and monthly minimum wage entitlements will range from EUR 972 to EUR 1,552.
Moreover, “remuneration” within the meaning of Act No. 76/2026 Coll. includes not only basic pay but also other monetary and non-monetary benefits provided to employees. Employee benefits, bonus schemes and individual awards must therefore be reviewed against objective and non-discriminatory criteria.
What Do I Recommend to Employers?
The greatest risk is not a single missing document but a discrepancy between documentation and practice. Employment contracts, workplace rules, collective agreements, internal company policies and managers’ actual decisions on remuneration must form a single defensible system. The labour inspectorate also monitors compliance with obligations under the new legislation; for breaches of obligations within its remit, the Act on Labour Inspection allows fines of up to EUR 100,000 to be imposed on employers. In addition, if an employer fails to submit a pay report, Act No. 76/2026 Coll. provides for a fine of EUR 4,000 to EUR 8,000 once an additional deadline has expired without compliance.
Now is therefore an appropriate time for employers to conduct a legal and pay audit: from job advertisements and the required terms of employment contracts through to bonus and benefit criteria. The new legislation changes not only what must be written in documents. More importantly, it changes what an employer must be able to explain, document and substantiate in the event of an inspection or dispute.
Author: Nikoletta Nagyová