Can you ask what your colleagues earn? Your right under the Dutch pay transparency law

A colleague mentions over coffee what she earns. You do much the same work, her job title is different, and her figure is well above yours. You start to wonder what the others in your kind of role are paid, and you have no idea whether you are allowed to ask, or who you would ask.

Soon you will be, and your employer will have to answer. The Dutch pay transparency bill (parliamentary document 36 949) gives every employee in the Netherlands the right to ask what colleagues doing the same work or work of equal value earn on average, broken down by gender. Most of what is written about the law is aimed at employers. This article is for the people who will use the right: what you can ask for, what you will not get, when it applies and how to put the question. It is written for anyone working in the Netherlands, including expats; other EU countries are implementing the same directive on their own timelines.

What you can ask for

The bill adds an Article 10b to the Dutch Equal Treatment of Men and Women Act. Its first paragraph covers information on "average pay levels, broken down by gender, for categories of workers doing the same work or work of equal value" (our translation). Put simply, you ask what the group you belong to earns on average, separately for the men and the women in it.

You can also ask for your own pay level and for the criteria your pay and pay progression are based on. The three belong together. The averages show whether there is a gap, and the criteria let you judge whether that gap rests on anything.

The right applies at every employer, however small. The duty to report on gender pay gaps only starts at a hundred employees, but that is a separate obligation. If you work for a company of twelve people, you can ask just the same. Agency workers are covered too.

What you will not get

No individual colleague's salary appears in the answer. You get averages per category, which is the point: the law is meant to show whether men and women in comparable work are paid equally.

The bigger question is who decides which colleagues are in your category. Your employer does. The grouping has to rest on objective, gender-neutral criteria, and the works council gets a right of consent over it; the bill extends Article 27 of the Works Councils Act for that. If your colleague's role sits in a different category from yours, she falls outside the average you are shown.

That is why it pays to know beforehand whether your work is of equal value. A different job title says little about it, and so does the same pay grade. How to judge it is covered in is my work of equal value to my colleague's?

When it applies

Not yet. The EU directive behind the law (2023/970) should have been in Dutch law by 7 June 2026, and that date was missed. The House of Representatives debates the bill on 7 December 2026 and 11 January 2027, after which it goes to the Senate. The government aimed for 1 January 2027; with this timetable the trade press expects a later date in 2027. There is no general transition period: on the day the law takes effect, the right applies at once.

Until then you may ask, but your employer does not have to answer. That is still worth doing. Research by NIRPA, the Dutch association of payroll professionals, found that more than half had not yet started preparing for this law. A polite request now gives your employer a reason to start, and gives you a date on which you asked properly.

How to ask

Put the question in writing, ideally by email to HR or your manager, so there is a record of when you asked. Once the law applies, your employer has two months to answer. If the figures you get are unclear, you can ask for clarification; the directive gives you the right to a reasoned reply.

Ask for averages and say so. A request that reads as if you want a specific colleague's salary is more likely to be refused than answered.

Two more things worth knowing. The directive requires your employer to remind all workers of this right every year, so once the law applies you should hear about it without asking. And a confidentiality clause in your contract may not stop you from disclosing your own pay where equal pay is concerned. That is Article 7(5) of the directive.

If the answer shows a gap

Say the women in your category earn clearly less on average than the men, or the other way round. The next question is where the gap comes from. Sometimes there is an explanation, for instance one group has on average been employed much longer. Sometimes there is not. Employers with a hundred or more staff have to carry out a joint pay assessment with the works council when they cannot explain a gap of five percent or more.

To see how your pay compares with the market beyond your own employer, the free salary check gives a reasoned picture. If things get stuck, talk to your works council, your union or an employment lawyer. This article explains the law with sources; it is not legal advice.

The short version

Under the Dutch pay transparency law you will be able to ask what colleagues doing the same work or work of equal value earn on average, by gender, along with your own pay level and the criteria behind it. You will not get individual salaries, and your employer decides which colleagues are in your category. The right is expected to apply from 2027. You can ask now.