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Is Your Workplace Ready for Pay Transparency: Remainder of Massachusetts Pay Transparency Act Effective October 29, 2025

5 minutes

On July 31, 2024, Massachusetts became the 11th state to pass a pay transparency law regarding employee wages. The law’s data reporting requirements, which impact employers with 100 or more employees, went into effect on February 1, 2025. Effective October 29, 2025, employers with 25 or more employees must begin disclosing pay ranges for every position in 1) their job postings; 2) upon employee request; 3) and any time that an employee transfers positions within the company.

Key Takeaways

  • October 29, 2025: Massachusetts employers with 25 or more employees must disclose pay ranges for similarly situated positions to job applicants and employees (upon request or transfer).
  • Ongoing: Massachusetts employers with 100 or more employees must submit Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reports. This is in addition to the pay disclosure requirements, and the timing of the EEO report depends on the type of employer.
  • Employers are not required to disclose an employee’s specific wages. The obligation is limited only to disclosure of pay ranges for each particular position.
  • Employers are prohibited from retaliating and taking adverse employment action against employees exercising their rights under this law.
  • Employers who fail to comply with the law are subject to civil penalties. Employees may have a private right of action where an employer retaliates against employees for exercising their rights under the law.

What Are Employers’ Obligations?

Massachusetts employers have long had a legal duty to provide equal pay to employees who perform comparable work. Despite pay equity laws, pay gaps between genders and/or members of other protected classes who perform comparable work remain. To address this, Massachusetts enacted its pay transparency law for private and public employers with 25 or more employees who work in Massachusetts.

If an employer has employees who work in states other than Massachusetts, the pay transparency law does not technically apply. However, neighboring states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont have similar laws with which employers may need to comply. Accordingly, it may be best practice for Massachusetts employers to extend the disclosure of pay ranges to all employees, regardless of work location.

Beginning October 29, 2025, Massachusetts employers subject to the law must:

  • Disclose the pay range for a particular position in all job postings for that position;
  • Provide the pay range for a particular position to any employee holding that position or to an applicant for that position upon request for the information; and
  • Provide the pay range for a particular position to any employee offered a promotion, demotion, or transfer to that position – this is mandatory – not dependent upon employee request

Employers with fewer than 25 employees should not ignore this law. These employers remain subject to federal pay equity laws, as well as Massachusetts Equal Pay Act (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 105A) and Massachusetts Fair Employment Law (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B). Under these laws, employees may bring discrimination or equal pay claims against their employers for disparate pay despite performing comparable work.

What Key Terms under the Law Must Employers Understand?

The pay transparency law contains critical terms with specific definitions. Employers must understand these terms to comply with the statute’s disclosure requirements.

  • Pay Range: the annual salary or hourly wage range that an employer “reasonably and in good faith” expects to pay for that position at the time of job posting or when an employee or applicant requests that information[1]
  • Job Posting: any advertisement or job posting intended to recruit applicants, including direct and third-party recruitment (e.g., internal postings, LinkedIn, trade magazine, Indeed, etc.)
  • Comparable Work: substantially similar work that requires the same skill, effort, and responsibility and performed under similar working conditions

Importantly, the new law does not create any obligations for employers to provide employees with another employee’s specific wage / salary. Such disclosure would likely violate privacy laws. However, employers must make good faith efforts to identify pay ranges for particular positions and to make that information available upon request and in job postings. Regarding the job postings, the law is unclear as to whether it will apply retroactively. Thus, employers should closely consider updating all job postings – both published before and after October 29, 2025 – to update and include reasonable pay ranges.

What Should Employers Do Next?

Prior to October 29, 2025, employers must prepare for compliance. To do this, employers should

  • Audit job descriptions to review essential functions of positions and calculate the pay ranges for particular positions
  • Update all job postings (e.g., internal, Indeed.com, LinkedIn, social media, other external publications) to include pay ranges for particular positions
  • Notify employees of their rights under this law
  • Train human resources team members, supervisors, and decision-makers on their obligations to prepare them to implement the law and answer employee questions

Cole Law Partners Can Help

Employers should not view their disclosure requirements under this law in isolation. Cole Law Partners’ employment lawyers understand the new pay transparency law and its interplay with federal and state equal pay and anti-discrimination laws. Employers with questions or concerns should contact us, and we will collaborate to identify risks in the employers’ policies and to develop solutions for compliance with the law.

[1] “Comparable Work” is defined in the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act. However, employers must understand this phrase when establishing “pay ranges” for the purposes of the pay transparency law.