The Directive refers to vacancies and recruitment procedures, without distinguishing between a position that is advertised externally and a position that is offered internally to existing employees. When an employee applies for a different, higher or differently structured position within the same organisation, there is essentially the same situation as in an external application: someone who is not in that position wants to know what that position offers before making a choice.
Whether this is also how it is interpreted in practice is up to the supervisory authority and, where necessary, the court. What can be said is that the distinction often made between 'real' vacancies and internal mobility does not appear as such in the text of the Directive. To determine whether your company is affected by this, it is therefore more advisable to look at what actually happens during an internal position change than at the label you give it.
When is there a vacancy
A vacancy arises at the moment a position becomes available and candidates are sought or selected for it, regardless of whether this happens within or outside the organisation. An internal position change where an employee moves to a different position with a different set of tasks, a different place in the organisation or a different pay scale, shows the same characteristics as external recruitment: there is a position to be filled and a choice to be made about who fills it.
In contrast, a regular periodic review, an annual salary round or an automatic step within the same scale is something different. There is no new position to be filled, but the existing position is continued. The difference is therefore not in the word 'promotion', but in the question of whether a new position with its own place in the job classification is being filled.
Why this is linked to the job classification
The band associated with a vacancy is inseparable from the position itself. It is linked to the job category in which that position is classified, together with comparable positions on the basis of objective, gender-neutral criteria. Once that classification is in place, the band is in practice already determined, whether the position is advertised externally or offered internally.
This makes it harder to treat internal and external situations differently than it might appear at first glance. A band that you include in an external advertisement but not in an internal job profile raises more questions than it eliminates risk. Employers who have once established the job classification can draw that band for both situations from the same source instead of reconsidering it. You can read more about how that classification is built up in the knowledge base with explanations for each obligation.
What this means for your company
For employers who only recruit externally, little changes in practice: the band already belongs in every vacancy text. For employers with significant internal mobility, job families with multiple levels or a culture of trying internally first, the distinction is more relevant. It is precisely there that people often think the internal route is out of sight, when the position is in fact the same as an external vacancy.
Whether a specific internal procedure at your company falls under the definition of a vacancy is ultimately a question for a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority. What you can do yourself is check whether your internal job profiles show the same band as your external vacancy texts, and whether both are based on the same job classification. With the requirements checker that shows you in a few questions what applies to you you receive an initial indication without needing an account for it.
How this relates to the ban on salary questions
In internal mobility, there is another consideration: the employee applying internally is often already known to the employer, including their current salary. This is a different situation than an external candidate, to whom current salary cannot be asked, simply because it is already known. That said, the salary range for the new position is separate from what someone currently earns: the range belongs to the position, not to the person filling it.
If you want to see how information about positions, salary ranges and remuneration policy are brought together, you can find an overview on the page showing where the information comes from. For companies that want to have the position classification and remuneration policy set up rather than figure it out separately, you can find on the overview of what the system costs what is included.
The knowledge base and compliance check on payria.eu are free to consult, without an account. If you want to see in a few questions whether and how this applies to your company, you can do the quick-scan directly or work through the relevant topics in the knowledge base.