Cvida Studies · Data collected in 2026
Salary in Job Ads: How Often Europe Shows the Pay
How many public job ads show the salary, country by country, measured on 6,782 vacancies from the EU's job portal.
Key findings
- 45%
- of public job ads show the pay, on average across 24 European countriesEach country counts once, whatever the number of its vacancies.
- 90% vs 36%
- where the law requires the pay in the job ad, against everywhere elseCountries requiring it: Latvia, Austria, Slovakia, and Italy.
- 12 of 24
- countries where at least half of the ads show the salaryIn 10 countries, fewer than one ad in four does.
- ≤ 9%
- of public job ads show the pay in Sweden, Denmark, and NorwayAmong the lowest shares we measured, despite the Nordic reputation for openness.
The EU Pay Transparency Directive is meant to end the guessing game: applicants should learn the pay before the interview, not after the offer. Most countries have not yet turned it into law, so we measured where things stand today. We took a random sample of the job ads open on EURES, the EU's job portal, in 24 countries and checked each one for a salary figure. The answer depends far more on the country than on the job: in some, nearly every ad shows the pay; in others, almost none does.
Methodology
- Source
- EURES, the European Commission's job mobility portal, which publishes the vacancies of national public employment services and partner job boards
- Sample
- 6,782 job ads in 24 countries: up to 300 per country, drawn at random from the vacancies open on the collection day
- Collected
- 2026
- Counts as showing pay
- A specific amount or range of base pay, in the ad text or in the portal's salary field. Phrases such as “competitive salary” do not count, and neither do bonuses, meal vouchers or allowances on their own.
- Not measured
- United Kingdom, Iceland, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia
- Accuracy check
- 234 ads, drawn separately from those used to build the classifier, read and labelled by hand: the automatic classification matched in 97% of them. Most mismatches were figures it missed, so the shares are, if anything, slightly low.
These are public listings, not the whole job market. EURES carries what national employment services and their partner boards send it; LinkedIn and private national job sites are not included. The shares describe the ads a job seeker finds on the public system.
The form matters as much as the employer. Several employment services ask for the salary in a dedicated field when an employer registers a vacancy, and EURES displays that field on the ad. Where the form has no such field, the pay appears only if the employer writes it into the text. Part of the gap between countries is this difference in forms.
Where a country has more than 10,000 open vacancies, the sample comes from the 10,000 most recent, the deepest a search on the portal reaches. Identical ads from the same employer with the same title were counted once.
With up to 300 ads per country, each share is accurate to within a few percentage points. The table gives the 95% confidence interval for every country; where two intervals overlap, the difference between those countries is not meaningful.
The salary field is shown as the employment service filled it in. A few Croatian ads, for example, carry amounts labelled in kuna, a currency Croatia replaced with the euro in 2023. We count what the applicant is shown and do not correct the figures.
Romania and Bulgaria are left out because their employment services send EURES ads with little or no text and no salary field, so there is nothing to measure; a 0% there would describe the feed, not the employers. Lithuania and Iceland had fewer than 200 open vacancies. The United Kingdom and Serbia are not part of EURES.
The legal status of each country comes from our study of CV rules in Europe, checked against official sources in 2026.
Where public job ads show the salary
Europe splits sharply. In Poland (100%), Latvia (100%), Czechia (100%), Slovakia (99%) and Austria (99%), almost every public job ad states the pay. In Hungary (0%), Luxembourg (1%), Switzerland (1%) and Sweden (2%), almost none does.
The large western markets sit in between: France at 75%, Germany and the Netherlands at 59% and 58%, Ireland at 57%. Spain is at 14%, and Belgium at 34%.
Share of public job ads that show the pay
Random sample of open vacancies on EURES, up to 300 per country
Show the data
| Country | Ads showing pay |
|---|---|
| Latvia | 100% |
| Poland | 100% |
| Czechia | 100% |
| Austria | 99% |
| Slovakia | 99% |
| Portugal | 93% |
| France | 75% |
| Italy | 62% |
| Germany | 59% |
| Netherlands | 58% |
| Ireland | 57% |
| Estonia | 56% |
| Belgium | 34% |
| Finland | 25% |
| Spain | 14% |
| Norway | 9% |
| Denmark | 9% |
| Slovenia | 8% |
| Greece | 8% |
| Croatia | 5% |
| Sweden | 2% |
| Switzerland | 1% |
| Luxembourg | 1% |
| Hungary | 0% |
Cvida Studies · data collected in 2026 · cvida.io
Does a legal requirement make a difference?
Four of the countries we measured already require employers to put the pay in the job ad: Latvia, Austria, Slovakia, and Italy. Austria has done so since 2011, Slovakia and Latvia since 2018. On average, 90% of their public ads show the salary, against 36% in the other 20 countries.
The law is not the whole story, though. Poland (100%) and Czechia (100%) get there without such a rule, because their employment services ask for the salary when an employer registers a vacancy. Italy, where the rule has applied only since June 2026, is at 62%; about a third of the Italian ads without a figure point to the collective agreement instead of stating an amount.
Austria shows what a well-enforced rule looks like. Its law requires the collectively agreed minimum in every ad, and 99% of Austrian ads state it, usually as “at least € … gross a month, with willingness to pay more”.
Pay in the job ad: with and without a legal requirement
Mean of the country shares
Show the data
| Countries | Ads showing pay |
|---|---|
| Law requires pay in the ad (4) | 90% |
| No such requirement (20) | 36% |
Cvida Studies · data collected in 2026 · cvida.io
All countries, from most to least open
The highlighted bars are the countries where the law requires the pay in the job ad.
Public job ads showing the pay, by country
Highlighted: the law requires the pay in the job ad
Show the data
| Country | Ads showing pay |
|---|---|
| Latvia | 100% |
| Poland | 100% |
| Czechia | 100% |
| Austria | 99% |
| Slovakia | 99% |
| Portugal | 93% |
| France | 75% |
| Italy | 62% |
| Germany | 59% |
| Netherlands | 58% |
| Ireland | 57% |
| Estonia | 56% |
| Belgium | 34% |
| Finland | 25% |
| Spain | 14% |
| Norway | 9% |
| Denmark | 9% |
| Slovenia | 8% |
| Greece | 8% |
| Croatia | 5% |
| Sweden | 2% |
| Switzerland | 1% |
| Luxembourg | 1% |
| Hungary | 0% |
Cvida Studies · data collected in 2026 · cvida.io
The full numbers
Share of ads showing pay, with its 95% confidence interval, the share of those ads that give a range rather than a single figure, the number of ads analysed, and what the law requires.
| Country | Shows pay | 95% interval | Of which a range | Ads | The law |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latvia | 100% | 99–100% | 99% | 300 | Required in the ad |
| Poland | 100% | 99–100% | 31% | 300 | Before the interview |
| Czechia | 100% | 98–100% | 4% | 300 | No obligation |
| Austria | 99% | 97–100% | 8% | 300 | Required in the ad |
| Slovakia | 99% | 97–100% | 1% | 300 | Required in the ad |
| Portugal | 93% | 87–96% | 1% | 151 | No obligation |
| France | 75% | 70–79% | 61% | 300 | No obligation |
| Italy | 62% | 53–70% | 17% | 122 | Required in the ad |
| Germany | 59% | 53–64% | 53% | 300 | No obligation |
| Netherlands | 58% | 52–63% | 30% | 300 | No obligation |
| Ireland | 57% | 51–62% | 18% | 300 | No obligation |
| Estonia | 56% | 50–61% | 71% | 300 | Before the interview |
| Belgium | 34% | 29–40% | 61% | 300 | No obligation |
| Finland | 25% | 20–30% | 65% | 300 | No obligation |
| Spain | 14% | 10–18% | 61% | 300 | No obligation |
| Norway | 9% | 6–13% | 41% | 300 | — |
| Denmark | 9% | 6–12% | 31% | 300 | No obligation |
| Slovenia | 8% | 6–12% | 0% | 300 | No obligation |
| Greece | 8% | 5–12% | 44% | 209 | From November 2026 |
| Croatia | 5% | 3–8% | 13% | 300 | No obligation |
| Sweden | 2% | 1–4% | 67% | 300 | No obligation |
| Switzerland | 1% | 0–3% | 0% | 300 | No obligation |
| Luxembourg | 1% | 0–2% | 50% | 300 | No obligation |
| Hungary | 0% | 0–1% | — | 300 | No obligation |
What this means when you apply
Where most ads show the pay, use it: you can compare offers before you apply and go into the interview with a figure in mind. Where they do not, the EU directive will soon give you the right to the pay range before the interview, and in Austria, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia you already have it.
- If the ad gives a range, aim your expectations at the upper half; the lower end is usually the entry point.
- If the ad gives only a collective-agreement minimum, treat it as a floor, not as the offer.
- If the ad gives nothing, it is reasonable to ask for the range before a second interview. Under the directive, employers may no longer ask what you earn now.
How to cite this study
Cvida (2026). Salary in job ads: 24 European countries measured. Cvida Studies, data collected in 2026. https://cvida.io/studies/salary-transparency-in-job-ads