Pay transparency in Lithuania: what employers must do, and by when

Lithuania transposed Pay Transparency Directive (EU) 2023/970 by Law No. XV-969 of 21 May 2026 amending the Labour Code (Article 22 of Law No. XV-969). Most of the changes apply from 7 June 2026, the rules on pay data reporting apply from 1 January 2027, and the first gap indicators come in 2028 or 2031, depending on the number of insured persons. The first task is the same for every employer: by 31 December 2026, adopt a pay system, or review the one you have. Then come the recruitment and confidentiality rules, the employees’ right to pay data, and reports whose scope depends on your headcount. Below is the whole procedure in order, with dates.

How to set a new hire’s pay when they negotiate a higher salary, we have already answered in the FAQ of our labour law consultations page (in Lithuanian). This article covers what the company must do as a system.

What applies from when

Law No. XV-969, except its Article 2 and Article 17 and Article 23(2) and (3), enters into force on 7 June 2026 (Article 23(1) of Law No. XV-969). Its Article 2 and Article 17, which amend Article 23 and Article 148 of the Labour Code, enter into force on 1 January 2027 (Article 23(2) of Law No. XV-969).

In practice there are four stages:

• from 7 June 2026: new requirements for the pay system, recruitment and confidentiality;
• by 31 December 2026: adopting or reviewing the pay system;
• from 1 January 2027: monthly data to the state and the employee’s right to the indicators for themselves and their group of positions (DK Article 148(4), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). Employers provide them only once the State Social Insurance Fund Board (Valstybinio socialinio draudimo fondo valdyba, Sodra; the Board) has supplied them, and the Board first supplies the annual figures by 1 March 2028 (Article 23(8) and (9) of Law No. XV-969);
• 2028 or 2031: gap indicators, first by 1 March 2028 or by 1 March 2031, depending on the number of insured persons (Article 23(5) of Law No. XV-969).

Step 1: a pay system by 31 December 2026

By 31 December 2026 employers adopt a pay system (darbo apmokėjimo sistema). Where a system already exists, they review it and amend it if needed, following Article 140 of the Labour Code (Article 23(4) of Law No. XV-969).

What the system must contain is set by Article 140(3) of the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania (DK):

• if no collective agreement sets the pay system, the employer adopts it and makes it available to all employees;
• before a system is adopted or changed, the information and consultation procedures must be carried out;
• positions are grouped by objective, gender-neutral criteria: skills, qualifications, effort, responsibility, working conditions and, where appropriate, other relevant criteria;
• positions to which the same work or work of equal value is assigned go into the same group;
• the system sets the forms of pay, pay levels or ranges (minimum and maximum), the grounds, amounts and procedure for supplements, allowances and bonuses, and the criteria and procedure for indexing and raising pay.

One exception. Employers with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the duty to set out criteria and a procedure for pay rises in the system (DK Article 140(3)). The exception does not remove the other requirements.

The system must be designed so that discrimination on grounds of sex and other grounds is avoided. The same work is work where the two employees could swap places without the employer incurring higher expenses. Work of equal value is assessed by the same criteria of Article 140(3) (DK Article 140(5)).

The most important part of the system is not the text of the document but the grouping of the positions. Start with a list of positions and, for each one, write down the skills, effort, responsibility and conditions it requires.

Step 2: recruitment and the job offer

In a job advertisement the employer must state the offered base pay and/or its range, except in cases provided for by law (DK Article 25(6)).

From 7 June 2026 it is prohibited to ask a candidate for information about the pay received in current or previous employment (DK Article 41(1)). So the question “how much do you earn now?” has to be removed from forms, interview scripts and briefs to recruitment agencies.

Where the company has a collective agreement in force, the future employer must, before the contract is signed, provide not only the job-advertisement information but also the provisions of the collective agreement that will apply. The information is provided so as to ensure well-founded and transparent pay negotiations (DK Article 41(1)).

Step 3: confidentiality agreements and work rules

Data about one’s own pay cannot be treated as confidential information where the employee discloses it in order to enforce the right to equal pay for the same work or work of equal value (DK Article 39(1)).

Review employment contracts, confidentiality agreements and work rules. The wording “salary is confidential information” is now too broad. It will not create a prohibition where the law does not allow one. It is safer to define precisely what is confidential in the company, for example by a list of confidential information approved by the manager and made known to employees.

Step 4: the employees’ right to pay data from 1 January 2027

From 1 January 2027 an employee has the right to receive from the employer, in writing, data on their own annual pay and their average pay per hour (for the month and for the year). They are also entitled to the employer’s average annual pay and average pay per hour (for the month and for the year), broken down by sex, for the group of positions to which their own position belongs. Employers must inform employees every year of this right and of how the data are provided (DK Article 148(4), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

At the employee’s request, the employer provides these data, received from the State Social Insurance Fund Board (Valstybinio socialinio draudimo fondo valdyba), in writing within one month of receiving the request. If the data are inaccurate or incomplete, the employee may ask for explanations, and providing them may not take longer than 2 months from receipt of the employee’s original request for the data (DK Article 148(5), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). If the State Labour Inspectorate (Valstybinė darbo inspekcija) or the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson (Lygių galimybių kontrolieriaus tarnyba) asks for the data, they must be provided within the time it sets, but no later than 10 working days from receipt of the request (DK Article 148(6), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

The Board calculates each employee’s figures and the averages of all the employer’s employees by sex in the same group of positions from the data employers submit every month (DK Article 23(3) and (4), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). In DK Article 23(4) the headcount bands (100 to 249, and 250 or more insured persons) are attached to the previous calendar year’s gap indicators; that paragraph also mentions employers with fewer insured persons who wish the same data-processing rules to apply to them as to employers with 100 to 249 insured persons. For each employee’s figures and the group figures, that paragraph sets no such bands. The Board supplies these figures “to the employers referred to in paragraph 4 of this Article” (DK Article 23(5), DK as in force from 1 January 2027), and first supplies the annual figures to employers by 1 March 2028 (Article 23(8) of Law No. XV-969). DK Article 148(4) does not limit by employer size either the employee’s right to these data or the duty to inform employees every year of that right. The text of the Code does not say clearly whether the Board will also supply these figures to employers with fewer than 100 insured persons. So it is safer to prepare to provide these data whatever your headcount, until the Minister sets the procedure for supplying these data (DK Article 23(12), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

If the data would reveal the pay of another identifiable employee, they are, at the employee’s request, provided only to the employees’ representatives, the State Labour Inspectorate or the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson (DK Article 148(7), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). The employer may require that the employee use the data received, other than data about their own pay, only to enforce the right to equal pay. Breach of this requirement may be treated as a breach of work duties (DK Article 148(8), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

An important transitional rule: employers start providing these indicators only after the State Social Insurance Fund Board has provided them (Article 23(9) of Law No. XV-969). The Board first provides employers with each employee’s annual figures and the employer’s annual figures by group of positions and sex by 1 March 2028 (Article 23(8) of Law No. XV-969). The duty to inform employees every year of their right is a separate one, so it is worth putting it into the work rules now.

Step 5: reports by headcount

Already today, an employer whose average number of employees is more than twenty must, at the request of the works council (or, if there is none, the trade union acting at employer level), provide information updated at least once a year. This is anonymised data on average pay by group of positions and sex, excluding management positions, where a group has more than 2 employees (DK Article 23(2)).

From 1 January 2027 employers submit monthly data to the State Social Insurance Fund Board on employees’ pay, working time and group of positions under the pay system. The exception is data on officers, statutory civil servants, persons whose data are state or official secrets, and temporary agency workers whose pay indicators are submitted under DK Article 23(8): these are not submitted to the Board in this way (DK Article 23(3), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). So the groups of positions in the system need to be clear by that date.

From these data the Board itself calculates the gender pay gap indicators. For employers with 100 to 249 insured persons this is done every three years, and for those with 250 or more every year (DK Article 23(4), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). Smaller employers may opt for the same rules to apply to them (DK Article 23(4), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

After receiving the indicators, the employer must, within one month, give the employees’ representatives and employees the indicator of the gap in base and supplementary pay by group of positions, where a group has more than 2 employees of either sex (DK Article 23(5), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

The first deadlines are set in the transitional provisions (Article 23(5) of Law No. XV-969):

• for employers with 150 or more insured persons, the Board first provides the indicators by 1 March 2028;
• for employers with 100 to 149 insured persons (and smaller employers that opted in), by 1 March 2031.

These employers’ indicators are first published by 1 April 2028 and by 1 April 2031 respectively (Article 23(7) of Law No. XV-969). In addition, every month the Board publishes the average pay per hour of men and women for employers with at least 8 employees (more than 3 women and more than 3 men) (DK Article 23(6), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

If you are a temporary work agency: with 100 to 249 insured persons you calculate the indicators for temporary workers yourself and submit them to the Board every three years, and with 250 or more every year. You also give the indicator in point 7 of DK Article 23(4) to employees’ representatives and employees, where a group of positions has more than 2 employees of either sex (DK Article 23(8), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). The first submission is due by 1 March 2028 (150 or more insured persons) or by 1 March 2031 (100 to 149) (Article 23(6) of Law No. XV-969). For a user undertaking, note that temporary workers may also ask it for the indicators and explanations (DK Article 148(5), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

Step 6: explanations, correction and joint pay assessment

These duties do not apply to every employer. They apply only to the employers referred to in DK Article 23(7) and (8), that is, those with 100 to 249 or with 250 or more insured persons (DK Article 23(7) and (8), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

If, after the indicators are provided, employees or their representatives have questions, the employer must give explanations at their request within a reasonable time, but no later than one month from receipt of the request for explanations. If the State Labour Inspectorate or the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson asks, within the time they set, but no later than 10 working days (DK Article 23(9), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

If a difference is not justified by objective, gender-neutral criteria, the employer corrects it within a reasonable time, but no later than six months from receiving the indicators (for temporary workers, from the day the indicators are submitted to the Board), in cooperation with the employees’ representatives (DK Article 23(10), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

A joint pay assessment is mandatory when all three conditions are met (DK Article 23(11), DK as in force from 1 January 2027):

1. the indicators show a difference of at least 5 per cent in average pay between women and men in any group of positions;
2. the employer has not justified the difference by objective, gender-neutral criteria;
3. the employer has not corrected the unjustified difference within six months of receiving the indicators (for temporary workers, from the day the indicators are submitted to the Board).

The employer carries out the assessment in cooperation with the employees’ representatives and provides it to employees, their representatives and the State Labour Inspectorate (DK Article 23(11), DK as in force from 1 January 2027). The procedure for data collection and the joint assessment is set by the Minister of Social Security and Labour (DK Article 23(12), DK as in force from 1 January 2027).

What is at stake if a dispute arises

Once the employee points to circumstances from which it may be presumed that they were discriminated against, the burden is on the employer to prove that there was no discrimination (DK Article 26(5)). In pay discrimination cases, the comparison is not limited to employees hired at the same time (DK Article 26(4)(4)).

If a breach is found, the employee is awarded compensation. It covers full recovery of unpaid pay, compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, and compensation for lost job-related opportunities (DK Article 219(2)). In such cases the court may depart from the usual rules on allocating litigation expenses, taking into account whether the parties’ conduct in the proceedings was proper (DK Article 217(4)).

So the best protection is paperwork: an adopted system, clear grouping criteria and written reasons why a particular employee’s pay is set as it is.

How to start

Send us your current pay system (if you have one), a list of positions, your employment contract and confidentiality agreement templates, and your work rules. We will draft or review the pay system and the other documents against the new Labour Code rules.

Phone +370 5 212 1506, email info@linden.lt

More about this service: drafting labour law documents.