Pay transparency laws by state (2026)

The P50 team

Published October 2, 2026

As of October 2026, 14 states and Washington, D.C. require employers to put a pay range in job postings, and Delaware's law starts on September 26, 2027. The table below shows who each law covers, what you have to post, whether remote jobs count, and when it took effect, with a link to the statute or the state labor agency for each one.

Laws change. We check every row on this page each quarter against the statute text or the state agency page, not against summaries. Last verified: October 2, 2026. If you hire in one of these states, read the agency page before you post.

Which states require pay ranges in job postings?

Thresholds are counted the way each state counts them. Some count only employees in the state. Others count your whole company. The notes after the table flag the differences.

State	Who it covers	What to post	Remote jobs	Effective	Source
Colorado	Any employer with at least one employee in Colorado	Pay rate or range, general description of benefits and other pay (bonus, commission, tips), how to apply and when the posting closes	Yes, any job that could be done in Colorado, even if it says Coloradans will not be considered	Jan 1, 2021 (amended Jan 1, 2024)	CDLE INFO #9A
California	15 or more employees, at least one in California	Pay scale: a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly range you expect to pay on hire	Yes, if the job may ever be filled in California, in person or remotely	Jan 1, 2023	DIR FAQ
Washington	15 or more employees, counting staff outside Washington	Wage scale or salary range (or a fixed wage), plus a general description of all benefits and other compensation	Yes, any job that could be filled by a Washington-based employee	Jan 1, 2023 (amended July 27, 2025)	RCW 49.58.110
New York (state)	4 or more employees	Minimum and maximum salary, hourly or piece rate, plus the job description if one exists	Yes, if the worker reports to a supervisor, office, or work site in New York, even from home out of state	Sept 17, 2023	NY DOL
New York City	4 or more employees (or 1 domestic worker)	Good-faith minimum and maximum salary	Yes, jobs that can be done in whole or in part in NYC, including from home	Nov 1, 2022	NYC CCHR
Illinois	15 or more employees	Pay scale (wage or salary, or range) and a general description of benefits	Yes, if the job is done at least partly in Illinois, or reports to a supervisor or office in Illinois	Jan 1, 2025	IDOL FAQ
Hawaii	50 or more employees, counted anywhere	Hourly rate or salary range that reasonably reflects expected pay; internal transfers and promotions are exempt	Not addressed in the agency FAQ	Jan 1, 2024	HCRC FAQ
Maryland	All employers, including nonprofits and governments	Minimum and maximum wage, general description of benefits, and any other compensation	Yes, if the work is physically performed at least in part in Maryland	Oct 1, 2024	MD DOL FAQ
Minnesota	30 or more employees at one or more sites in Minnesota	Starting salary range (minimum and maximum, not open ended) or a fixed rate, plus a general description of benefits and other compensation	Not addressed in the statute	Jan 1, 2025	Minn. Stat. 181.173
Massachusetts	25 or more employees in Massachusetts	Pay range: the annual salary or hourly range you reasonably and in good faith expect to pay	Yes, if the primary place of work is Massachusetts, including remote roles tied to a Massachusetts site	Oct 29, 2025	mass.gov
Vermont	5 or more employees	Compensation or a minimum-to-maximum range; for tipped jobs the base wage; for commission jobs, say so	Yes, if the remote job mainly serves an office or work location in Vermont	July 1, 2025	21 V.S.A. 495p
New Jersey	10 or more employees over 20 calendar weeks that do business, employ people, or take applications in New Jersey	Hourly wage or salary (or range), general description of benefits, and other compensation programs	Not addressed in the agency release	June 1, 2025	NJ DOL
Delaware	More than 25 employees	Hourly or salary pay or range, plus a general description of benefits and other compensation	Yes, jobs in Delaware and non-international remote jobs offered by a Delaware-based employer	Sept 26, 2027	HB 105
Washington, D.C.	Any employer with at least one employee in D.C.	Minimum and maximum projected salary or hourly pay, and tell applicants about health care benefits before the first interview	Not addressed in the law	June 30, 2024	D.C. Law 25-138
Virginia	All employers	Wage, salary, or wage or salary range in every public and internal posting	Not addressed in the statute	July 1, 2026	Chapter 1063
Maine	10 or more employees	The range of pay you expect to offer for the job	Not addressed in the statute	July 29, 2026	LD 54
Connecticut	All employers	Wage range and a general description of benefits in all public and internal postings	Yes, under the state's prior law, jobs done out of state for a Connecticut employer are covered	Oct 1, 2026	Governor's release

Notes and twists, state by state

Colorado goes furthest. You must post the pay, the benefits, and a good-faith estimate of when the application window closes. Until July 1, 2029, an employer with no Colorado site and fewer than 15 Colorado employees can skip the pay and benefits disclosure for jobs performed entirely outside Colorado, but it still has to tell its Colorado employees about those openings.

California changed its definition in 2026. A "pay scale" is now "a good faith estimate of the salary or hourly wage range that an employer reasonably expects to pay for a position upon hire." The posting rule (SB 1162) was signed September 27, 2022 and took effect January 1, 2023. Separately, private employers with 100 or more employees must file a pay data report with the Civil Rights Department each May.

Washington amended its law on July 27, 2025. Until July 27, 2027, an employer that gets written notice of a bad posting has five business days to fix it and avoid penalties. After that, the cure period ends. Statutory damages run from $100 to $5,000 per violation. Washington also lets you post a single fixed wage instead of a range, and it counts out-of-state staff toward the 15-employee threshold.

New York wants more than a range. If you have a written job description, the posting has to include it. The state FAQ says benefits like health insurance, paid time off, and bonuses should be listed separately from base pay, not folded into the range. New York City has its own law with its own enforcement, so a posting in the city must satisfy both.

Illinois reaches out-of-state workers who report to an Illinois supervisor or office. The rule applies to any posting made or republished after January 1, 2025, so an old posting that you refresh is covered.

Hawaii counts all your employees toward the 50, wherever they work. Internal transfers and promotions are exempt, and so are public jobs where pay is set by collective bargaining.

Massachusetts asks for a pay range only. Benefits are not required in the posting. Employers with 100 or more employees that file federal EEO reports must also send those reports to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, due February 1 each year for EEO-1 filers. Until October 29, 2027, a covered employer gets two business days to cure a posting after a notice from the Attorney General.

Vermont has special rules for tipped and commission jobs. For a tipped job, post the base wage. For a commission job, you can say it is commission based without stating pay.

New Jersey adds a promotion rule. You must make reasonable efforts to tell current employees in the affected departments about promotion opportunities, not just post external jobs.

Delaware is the one law in the table not yet in force. It was signed September 26, 2025 and takes effect two years later. A first violation gets a written warning; later ones carry a civil penalty of $500 to $10,000 each.

Washington, D.C. adds a benefits step. You have to tell a candidate that health care benefits exist before the first interview, and you cannot screen on wage history.

Virginia gives employers 15 business days to correct a posting after written notice. Civil penalties are up to $1,000 for a first violation and up to $5,000 after that, enforced by the Attorney General. The same law bans asking for salary history.

Maine pairs the posting rule with a record rule. You must keep a record of each position an employee held and their pay history for the length of employment plus three years.

Connecticut has had an on-request law since October 1, 2021. Public Act 26-12, signed May 11, 2026, moves the range into the posting itself and adds a general description of benefits. The state Department of Labor had not yet updated its FAQ for the new act when we checked.

Cities with their own rules

A few cities have posting laws that sit on top of (or ahead of) state law.

New York City (above) has covered employers with four or more employees since November 1, 2022.
Cleveland, Ohio requires employers with 15 or more employees in the city to include a salary range or pay scale in all formal job postings, effective October 27, 2025. Employers get a 90-day cure period, then penalties up to $1,000 for a first violation and up to $5,000 for repeats within five years. Ohio has no statewide law. Source
Jersey City, New Jersey requires employers with five or more employees, staff, or contractors to post the minimum and maximum base salary or hourly wage and any benefits. The city council approved it in 2022, before the state law. Source

States that require a range on request, not in the posting

Two states make you give a range to candidates, but not in the posting.

Nevada requires you to give the wage or salary range or rate to any applicant who has completed an interview, with no size threshold. NRS 613.133
Rhode Island requires a range on request, and says you should give it before discussing pay. Effective January 1, 2023. R.I. Gen. Laws 28-6-22

Connecticut was in this group until October 1, 2026.

How salary history bans are different

Salary history bans came first. They do not tell you what to post. They tell you what you cannot ask: what a candidate earned before. Most versions also bar you from using that number to set pay even if you learn it.

California's ban took effect January 1, 2018 and applies to all employers, including the state. It also requires you to give the pay scale to any applicant who reasonably asks (California Commission on the Status of Women). New York's ban took effect January 6, 2020 (NY DOL). Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maine, and Cleveland bundled a history ban with their posting rules.

The practical difference: a history ban removes your old anchor. A posting law makes you publish your new one. Together they mean the range you post is the number the candidate will negotiate from, so it has to be real.

What this means for a 300-person employer

If you have 300 employees, you clear the threshold in every state in the table. Hawaii's 50, Minnesota's 30, Massachusetts' 25, and Delaware's 25 are all well below you. The questions that matter are where your people sit and where your remote jobs could be filled. A company in Texas with 40 remote workers in Colorado, Washington, and New York is covered in all three. If you post a fully remote job with no location limit, Colorado and Washington treat it as covered.

Three things follow from that.

You need a defensible range for every posting. Most of these laws use words like "good faith" or "reasonably expects to pay." A range of $40,000 to $140,000 is not a good-faith range, and Minnesota bars open-ended ranges outright. The clean way is to price the job against market data, then set a minimum and maximum around that midpoint. If you do not have a survey, see how to price a job without a salary survey.

Your posted ranges are public data now. Competitors, recruiters, and your own employees can read them, and nothing in these laws stops anyone from collecting them. Posted ranges are now a rough market check of the kind only a salary survey used to give, with one caveat: a posting shows what an employer was willing to offer, not what it actually paid.

Your internal ranges have to match. Several of these laws let current employees ask for the range of their own job (Massachusetts, Maine, and California among them). If a new-hire posting shows more than you pay the person already in that job, you will hear about it. Build the pay file before you build the posting.

Where P50 fits

Posting laws make you publish a range, but they do not tell you what the range should be. P50 reports what employers actually pay by job, so you can set a range you can defend before it becomes public, and see how it compares to the market on the sample report. Our data promise explains how we keep your pay file private even when your postings are not.

P50 is a free salary survey for employers. Registration for the 2027 survey is open now, and data collection runs March 1 to May 3, 2027. Register for free.