In short and in plain language
This post is about job ads in care. It covers new rules on showing the salary in the ad. The post explains what changes.
This can also affect your own career page. A career page is a page for job seekers.
The post shows how to find a fitting salary range. It also names common mistakes.
Clear salary details can be an advantage when you look for staff. This matters for care services and homes that need care workers.
We build your career page so that each job shows the salary.
By 7 June 2026, Germany must transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive into national law (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 34). For care services this has a very concrete consequence: anyone advertising a role must in future state the likely starting salary or a salary range before the first conversation, in every public job ad, including on their own career page. This hits a sector where skilled staff are scarce and where applicants increasingly skip ads without a salary figure. This article shows how home care services, day care centres and facilities adapt their job ads in a legally sound way and turn the new duty into an advantage in the competition for staff, instead of ticking it off as an annoying requirement.
Key takeaways
- By 7 June 2026, Germany must transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 34). From then on, the starting salary or a salary range belongs in every public job ad, at the latest before the interview (Article 5).
- The duty is not tied to company size and applies to the small home care service as much as to the large senior home. Only the additional reporting duty on the pay gap is staggered, starting at 250 employees (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 9).
- Care is affected in particular: around four in five staff are women and the unadjusted pay gap is about 16 percent (Federal Statistical Office). Transparent pay is therefore also a signal to your own workforce.
- The range derives from pay grade, experience level and regular allowances, not from gut feeling; the care minimum wage of EUR 20.50 per hour for qualified staff is the floor (Care Commission). A range that is too wide meets the letter but not the purpose.
- Your own career page is a public job ad. The range belongs there as readable text above the apply button, the job title stays gender-neutral, and the question about previous pay is dropped (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5).
What pay transparency requires from June 2026
Directive (EU) 2023/970 was adopted in June 2023 and must take effect in the member states by 7 June 2026 (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 34). The core for recruiting sits in Article 5, so-called pay transparency prior to employment. Under it, applicants have the right to learn the starting pay or its range before entering a salary negotiation, usually already in the published vacancy notice or at the latest before the interview (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5). Important for the care sector: this duty is not tied to a minimum company size but applies to employers regardless of headcount. It affects the small home care service just as much as the large senior home.
Article 5 asks for more than a figure. Job titles and vacancy notices must be worded gender-neutrally, and the selection process must not disadvantage anyone (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5). At the same time, employers may no longer ask applicants about their previous or current pay (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5). Germany's existing pay transparency act, which so far granted a right to information only above 200 employees, is being revised for the new rules (Haufe). As long as the national law is not final, 7 June 2026 remains the date on which the rules are meant to apply, which is why providers do better to prepare the change now than at the last minute.
The deadlines and thresholds at a glance
Why this hits the care sector in particular
Pay transparency targets the pay gap between women and men, and this is precisely where care is a special case. The sector is predominantly female: around four in five staff in elderly and nursing care are women (Federal Statistical Office). The unadjusted pay gap in Germany is about 16 percent, the adjusted value, that is adjusted for factors such as occupation, qualification and working hours, still around 6 percent (Federal Statistical Office); across the EU the unadjusted figure is about 12 percent (Eurostat). For providers this means transparent pay is not just a formal duty but a signal to a workforce that is meant to benefit especially from the rule.
At the same time, staff shortage is the dominant issue. By 2049, depending on the scenario, Germany could lack between 280,000 and 690,000 care workers (Federal Statistical Office). In such a tight market, every point of friction in the application path matters. An ad without a salary figure already deterred applicants; from 2026 it is also legally exposed. A provider that states the range openly spares applicants the guesswork and itself the conversations that fail over a figure named too late. How to shorten the application path overall is shown by the article on staff recruiting via a care website.
What changes for the job ad
In concrete terms, six things change in every vacancy notice. They sound administrative but are quickly done once you set them up cleanly. Anyone filling roles continuously is best served by permanent templates, as the service for care job postings provides. After that, every new ad follows the same pattern and the extra effort per role drops to a few minutes.
A range, not on request
Every ad names a starting salary or a range, open and readable, instead of advertising attractive pay that no one can verify (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5).
Objective criteria
The range rests on objective, gender-neutral criteria such as pay grade and level of experience, not on gut feeling (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5).
Gender-neutral language
Job title and text are worded gender-neutrally. The addition for female, male and diverse belongs there but does not replace a neutral base wording.
No pay-history question
On the application form and in the interview, the question about previous or current pay is dropped. This is expressly prohibited (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5).
Applies on all channels
The figure belongs in every public vacancy notice: on job boards, in social networks and above all on your own career page. No channel is exempt.
Documented and traceable
How the range is derived is recorded internally. That keeps equal work equally paid and makes the ad defensible if in doubt.
Setting the salary range correctly
The hardest question is not whether but how wide. A range that stretches from a temp to the care management fulfils the letter but not the spirit of the rule and tends to put people off. The directive requires pay to be based on objective, gender-neutral criteria (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5). In care there are sound anchors for this: many providers pay by collective agreement or in line with one, for instance the public-sector care pay scale, church-based employment guidelines or the collective agreement for elderly care. On top of that, the nationwide care minimum wage rose to EUR 20.50 per hour for qualified care professionals on 1 July 2025 (Care Commission). From pay grade, experience level and regular allowances, you can derive a range that stays meaningful and still leaves room to negotiate.
- Derive the range from pay grade and experience level rather than estimating from gut feeling
- Keep the lower and upper bound tight enough for the figure to remain meaningful to applicants
- Observe the care minimum wage of EUR 20.50 per hour for professionals as the absolute floor (Care Commission)
- Name regular allowances and the shift model transparently when they are a fixed part of pay
- Record the criteria for grading in writing so that equal work is paid equally
- Add a date of record so it is clear which pay round the range rests on
The career page is a job ad too
A common misconception is that the new duty only concerns the big job boards. It concerns every public vacancy notice, and your own career page is exactly that (Directive (EU) 2023/970, Article 5). Care services in particular increasingly publish open roles on their own site first, because that brings applications without waste and without agency fees. This makes the career page the place where the salary range has to be right first. How such a page is built is covered by the article on care job listings on your own website; the frame for it is provided by the career page with recruiting.
- Every advertised role names a salary range or a starting salary, visible above the apply button
- The job title is gender-neutral, with the addition for female, male and diverse included
- The application form no longer asks for previous pay
- The range appears as text on the page, not only in an image, so search engines and screen readers can read it
- A named contact person and an honest response time stand right beside it
- A quick application without a cover letter lowers the barrier further
An ad with or without salary
| Feature | Ad without a salary figure | Ad with a salary range |
|---|---|---|
| Legal position from June 2026 | Exposed, requirement breached | Meets Article 5 of the directive |
| Effect on applicants | Many drop off early | The figure builds trust |
| Expectation | Applicants guess | Expectation is clear from the start |
| Salary negotiation | Starts blind | Starts on a shared basis |
| Response | Fewer suitable applications | Better response in our experience (project experience) |
| Effort | Constant follow-up by phone | Set once cleanly, then a template |
The table shows the salary figure is not a mere administrative act but changes how an ad works. Without a figure the most important question stays open, and open questions cost candidates in an applicant market. With a clear range, the conversation starts where it should, and the drop-out rate after the first round falls because no one turns up with the wrong expectation.
Turning the duty into a recruiting advantage
The duty can be read as a burden or as an opportunity. A provider that states the salary range openly before everyone has to comes across as fair and confident, and that pays into the employer brand. Applicants who know in advance where they stand enter the conversation with realistic expectations. That saves both sides time and lowers the number of rejections after the first round. The message becomes credible when real voices from the team back it up, as the article on employee voices on the career page shows.
The new rule: do not ask about previous pay
- Realistic expectations from the first minute and therefore fewer rejections after the interview
- A fair signal to a predominantly female workforce that is meant to benefit from the rule
- Less effort, because the figure need not be renegotiated in every phone call
- A plus over competitors still working with a terse on request
- A link to further channels such as a multilingual approach to applicants and relatives
- A basis for targeting international care workers, who value clear figures especially
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
These points surface later
Implementation step by step
You do not have to change everything at once. The order below is sorted by impact per effort: first the salary range, then the language, then the form and the technology. In this sequence the ad stands cleanly in good time before 7 June 2026, without everything happening at once.
- Record all open and planned roles, including those on your own career page
- Derive a salary range from pay grade and experience level for each role
- Record the grading criteria in writing so that equal work is paid equally
- Check job titles and ad texts for gender-neutral language
- Adapt the application form and remove the question about previous pay
- State the salary range as text, not as an image, with a visible date of record
- Test on a smartphone and with a screen reader and add a contact person
- Schedule the update after each pay round as a fixed date in the calendar
The order is deliberately sorted by impact so the most important points come first. The legal frame around the imprint, mandatory details and advertising law is covered by the article on the legally sound care website. The matching care website provides the structure for it, and open questions on concrete implementation we are glad to clarify in a personal conversation. In this way a new rule becomes a building block that makes recruiting easier rather than harder.
Sources and studies
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