Bulgaria Hands Workers the Right to Ask What Their Colleagues Earn

Bulgaria just gave every worker the legal right to ask what their colleagues are paid. From 7 June 2026, any employee can submit a written request to their employer for detailed salary information broken down by position and gender, and the employer has two months to respond with a written report showing both the employee's own pay and the average compensation for people doing the same or equivalent work.

The change arrives via urgent amendments to the Commission for Protection Against Discrimination framework, reportedly intended to implement a European Union directive on pay transparency and equal pay between men and women. We could not independently verify which specific EU instrument Bulgaria is transposing, but the policy architecture matches the EU's broader pay-gap agenda.

Anyone who's ever sat in a Bulgarian kafene listening to colleagues guess who earns what will recognise the shift. The guesswork now has an official answer mechanism.

What Employers Must Disclose

The new rules require employers to provide two pieces of information in response to a written request: the employee's own salary, and the average pay for workers performing the same or equivalent work, broken down by gender. The employer has two months from the date of the request to compile and deliver the report in writing.

If sharing the data could reveal another employee's exact salary (small teams, niche roles), the employer may instead provide the information to a trade union organisation or directly to the Commission for Protection Against Discrimination, which would then advise the employee on possible legal action without breaching confidentiality. The source does not specify how the commission determines whether a breach has occurred or what "possible legal action" entails.

Reporting Obligations for Larger Firms

Companies with more than 250 employees will have to submit annual reports on gender pay differences starting in 2027. According to the source, firms employing between 100 and 249 workers must file reports every three years beginning in 2031, though we could not independently verify this detail.

The legislation also states that employers may be required to conduct joint pay assessments with employees if an unjustified salary gap of at least 5% between men and women is identified, but the source does not clarify who determines whether the gap is "unjustified" or what the assessment process involves.

The Gender Pay Gap

According to the draft legislation cited by Novinite.com, Bulgaria's gender pay gap stood at around 12% in 2024, slightly above the European Union average of 11.1%. We could not independently confirm these figures from recent statistical releases, so treat them as indicative rather than definitive.

The British reader relevance here is straightforward: if you work for a British company operating in Bulgaria, your employer will need compliance procedures in place by early June. If you are employed directly by a Bulgarian firm, you now have a legal mechanism to request salary transparency that did not exist last month.

Our business guide covers the broader regulatory environment for British companies in Bulgaria, including OOD and EOOD structures and tax reporting obligations.

What British Companies Need to Do

British firms with Bulgarian subsidiaries or branches employing staff in Bulgaria must be ready to handle written salary information requests from 7 June 2026. HR teams should prepare:

• A process for logging and responding to written requests within the two-month window
• Salary data broken down by position and gender, with attention to roles where small team sizes could reveal individual pay
• A route for sensitive disclosures via trade unions or the Commission for Protection Against Discrimination where direct disclosure risks confidentiality breaches
• Annual reporting templates for businesses with over 250 employees, ahead of the 2027 filing requirement

The legislation does not appear to include penalties for non-compliance in the source material we reviewed, and we found no independent reporting on enforcement mechanisms. That gap may close as the rules bed in, or it may not. Watch this space.

Confidentiality and Trade Union Routes

The privacy safeguard is the most interesting design feature. If an employer determines that disclosing average salary data would reveal another employee's exact pay (common in small teams or highly specialised roles), they can route the information through a trade union or the anti-discrimination commission instead of handing it directly to the requesting employee. The commission would then advise on whether the data supports a discrimination claim, without the employee seeing the raw figures.

The source does not explain how an employer proves that disclosure would breach confidentiality, nor whether the employee can challenge the employer's decision to use the indirect route. British businesses used to GDPR's explicit thresholds may find the lack of detail here unsettling. The legislation appears to rely on employer discretion, which is either pragmatic or a compliance headache depending on your perspective.

What We Don't Know

Several details remain unconfirmed:

• The specific EU directive Bulgaria is implementing (the source references it but does not name it, and we could not verify it independently)
• The exact 2024 gender pay gap figures (cited in the draft but not corroborated by recent Eurostat or Bulgarian statistical releases)
• The reporting schedule for medium-sized firms starting in 2031 (mentioned in the source but not verified elsewhere)
• The 5% threshold for mandatory joint pay assessments (no independent confirmation of this figure or the assessment process)
• Penalties for employers who fail to respond to requests or miss reporting deadlines

We will update as clarifications land.

Practical Implications

If you are employed in Bulgaria and want to know whether you are paid fairly relative to colleagues in the same role, you can now ask formally in writing and expect an answer within two months. If you are a British company with Bulgarian staff, you have until early June to build a compliance process. If you run a larger firm (250+ employees), annual gender pay reporting starts in 2027, and you will need a system for collecting and filing the data.

The policy does not change your employment contract, does not mandate pay rises, and does not automatically trigger legal action. It creates a transparency mechanism. What happens next depends on what the data reveals and whether employees choose to act on it.