Country guide
Pay transparency in Latvia
What the EU Pay Transparency Directive means for employers in Latvia, based on its national transposition — status, thresholds, the joint-assessment trigger, and where to file.
Latvia has not transposed the Directive (deadline missed), and that is confirmed from the in-force text rather than from an absence of news: the Darba likums' own EU-directives annex — the place a transposition would have to appear — runs to 33 items and ends at 2019/1158, and the string "2023/970" occurs zero times in the whole Act. (One near-miss to not mistake for a transparency duty: "pārredzam" occurs once, inside item 32's title for Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working CONDITIONS, a different instrument.) The transposition instrument is a STANDALONE new Act — Darba samaksas pārredzamības likums, Labklājības ministrija, TAP file 26-TA-700 — not amendments to the Darba likums. As at 3 September 2026 it was at inter-ministerial consultation (Virzības stadija "Saskaņošana"), sent 27 June 2026 with a 10 July 2026 deadline. Its entry-into-force clause is BLANK — the heading is followed by nothing and the signature line beneath it is the drafting template's own dummy — so the Act has no commencement date at all, and nothing in it names a date it was intended to meet. Distinctive national rules: a fixed 1 June annual filing date on the previous calendar year (§ 10(4)); mandatory submission to a state authority whose CHANNEL is deferred to Cabinet regulation by § 10(6), which Pārejas noteikumi 6 requires the Cabinet to issue by 1 May 2027, with employer publication of items 1–6 merely permitted ("var publicēt") and item 7 never published (§§ 10(6), (8)–(9)); permanent bands of 250+ annual and 100–249 triennial, with the 150–249 slice and the 100–149 slice each brought in by a transitional provision; job-evaluation criteria must be AGREED with employee representatives (§ 3(2)); the pay range must appear IN THE ADVERT (§ 6(2)); the six-month joint-assessment clock runs from the report submission date (§ 11(1)(3)); and an unjustified >5% gap is a public-procurement exclusion ground (§ 20). Two affirmative gaps in the text: it sets headcount bands but NEVER defines how employees are counted (no FTE rule, no reference date), and it contains NO small-number suppression floor of any kind. Draft is provisional pending enactment — but see the regime entry: the Darba likums binds today.
Latvia has a transposition bill in progress but has not yet enacted it. The figures below reflect the directive's defaults and the draft as it stands, and may change before the law is final.
Reporting duties apply by employer size: 150 to 249 employees, from 2027 · Every three years (anticipated); 250 or more employees, from 2027 · Annual (anticipated); 100 to 149 employees, from 2031 · Every three years (anticipated). The directive's 5% trigger for a joint pay assessment applies until national law sets its own.
Figures are reported to the competent authority rather than published openly. Either way, the underlying work is the same: establish work of equal value through gender-neutral job evaluation, produce the statutory pay-gap report in the national format, and run a joint assessment where the gap is too wide.
Obligations at a glance
| Reporting threshold |
|
|---|---|
| Joint pay assessment | — |
| Public publication | Reported to the authority only |
| Competent authority | Valsts darba inspekcija (VDI) |
Frequently asked
Is the EU Pay Transparency Directive in force in Latvia?
Latvia has a transposition bill in progress but has not yet enacted it. The figures below reflect the directive's defaults and the draft as it stands, and may change before the law is final.
Which employers have to report in Latvia?
Reporting duties apply by employer size: 150 to 249 employees, from 2027 · Every three years (anticipated); 250 or more employees, from 2027 · Annual (anticipated); 100 to 149 employees, from 2031 · Every three years (anticipated).
What triggers a joint pay assessment in Latvia?
The directive's 5% trigger for a joint pay assessment applies until national law sets its own.
This guide summarises publicly available information for orientation only. It is not legal advice — confirm every figure against Latvia's own transposition text before relying on it.