New legal notice grants employees right to pay transparency – of a sort

A new Legal Notice published on Friday (today) introduces notable changes aimed at increasing transparency around pay, as Malta begins aligning its legislation with the EU Pay Transparency Directive.

However, while the changes are significant, they do not go as far as the full scope envisaged by the Directive.

Legal Notice 112 of 2025, which is expected to come into force on 27th August, introduces two key rights for workers.

First, prospective employees must be informed of either the initial wage or the wage range attached to the job before employment begins.

Second, employees will have the right to request information about their own pay level and the pay levels of others performing the same work within the organisation.

These provisions will impose new obligations on employers when advertising roles and responding to employee requests during employment. In particular, employers will need to ensure pay-related information is shared in writing and within a reasonable timeframe – not exceeding two months from the date of request.

However, the Legal Notice does not yet fully transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive. While the Directive grants employees the right to compare their salary with those performing “work of equal value,” the new Maltese regulation only permits comparisons with workers doing the “same work.” This is a narrower scope and could leave some gaps in enforcement around equal pay for comparable roles.

Under Maltese law, there is a recognised distinction between the two categories. Employees performing the same work are considered to be in the same category, whereas employees performing work of equal value may fall under a separate, comparable category. Both are entitled to equal pay in principle, but the current Legal Notice restricts access to pay data to the former group only.

Who does the EU pay transparency directive apply to?

The EU Pay Transparency Directive applies to all public and private sector employers in the European Union.

There will be a staggered rollout, with large companies impacted first:

• Employers with 150 or more employees will need to submit gender pay gap reporting in June 2027, reporting on the calendar year of 2026.
• Employers with less than 150 employees will need to submit gender pay gap reporting in June 2031, reporting on the calendar year of 2030.

The gender pay gap reporting requirements also vary depending on company size, as follows:

• Companies with more than 250 employees will be required to report annually.
• Companies with 100-249 employees will be required to report every three years.
• Companies with less than 100 employees will not be required to report (though individual EU member states could choose to change this during implementation).