There is no fixed timeframe set out in the regulations for the gender pay gap report itself. The directive links the obligation to a recurring date, not to a number of weeks or months you are allowed to spend on it. The question that really matters in practice, then, is not what the law prescribes, but how much time it takes internally to be able to deliver a report on that date that is correct.
That time varies considerably. An organisation that has already classified its jobs against objective criteria and has its pay data in good order will need a few weeks to have the figures calculated and checked per category. An organisation that still has to set this up will be talking about months. The difference is almost always in the same places.
Where the time goes in practice
The report itself is a sum total: you add up the remuneration per category of equal work and set them alongside each other by gender. That calculation takes little time once the input is correct. What does take time is everything that has to happen before it.
First of all, the job classification. Without a classification into categories of equal work, you do not know which jobs you can compare with each other, and therefore also not what you need to add up. If that classification is not yet complete, then the report effectively only starts after that step. In the knowledge base by topic you can see how that classification relates to the reporting obligation.
Then the data itself. Remuneration is often spread across a payroll system, an HR system and loose agreements on allowances or variable pay. Bringing that together, per category and per gender, is usually the part that takes the longest, precisely because it is done manually the first time.
And finally internal approval. Who signs off the report, is the works council or staff representative involved, and is there time for a review round before it goes public. That step is often forgotten in the planning, even though it takes just as much time as the calculation work itself.
Repetition makes it lighter, not automatically faster
A second or third reporting round takes less time than the first, provided the classification and data structure from the previous time have remained the same. If anything changes in between in terms of jobs, the organisation or the way remuneration is structured, then part of the work shifts back to the first round. Timeframe is therefore not a fixed figure that becomes permanently shorter after the first time; it depends on how stable the underlying structure remains.
What concretely slows down the timeframe
In practice, organisations get stuck on a limited number of points. Jobs that have never been formally classified and are therefore compared ad hoc. Pay data that is not stored consistently, so that adding up per category has to be done manually. Lack of clarity about who within the organisation owns the report, so that no one drives the planning. And in the first round often also: underestimation of the time that internal coordination and approval take, even though that step is just as much subject to the deadline as the calculation work.
Plan based on what you already know
The most useful question is not when the report needs to be ready, but what you are still missing to get started on it. Is the job classification in place, is the pay data per category available, and is it clear who will internally finalise the report. If one of those three is missing, that determines the planning, not the date on the calendar.
To see which steps are still open in your situation, you can see in a few questions what your situation is. That does not give legal advice on your specific situation, but it does give an indication of where you are in the process and what comes next.
For the calculation module that performs the calculation itself and for what is needed as a basis for it, the setup is described at the page on how the information is createdIf you have doubts about your own situation or about how a supervisory authority assesses a report, a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority is the appropriate contact point; Payria structures and calculates, but does not make judgments.
Would you like to first see where you currently stand, without it taking time right away? The free quick scan and the knowledge base provide an initial picture, free of charge and without an account.