Malta has fully transposed the EU Pay Transparency Directive (EUPTD), publishing the Equal Pay (Transparency and Reporting) Regulations, 2026 on 5 June 2026 — just two days before the Directive’s 7 June 2026 transposition deadline. The regulations took immediate effect and cover the full scope of the Directive’s requirements.
The move completes a transposition Malta had been building in stages. Effective 27 August 2025, Malta had partially transposed two of the Directive’s requirements: initial pay transparency before employment begins, and a limited right to information. The new regulations implement those measures again – this time in full alignment with the Directive – and add the reporting, joint pay assessment, and enforcement framework that was previously missing.
In several areas, Malta has gone beyond the Directive’s baseline — most notably in a staged, fast-moving process for responding to right-to-information requests.
How Did Malta Get to Full Transposition?
Malta’s transposition arrived in two phases.
The first phase, effective 27 August 2025, was partial. It covered initial pay transparency — requiring pay information to be provided before the commencement of employment — and a narrow version of the right to information. That earlier RTI provision required employers to disclose an individual’s pay level and the pay levels of employees performing the same work, but it did not incorporate the concept of work of equal value and did not require a breakdown by gender.
The second phase, the 5 June 2026 regulations, is comprehensive. It transposes all remaining Directive obligations and new, more compliant versions of the previously transposed measures. RTI now expressly covers work of equal value and requires the pay-level breakdown by sex that the Directive demands.
How Does Malta’s Right to Information Requirement Go Beyond the Directive?
Malta’s RTI framework (Regulation 6) is where the regulations diverge most sharply from the Directive’s minimum, and employers should pay close attention.
Workers have the right to request and receive in writing their individual pay level and the average pay levels, broken down by sex, for categories of workers performing the same work or work of equal value.
The standout feature is the timeline and escalation structure:
- Eight days to respond. Employers must respond to an RTI request within eight days — dramatically shorter than the Directive’s two-month baseline.
- Staged escalation on failure to respond. If an employer misses the eight-day deadline, an employee representative may, within 12 days of that deadline, submit a request for the same information on the worker’s behalf. If the employer still fails to respond, the worker may request and receive the information through the Equality Body (the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality).
- Enforcement at 45 days. If an accurate and complete response is not provided within 45 days of the initial request, the failure is treated as an offence under the regulations, and proceedings may be initiated against the employer.
Other RTI details:
- 2026 transition. Information provided for RTI requests made in 2026 relates only to pay for the 2026 calendar year.
- Clarifications. If information is inaccurate or incomplete, a worker may request additional and reasonable clarifications and details. No deadline is set for the employer’s substantiated reply beyond the 45-day trigger discussed above.
- Annual reminder. Employers must give workers an annual reminder of the right and the steps to exercise it.
- Recordkeeping and use limits. RTI information must be retained for five years, and workers may be required not to use information received — other than about their own pay — for any purpose beyond exercising their right to equal pay.
A note on data protection (Regulation 19): all data must be processed in line with the GDPR and used only to apply the principle of equal pay. Where disclosure under RTI, reporting, or Joint Pay Assessment (JPA) obligations would directly or indirectly reveal the pay of an identifiable worker, only workers’ representatives, the Equality Body, and the Monitoring Body may access that information, and representatives advise the worker without disclosing individual pay levels.
What Pre-Employment and Pay Transparency Rules Apply?
Malta’s pay transparency obligations track the Directive and build on the measures introduced in 2025:
- Initial pay disclosure. Initial pay or its range, along with the relevant provisions of any applicable collective agreements, must be provided ahead of the conclusion of the recruitment process so that pay negotiation is informed and transparent.
- Pay history ban. Employers may not ask candidates about pay history.
- Gender-neutral hiring. Job postings, job titles, and recruitment processes must be gender-neutral and non-discriminatory.
- Access to pay criteria. Employers must make accessible their criteria for pay, pay levels, and pay progression. Employers with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from providing pay progression criteria, but employers with 25 or more workers must internally document those criteria.
- General duty. Under Regulation 18, employers have a general duty to use appropriate means to bring the regulations to workers’ attention.
What Are Malta’s Reporting and Joint Pay Assessment Obligations?
Pay gap reporting (Regulation 9) aligns with Article 9 of the Directive and is phased by employer size:
- 250 or more employees: first report due 7 June 2027 (covering the full 2026 calendar year), then annually.
- 150–249 employees: first report due 7 June 2027 (covering the full 2026 calendar year), then every three years.
- 100–149 employees: first report due 7 June 2031 (covering the full 2030 calendar year), then every three years.
After the first reporting year, submissions are due within 14 working days from the end of the relevant yearly period. The accuracy of each report must be confirmed by management after consultation with employees’ representatives, and the Monitoring Body will prescribe the reporting format. Employers must provide pay gaps by worker category to their workers and representatives.
Joint Pay Assessments (Regulation 10), with contents aligned to Article 10(2) of the Directive, are triggered where a reported pay gap of 5% in any worker category has not been satisfactorily justified and has not been remedied within six months. The assessment is conducted in consultation with employees’ representatives, made available to workers and representatives, and communicated to the Monitoring Body within 10 working days of completion. Where disagreement arises, either party may request that the Monitoring Body attend a conciliation meeting; failing final agreement, the matter is referred to the Tribunal under provisions of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act.
What Are the Penalties for Non-Compliance?
The regulations (Regulation 20) set a tiered fine structure:
- EUR 2,500 to EUR 5,000 for violations of the regulations.
- EUR 5,000 to EUR 7,000 where the offence is connected with a breach of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value.
The court will take into account whether the fine is recurring. Monitoring and enforcement sit with two designated bodies: the Department for Industrial and Employment Relations as the Monitoring Body, and the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality as the Equality Body.
What Should Employers With Maltese Operations Do Now?
Because Malta’s regulations are already in force, employers cannot treat compliance as a future planning exercise.
The most pressing issue is RTI readiness. An eight-day response window leaves no room for ad hoc, manual responses, and the escalation path means a missed deadline quickly draws in employee representatives and the Equality Body, with enforcement exposure at 45 days. Employers should ensure pay data and worker category structures are organized and accessible now.
Reporting lead time also matters immediately. For employers with 150 or more workers, the first report is due 7 June 2027 and must cover the full 2026 calendar year — meaning the data being generated today is already in scope. All employers should confirm their pay structures rest on objective, gender-neutral criteria and, where the 25-employee threshold applies, ensure that pay progression criteria is documented. Employers should align data handling with the GDPR safeguards built into the regulations.
How Trusaic Can Help
At Trusaic, we provide employers across the EU with solutions to comply confidently with the Directive.
Our Complete EU Pay Transparency Solution enables compliant pay systems, ensures gender-neutral job evaluations, and automates complex reporting obligations to keep you one step ahead of EU pay transparency enforcement.
- PayParity® analyzes your rewards data (compensation/benefits in kind) and quickly identifies any potential unjustified inequities. It enables you to more easily comply with Article 7 (right to information) and Article 6 requirements (pay setting and progression policy).
- Our Remediation Optimization Spend Analysis (R.O.S.A.) works as PayParity’s remediation engine to find the most cost-effective way to close nominal pay gaps to ensure compliance.
- Automated RTI workflows: Our bi-directional integrations with global HCM platforms allow pay equity data to flow securely from the Trusaic platform back into the HCM. Employees can then access their RTI reports directly within their existing HR systems. This eliminates manual report generation and reduces compliance risk.
- For organizations that prefer platform-based access, RTI reports can also be generated and delivered securely through the PayParity platform, with role-based permissions and full auditability.
- Salary Range Finder® ensures equitable pay at the point of hire to prevent any increases in pay gap and enables you to easily comply with the Directive’s salary range disclosure and salary history ban requirements.
- Pay Decisions: Generate fair, competitive offers instantly from Workday.
- Regulatory and Pay Transparency Reporting™ captures your pay equity findings and generates compliant reports.
Trusaic is GDPR compliant and can assist any organization in any EU state in meeting its obligations under both the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
Visit our always updated Member State Transposition Monitor to stay on top of the latest EU Pay Transparency Directive developments.
