Pay Transparency Kicks In: German Employers Must Reveal Salary Before Interviews From June 8

Starting June 8, 2026, German employers must disclose pay scales pre-interview; discrimination claim deadline doubles to 4 months; maternity care faces budget cuts.

Starting June 8, 2026, companies in Germany will be legally exposed to revealing pay scales long before a candidate sets foot in the interview room — even though the national law implementing the EU pay transparency directive won't arrive until early 2027.

The deadline for EU member states to transpose the Entgelttransparenzrichtlinie into national law expires on June 7. While Berlin's Umsetzungsgesetz is still being drafted, legal experts say courts can already interpret existing German law in line with the directive from the following day. That puts immediate pressure on employers, especially in the public sector and state-owned enterprises, where the rules apply directly.

Under the new regime, job applicants must be told the expected salary range before any interview. Workers gain broader rights to demand information on pay structures within their organisation. The practical effect: any unexplained wage gap becomes harder to defend. Germany's gender pay gap stood at 16 percent in 2025.

Discrimination Claims Get a Longer Window

The same week, the Bundeskabinett approved a separate overhaul of the Allgemeine Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG), Germany's general equal treatment law. The core change: the deadline for filing a discrimination claim doubles from two months to four months.

Protections are being expanded in several directions. Pregnant workers and new mothers receive stronger safeguards. Sexual harassment is no longer limited to the workplace — it will be actionable in housing, gyms, and driving schools. The federal Antidiskriminierungsstelle gains new powers, including the right to mediate and to support claimants in court. The so-called church clause, which allowed faith-based employers to impose certain requirements, is tightened to align with current case law. And the protected characteristic "Alter" (age) is formally renamed "Lebensalter" to clarify its scope.

Doctors Sound the Alarm on Maternity Care Budgets

While workers' legal protections are being strengthened, the medical community warns that pregnant women could face shortages. During the first week of June 2026, the Bundestag is debating a health-insurance reform that would cut €2.7 billion from outpatient care from 2027 onward.

The proposal includes a budget cap that the Frauenärzte-Verband (gynaecologists' association) says would also apply to maternity care. "Doctors could only be fully reimbursed up to a certain number of patients," warned Rolf Englisch, a representative of the association. "That jeopardises care."

The GKV-Spitzenverband, which represents the statutory health insurers, pushed back. "The reform is necessary to ensure the system's financial stability," said Florian Lanz on behalf of the association.

Courts Clarify Reference Letters and Vacation Rights

On May 7, 2026, the Bundesarbeitsgericht (BAG) settled a dispute over work references. If an employer agrees to issue a reference based on a draft submitted by the employee, that agreement is enforceable. If the employer deviates without a valid reason — the only valid objection being a violation of the principle of truthfulness — a penalty of up to €25,000 can be imposed.

In a separate ruling from March 2026, the Landesarbeitsgericht Thüringen struck down a blanket company policy that limited consecutive vacation to two weeks. Employers can only reject longer holiday requests if urgent operational reasons exist. The court also confirmed that vacation entitlements for employees on long-term sick leave expire only after 15 months.