On January 7, 2025, the Authority for Working Conditions (“ACT”) officially began a new investigation action to verify and ensure legal compliance with the requirements to provide equal pay for men and women.

As it did in 2023, the ACT notified around 4,000 employers by email of potential disparities in the pay differences between men and women, resulting from the data provided by the entities in the Unique Report (Relatório Único), as announced on the authority's website.

Thus, employers that have been notified will be obliged to submit a Pay Gap Assessment Plan to the ACT within 120 working days, which must assess the pay gaps identified, verify the assessment and corrective measures taken, and demonstrate that these gaps are not due to discriminatory practices.

This Pay Gap Assessment Plan is an instrument that should contain a true assessment of the employer’s ecosystem with reference to objectives, job evaluation and remuneration criteria, gender distinction, potential corrective measures, and conclusions.

The plan should be implemented over 12 months and be based on the evaluation of job components, based on objective criteria, in order to exclude any possibility of discrimination based on sex. At the end of this period, the employer must notify the ACT of the results of the plan's implementation, demonstrating the justified pay differences and the correction of unjustified pay differences.

This obligation comes as part of the publication of Law 60/2018, of August 21, which came into force in February 2019 and approved measures to promote equal pay for women and men for equal work or work of equal value. These measures include pay transparency, monitoring and reflection in relation to the gender pay gap, promoting equality, and establishing support tools for the development of strategies and policies aimed at reducing the pay gap.

Failure to comply with the obligation to submit the Pay Gap Assessment Plan, implement the plan, or follow up with the authority after 12 months, might indicate a serious administrative offense that could result in a fine ranging from 612 to 9.690 €, depending on the company's turnover and whether the violation was committed negligently or intentionally.

Such administrative offense may also be subject to the ancillary sanction of deprivation of the right to participate in public auctions or tenders, for a period of up to two years.