Trends of Pay Transparency Laws and Salary History Bans Continue to Grow — New Laws Enacted in Virginia, Maine, and Delaware

As we have previously reported, a growing number of states and localities have enacted legislation requiring employers to post salary ranges for available positions and prohibiting employers from asking applicants and employees about their salary history. The purported purpose of these laws is, at a high level, to increase pay transparency and pay equity by closing pay gaps and allowing candidates to effectively negotiate for themselves in hiring. Several additional states — including Virginia, Maine, and Delaware — have now joined the list of states with such laws. 

Virginia’s Pay Transparency and Salary History Ban

First, Virginia passed a law, which will take effect on July 1, 2026, that includes both pay transparency requirements and a salary history ban. 

• As for pay transparency, the law prohibits employers from “fail[ing] or refus[ing] to disclose in each public and internal posting for each job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity the wage, salary, or wage or salary range for the position.” 

• As for the salary history ban, the law prohibits employers from asking about or seeking out the wage or salary history of an applicant; relying on the wage or salary history of an applicant in making hiring decisions; relying on an applicant’s wage or salary history in determining the wage or salary that individual will ultimately be paid upon hire; and refusing to interview, hire, or promote a prospective or current employee for not providing information relating to their wage or salary history.

The Virginia law also includes a prohibition on retaliation against prospective and current employees who engage in protected activity under the law.

The Virginia law provides a private right of action under which prospective and current employees may file suit within one year from the date of the alleged violation. However, at least with respect to the law’s pay transparency provisions, the law provides employers with an opportunity to cure any suspected violation before an individual may pursue a private right of action. Specifically, the aggrieved individual must first provide the employer with written notice of the suspected violation, at which point the employer has fifteen days to correct the job positing to include the required wage or salary range information.

For purposes of determining coverage under the Virginia law, an “employer” is defined as “an individual, partnership, association, corporation, legal representative, receiver, trustee, or trustee in bankruptcy doing business in or operating within this Commonwealth who employs another to work for wages, salaries, or on commission and shall include any similar entity acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.” This definition in mind, it is unclear whether the law requires employers with multi-state operations to post pay transparency information for all positions, or just those physically located in Virginia.

Maine’s Pay Transparency Law

Maine’s law, which will take effect on July 29, 2026, requires employers to include a range of pay on every job posting. The Maine law also requires employers to, upon request from a current employee, disclose the range of pay for the individual’s current position and to maintain internal records relating to each employee’s pay history during employment for up to three years following separation. Maine’s law applies to employers with ten or more employees, though it does not specify whether these employees must be physically located in Maine to reach the threshold.

Delaware’s Pay Transparency Law

Delaware has also enacted legislation, set to take effect in September 2027, that requires employers with more than 25 employees to include a compensation range (hourly or salary) and a description of available benefits as part of both internal and external job postings.

Next Steps for Employers

Amid these new laws (and what will surely be additional similar laws enacted across other states), employers should review their applicable job postings to ensure compliance with the requirements of the states in which they operate and recruit. Employers should also be aware that these laws will likely be interpreted as applying to remote workers based in the state with the pay transparency or salary history ban protection. To this end, a job position for a remote position that is hypothetically open to applicants from every state will likely need to comply with the protections of every state’s applicable laws. As a result, and to the extent an employer does not want to be bound by the terms of these laws, employers may wish to review their remote job postings in particular to ensure they specify any states from which the company is not hiring. Additionally, employers with employees in Virginia (and other states with salary history bans) must ensure that their recruiters, Human Resources professionals, and other individuals involved in hiring are trained and aware of their obligations to not request certain salary history information during the interview process.