Massachusetts, California and the state of Washington have new pay transparency requirements that employers need to be aware of.

Massachusetts

On July 31, 2024, the law was signed, taking effect on October 29, 2025, requiring private employers with 25 or more employees to include the pay range for a position in both internal and external job postings. The disclosure requirement applies to "any advertisement or job posting intended to recruit job applicants for a particular and specific employment position" and includes postings made through recruiters or a third party. The job posting must list the "pay range," which is defined in the Act as "the salary range or hourly range that the covered employer reasonably and in good faith expects to pay" for the position at the time of posting.  If the position is commissioned based, the commissions expected may have to be listed.  More guidance is needed for that issue.

To determine 25 employees in the state of Massachusetts, employers must count all full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary employees with a primary place of work in Massachusetts.  Remote employees may count if their primary workplace is in the state.  If an employer advertises for a remote worker who will report into an office in Massachusetts, it must follow the pay transparency requirements in the law.

The law also requires employers to disclose the pay range for a position offered to a current employee as a promotion or transfer, as well as provide the pay range for a specific position to any employee in or applicant for that position upon request. Per Holland & Knight:

“The pay range disclosure in response to a request by an employee is for the ‘particular and specific employment position’ held by that employee. Employers should be clear regarding the ‘particular and specific’ position for which it is disclosing the range and consider whether that ‘particular and specific’ position may account for differences in geographic location, level or seniority, education or experience, or other clarifying factors.”

As a reminder, and which started this year, employers with 100 or more employees in the state must file their EEO-1 with the state of those employees.  The 100 employees include all full-time, part-time, seasonal, temporary, and remote employees with a primary place of work in Massachusetts.

California

As of October 8, 2025, SB 642 was signed into law.  In summary SB 642 revised the “pay scale” definition, extended the statute of limitations for equal pay claims to three years and permitted recovery for a period up to six years, and defining key terms such as “wages.”  The requirements are effective January 1, 2026.

• SB 642 requires the pay scale on the posting to be the salary or hourly wage range the employer in good faith reasonably expects to pay “upon hire.”
• Wages are defined to include all forms of compensation, including benefits such as life insurance, vacation pay, holiday pay, and stock options, and bonuses.

There may be a question of how stock options and bonuses are identified for these purposes, whether it is the number of options or the average bonus.  The good news though is that there is no requirement for employers to include additional forms of compensation in the posted pay ranges.

It should also be noted that the law prohibits sex discrimination to prohibit paying employees of another sex less for performing substantially similar work. The use of the phrase “another sex” replaces the previous use of “opposite sex” to create a more inclusive definition.

Governor Newsome also signed SB 464 into law. The law greatly expands the California pay reporting requirements though the law will not be effective until the 2027 reporting cycle. The major change would require employers to use 23 job categories that effectively correlate with Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) groups instead of the 10 EEO-1 categories. This change may be a result of uncertainty surrounding the continued use of EEO-1 categories at the federal level.

Washington

On September 4, 2025, the Washington Supreme Court issued a major decision in Branson v. Washington Fine Wine & Spirits, LLC, clarifying who can sue under the Washington Pay Transparency law.  The question before the court was whether an applicant who is just applying but may not be a “real” applicant have standing to sue for damages, which can be substantial.

Unfortunately for employers in the state, the Court ruled that any person who applies to a job posting is a “job applicant.”  And the applicants do not need to prove they were “bona fide” or “good faith” seekers of employment.

What this means is that all employers in Washington should beware.  Any employer with 15 or more employees is subject to the law and must include the wage scale or salary range and a general description of benefits in the job posting. If this information is missing, applicants can seek damages, including statutory damages of $5,000 per violation, even if they cannot prove actual financial harm. That means businesses could face substantial liability, particularly in class action lawsuits, if postings are not compliant.

ASE Connect

Pay Transparency Law Comparison Chart – ASE members can access a Pay Transparency Law Comparison Chart in the ASE Member Community under My Toolkits and Guides.

Source: Seyfarth Shaw 10/8/25, Holland & Knight 9/24/25, Beresford Booth 9/10/25