Has the pay transparency law already taken effect?

Not yet — the bill is still with the House of Representatives

No, the Act implementing the Directive on pay transparency between men and women has not yet come into effect. The bill (36949) was submitted to the House of Representatives on 21 May 2026, but the plenary debate has not yet taken place and no vote has been held. After that, the Senate also still needs to vote on it. The government aims to have the law come into force on 1 January 2027, but an aim is not a commitment: as long as both chambers have not agreed, the obligations under the bill do not yet apply to private employers.

This does not mean that nothing is happening at all. The transposition deadline that the Directive itself set for the Netherlands has already passed. From that moment on, courts must interpret existing Dutch law in line with the Directive as much as possible, and employers in the public and semi-public sector can already be directly bound by the Directive — it can work directly against the state and related institutions. For private employers, the Directive does not work directly between employer and employee; the national law is needed for that, and it is not yet in place. Those who still want to get started with it in the meantime can begin with matters that are not urgent, such as a job classification based on objective criteria — regardless of the exact date on which the law comes into force.

Where this is evident: bill 36949 and Article 34 of the Directive

The status of the bill — submitted, no plenary debate yet, no vote yet, and then still the Senate — is listed at bill 36949 on the website of the House of Representatives. That the EU transposition deadline has already passed and what that means for the interim period follows from Article 34 of Directive (EU) 2023/970, which sets the transposition deadline for member states.