Recruitment: Pay Can No Longer Be Left Until the End of the Interview

The Act on Employment Services has long required employers to state the amount of the basic salary component when publishing a job vacancy. The new Act goes further. Job applicants are entitled to know the starting remuneration or its range, determined on the basis of objective criteria, as well as the relevant provisions of a collective agreement if it governs remuneration. This information must be provided before the job interview or before the contract is concluded; the obligation may already be fulfilled in the job advertisement.

At the same time, an employer must not ask about the remuneration an applicant received from a current or previous employer. Job titles and the recruitment process must be non-discriminatory. Recruitment must be linked to actual pay bands and criteria that the employer can justify.

GDPR and the protection of personal data also deserve attention. Only necessary data may be requested during recruitment. Written consent to the processing of personal data for recruitment purposes is therefore not automatically a universal solution. Processing necessary to take steps prior to entering into an employment contract may have a legal basis directly under Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR; if a CV is retained for future recruitment, the legal basis, purpose and retention period must be addressed separately.

Employment Contracts and Internal Pay Policies Must Work Together

Under Section 43 of the Labour Code, pay terms are among the essential elements of an employment contract. Section 119 requires agreement, in particular, on the forms of remuneration, the amount of the basic salary component, other components of compensation for work, and the conditions under which they are provided. If an employment contract guarantees a specific salary, it cannot be unilaterally “rewritten” by an internal regulation. Agreed terms of an employment contract may be changed by agreement between the employer and the employee, and the change must be made in writing. In practice, this means an amendment to the employment contract.

An internal pay policy should regulate job categories, pay bands, classification criteria, variable pay, bonuses and special awards for employees. The pay structure must enable comparisons between equal work and work of equal value using objective criteria. In particular, complexity, responsibility, effort, working conditions and other relevant factors, including social and communication skills, are taken into account. Where employee representatives operate at the employer, the criteria must be agreed with them.

Transparency Does Not End When the Contract Is Signed

Employees must have access to the criteria used to determine their remuneration, pay levels and pay increases; employers with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the requirement to make the criteria for pay increases available. Employees also have the right to receive written information about their own remuneration and the average remuneration levels, broken down by sex, in the category of employees performing equal work or work of equal value, provided that the information does not allow an individual’s remuneration to be identified. The employer has two months to respond and must inform employees of this right once a year.

A significant change also concerns confidentiality. Employers must not prevent employees from disclosing the amount of their own remuneration to another person; any contractual provision prohibiting this is invalid. Templates for confidentiality agreements and employment contracts should therefore be reviewed.

Minimum Wage, Job Complexity Levels and Benefits

Transparency does not replace minimum wage rules. In 2026, the minimum wage is EUR 915 per month. Minimum wage entitlements based on the level of job complexity range from EUR 915 to EUR 1,495 per month for employers whose remuneration terms are not agreed in a collective agreement. From 2027, the minimum wage will be EUR 972, and monthly minimum wage entitlements will range from EUR 972 to EUR 1,552.

Moreover, “remuneration” within the meaning of Act No. 76/2026 Coll. includes not only basic pay but also other monetary and non-monetary benefits provided to employees. Employee benefits, bonus schemes and individual awards must therefore be reviewed against objective and non-discriminatory criteria.

What Do I Recommend to Employers?

The greatest risk is not a single missing document but a discrepancy between documentation and practice. Employment contracts, workplace rules, collective agreements, internal company policies and managers’ actual decisions on remuneration must form a single defensible system. The labour inspectorate also monitors compliance with obligations under the new legislation; for breaches of obligations within its remit, the Act on Labour Inspection allows fines of up to EUR 100,000 to be imposed on employers. In addition, if an employer fails to submit a pay report, Act No. 76/2026 Coll. provides for a fine of EUR 4,000 to EUR 8,000 once an additional deadline has expired without compliance.

Now is therefore an appropriate time for employers to conduct a legal and pay audit: from job advertisements and the required terms of employment contracts through to bonus and benefit criteria. The new legislation changes not only what must be written in documents. More importantly, it changes what an employer must be able to explain, document and substantiate in the event of an inspection or dispute.

Author: Nikoletta Nagyová

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Employing Third-Country Nationals Is Not Merely a Matter of Signing an Employment Contract

In the case of third-country nationals, concluding a standard employment contract under the Slovak Labour Code is not sufficient. Before an employment relationship is established, it is necessary to verify the legal basis on which the individual concerned is entitled to work in Slovakia.

The principal legal framework is set out in Act No. 5/2004 Coll. on Employment Services, in conjunction with Act No. 404/2011 Coll. on the Residence of Foreign Nationals. Depending on the circumstances, a confirmation of the possibility of filling a vacant position, a work permit or the relevant type of residence permit may be required. At the same time, Section 23a of the Employment Services Act provides for certain categories of persons for whom neither a work permit nor confirmation of the possibility of filling a vacant position is required.

Significant legislative changes were introduced with effect from 15 July 2026 by Act No. 128/2026 Coll., which amended both the Act on the Residence of Foreign Nationals and the Employment Services Act and is linked to the EU framework governing the single permit for residence and employment.

Particular attention should also be paid to the employment of a foreign national under an agreement outside an employment relationship. It cannot automatically be assumed that, where a standard employment relationship is permitted, the same foreign national may also be engaged under an agreement to perform work or an agreement on work activity. Under a number of residence and employment regimes, the law expressly requires the work to be carried out within an employment relationship. The precise legal status of the foreign national should therefore be verified before any agreement is signed.

An Employer’s Obligations Do Not End Once the Foreign National Starts Work

The employer’s obligations continue after the employee has commenced work. The employer has various reporting obligations towards the competent labour office, including obligations relating to the commencement or termination of employment, a foreign national’s failure to take up employment, and changes to relevant information. Since 15 July 2026, several notifications may also be submitted through new electronic services.

Once an employment relationship has been lawfully established, Slovak employment law and the Labour Code apply. Foreign employees are therefore subject to the rules governing remuneration, working time, annual leave, termination of employment, occupational health and safety (OHS), as well as the principle of equal treatment. At the same time, the employer processes information contained in passports and residence documents, meaning that personal data protection and GDPR obligations must also be observed.

Failure to comply with the relevant rules may amount to illegal employment under Act No. 82/2005 Coll. Consequently, an inspection carried out by the labour office or the Labour Inspectorate may examine not only the employment contract itself, but also whether the foreign national is legally entitled to reside and work in the Slovak Republic.

Establishing an s.r.o. as a Foreign National: Being from a Third Country Is Not, in Itself, an Obstacle

Another frequently raised issue is the establishment of an s.r.o. by a third-country national. Section 24 of the Slovak Commercial Code expressly allows a foreign person to participate in the establishment of a Slovak legal entity, become its shareholder or, subject to the statutory conditions, establish the company as its sole shareholder. Foreign nationality in itself is therefore not an obstacle to the establishment of a company.

When considering how to establish an s.r.o., particular attention must be paid to the company’s business name, registered office, objects of business, the identities of its shareholders and managing directors, the amount of their contributions, and the relevant founding document. Where there is more than one founder, the company is established by a memorandum of association; where there is a single founder, a founding deedis executed.

The minimum registered capital of an s.r.o. is EUR 5,000, while the contribution of each shareholder must amount to at least EUR 750. Once the statutory requirements have been fulfilled, the company must be registered in the Commercial Register, and it comes into existence upon such registration.

Since 17 August 2026, a new Act No. 29/2026 Coll. on the Commercial Register has been in force. Accordingly, when preparing corporate documentation, it is no longer appropriate to rely on the former Act No. 530/2003 Coll. The new legislation regulates company registration, the information entered in the Commercial Register, the ultimate beneficial owner, as well as specific verification requirements concerning founders, shareholders and statutory bodies.

A Shareholder Is Not the Same as a Managing Director

This distinction is the source of many practical misunderstandings. A third-country national may be a shareholder in an s.r.o. and hold an ownership interest in the company, but this does not automatically give that person the right to work personally in Slovakia or to perform the role of managing director there.

Since August 2026, when a foreign natural person is being registered in a position authorising that person to act on behalf of a company, the Commercial Register also verifies whether that person holds a valid residence permit in the Slovak Republic. An exception applies to nationals of EU Member States and OECD member countries. In the case of a company managing director from a third country, the individual’s country of nationality may therefore be decisive.

If a foreign person wishes to carry on business as a natural person, this constitutes a separate legal issue. A trade licence for foreign nationals is governed by the Slovak Trade Licensing Act and residence legislation. This should not be confused with a situation where the objects of business and the relevant trade authorisation are held by the s.r.o. itself.

One Person, Three Legal Regimes

A foreign investor may therefore simultaneously be a shareholder, a managing director and an employee of their own company. This is precisely where the legal structure becomes most sensitive: the Commercial Code and the Commercial Register govern the individual’s corporate position, the Act on the Residence of Foreign Nationals governs their right to reside in Slovakia and carry out a particular activity there, while the Employment Services Act together with the Labour Code governs any employment relationship they may have.

For companies with foreign shareholders, proper establishment of an s.r.o. therefore does not begin with an electronic form, but with correctly determining what the foreign national will actually be doing in Slovakia. The distinction between owning a company, managing it and performing work for it may ultimately determine whether the business structure operates smoothly from a legal perspective or becomes problematic in terms of residence

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The first rule is not to assess a tool by its name, but by what it actually does in practice. A calendar that merely suggests an interview time presents a different level of risk from a system that filters CVs, evaluates personality, predicts job performance or assigns tasks to employees. What matters is which personal data the system processes, whether it profiles individuals and to what extent its output actually influences an HR or managerial decision.

AI in Recruitment: An Assistant, Yes — an Invisible Decision-Maker, No

AI may be used in recruitment to identify relevant experience, sort CVs, compare qualifications with job requirements or prepare supporting information for a recruiter. Systems intended for the recruitment and selection of employees, particularly those used to analyse and filter job applications or evaluate candidates, are among the typical high-risk uses under the AI Act. The same applies to tools used to make decisions on promotion, termination of employment, allocation of tasks based on behaviour or personal characteristics, and monitoring or evaluation of employee performance. Following the amendment of the AI Act through the Digital Omnibus, the key rules governing these stand-alone high-risk systems will apply from 2 December 2027.

This does not mean, however, that HR is unregulated until then. The GDPR, employment law and the prohibition of discrimination already apply today. In addition, the prohibited practices under the AI Act also apply, including, for example, the use of AI to infer emotions in the workplace from biometric data, except for narrowly defined medical or safety-related reasons. A video interview therefore cannot be turned into an automated test of nervousness, honesty or emotional stability merely because a supplier offers such functionality.

Section 41 of the Labour Code also applies to recruitment: an employer may request only information related to the job and may not use an algorithm to circumvent prohibited questions. If a recruiter is not allowed to ask about pregnancy, family circumstances, political affiliation, trade union membership or religious beliefs, AI should not indirectly infer them from a photograph, name, address or career history either.

GDPR: Legal Basis, Data Minimisation and a Clear Retention Period

Every CV, test result, interview note, employee performance evaluation, attendance record or GPS location constitutes personal data if it can be linked to a specific individual. As the controller, the employer must determine, for each purpose, the legal basis, the scope of the data, the recipients and the retention period. Consent to the processing of personal data is not a universal solution.

In employment relationships, the voluntary nature of consent is often problematic, and during recruitment the processing may be necessary in order to take steps prior to entering into an employment contract or may rely on another appropriate legal basis depending on the specific purpose.

The GDPR transparency obligation should be practical, not hidden in a lengthy document. A candidate or employee should know what data the system uses, where the data comes from, what the system derives from it, to whom the data is disclosed and how long it is retained. The principle of data minimisation means that a company should not collect everything that it is technically capable of collecting. The retention period must correspond to a genuine purpose: the data of an unsuccessful candidate should not automatically be transformed into a permanent talent profile, and monitoring data from work devices should not be retained indefinitely.

Where more extensive profiling, systematic evaluation of individuals or monitoring is involved, the need for a DPIA — a data protection impact assessment — should be assessed. In cases involving automated evaluation with significant effects, the GDPR may expressly envisage the need for a DPIA. The assessment should be carried out before the system is deployed, not only after an employee submits a complaint.

Automated Decision-Making and Genuine Human Oversight

The most sensitive line is crossed when the system effectively makes the decision itself. The GDPR protects individuals against decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, where such decisions produce legal effects or similarly significant effects. Automatic rejection of a job applicant, denial of a promotion or imposition of a sanction may reach this threshold.

Human oversight must be genuine. It is not sufficient for a manager to click “approve” without understanding the criteria, reviewing the underlying information or being able to change the recommendation. The person carrying out the review must have the competence, training and authority to challenge the system.

Following the amendment, the AI Act requires providers and deployers of AI systems to take measures to support the AI literacy of people working with such tools. Employee training and GDPR training should therefore explain not only how to operate the system, but also its limitations, the risk of bias, data protection requirements and the procedure to follow when the system produces an incorrect output.

Monitoring Productivity, Emails, Devices and GPS

Employee monitoring is an area where technical possibilities meet the limits of privacy. Section 13 of the Labour Code does not allow an employer, without serious reasons arising from the specific nature of its activities, to interfere with an employee’s privacy by monitoring them, recording work-related telephone calls or inspecting work emails without prior notice.

Where a monitoring mechanism is introduced, its scope, method and duration must be discussed with employee representatives, and employees must be informed about it.

Proportionality must be assessed in light of the purpose. Logging access to a system for cybersecurity purposes is different from analysing the content of every message, the number of clicks or mouse movements as evidence of work performance.

With GPS monitoring, it is necessary to distinguish between protecting a vehicle or organising working time and continuously tracking a person outside working hours as well. Appropriate safeguards may include limiting monitoring to the necessary period, precisely defining the authorised persons, applying a shorter retention period and providing a technical option to disable monitoring outside working hours where the purpose permits.

Who Is Responsible: the Employer, the Supplier or the User?

Responsibility cannot be resolved by a single clause in terms and conditions. Under the GDPR, the employer will generally be the controller because it determines why the personal data of candidates and employees is used.

The supplier may be a processor if it processes data solely on the employer’s instructions, but if it uses the data for its own model training or for its own purposes, it may have an independent role.

Under the AI Act, the manufacturer or supplier of the system will typically be the provider, while the company using the tool will be the deployer. However, if the company substantially modifies the system, markets it under its own name, or changes its intended purpose in a way that creates a high-risk use, it may assume the obligations of a provider.

A data processing agreement should address instructions, security, sub-processors, incidents, transfers to third countries and data deletion. The commercial agreement should additionally regulate the accuracy and limitations of the tool, model changes, logging, audits, explainability of outputs, testing for discriminatory effects and cooperation in connection with a candidate’s request or a regulatory inspection.

The supplier is not a legal shield: the employer’s rights and obligations remain in place even when the tool is provided as a cloud service.

Discrimination and Bias: Review the Results, Not Just the Model

AI may reproduce historical decisions or rely on proxy variables that appear neutral at first glance. A person’s address, school, language, length of a career break or type of working arrangement may result in indirect discrimination if they disadvantage a particular group without an objective and proportionate justification.

The review should therefore not end with the supplier’s declaration of compliance.

The company should regularly compare whom the system recommends, whom it excludes and which groups show significant disparities. The criteria must be relevant to the job, understandable and capable of being reviewed.

When dealing with persons with disabilities, reasonable adjustments to testing must also be considered. If sensitive personal data must be processed in order to test for bias, there must be a specific legal basis and strict safeguards. Such data cannot be collected merely because doing so would be analytically interesting.

What an Internal AI Policy for HR Should Include

A good internal policy or updated workplace rules should establish a simple process from the purchase of a tool through to its everyday use.

It should define an AI systems register, permitted and prohibited uses, responsible persons, the legal basis for processing, data minimisation and retention rules, human oversight, discrimination testing, DPIA requirements, incident procedures and the conditions applicable to employee monitoring.

It should also contain rules on when public generative AI tools may be used and which personal data or trade secrets employees must not enter into them.

Internal policies must reflect actual practice. If a document states that AI merely provides assistance, but managers always adopt its scores without question, the company is effectively engaging in automated decision-making, regardless of what the policy says on paper.

If the GDPR documentation specifies a short retention period, the system must be technically configured to actually delete the data. And if training refers to human oversight, the user must have sufficient time, information and authority to make a different decision.

Carry Out a Simple Legal Assessment Before Deploying AI

Before purchasing or activating a new AI function, HR, IT, legal counsel and the Data Protection Officer should be able to answer several basic questions:

What is the precise purpose of the system? Which personal data does it genuinely need, and which data does it merely collect in addition? Does it carry out profiling? Does it affect recruitment, remuneration, working conditions, working time, promotion or termination of employment? Who can override its recommendation? What logs are generated and how long are they retained?

If the company cannot answer these questions, its transparency information, internal policy and supplier agreement are not ready either.

It is equally important to review what happens after deployment. The employer’s obligations do not end when the contract is signed. Changes to the model, new functions, the accuracy of outputs and user complaints must continue to be monitored.

If a tool originally intended to provide administrative assistance gradually becomes a system used to evaluate employee performance, its purpose, risk classification, legal basis and DPIA must be reassessed.

Internal policies should therefore introduce regular reviews and an obligation to notify HR or the DPO of any change before it is activated. This helps ensure that GDPR documentation, workplace rules and the actual rights and obligations of employees do not diverge from what the technology is really doing.

AI in HR can accelerate recruitment, simplify work organisation and assist with the evaluation of large volumes of data. A legally sound model, however, rests on four pillars: a clearly defined purpose, lawful processing of personal data, appropriate human oversight and evidence that the system does not produce discriminatory or disproportionate outcomes in practice.

When these rules are properly reflected in contracts, GDPR documentation, internal policies and employee training, artificial intelligence can become a useful HR tool without turning into an invisible decision-maker over a person’s working life.

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Using artificial intelligence in this way is not necessarily a problem in itself.

But what if the system goes further? Based on the available data, it determines that a particular customer is in financial distress or is especially susceptible to influence at a certain moment. It then deliberately exploits that vulnerability to push the person into making a purchase or entering into a contract that they would not normally have concluded.

At that point, it is no longer enough to review the e-shop’s terms and conditions, GDPR requirements, data protection rules or the contract with the software provider. The European Union’s AI Act also recognises certain uses of artificial intelligence that are simply prohibited.

And that is a fundamental distinction. With many AI systems, the question is what conditions a company must meet in order to use them lawfully.

The EU AI Act Also Establishes Absolute Red Lines

The AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, categorises the use of artificial intelligence according to risk. However, for certain uses, the European Union has concluded that merely adding documentation or introducing additional safeguards is not enough.

Article 5 therefore establishes prohibited AI practices. These rules are not aimed solely at technology giants. They may also apply to an ordinary limited liability company, an insurance company, a bank, a marketing agency, an online retailer, or a startup developing a new AI product.

The AI Act distinguishes, for example, between a “provider” — broadly speaking, an entity that develops an AI system or places it on the market under its own name — and a “deployer”, meaning a company or other organisation that uses AI in the course of its activities.

This distinction is important not only from the perspective of the AI Act, but also in the broader context of commercial law and the liability of the company, its management or its managing director.

When Personalised Advertising Stops Being Just Advertising

Advertising naturally aims to persuade customers. An e-shop recommends products based on previous purchases, a bank offers a client a product based on their needs, and an online service adapts content according to what the user has searched for in the past.

The AI Act does not automatically prohibit any of this.

The line may be crossed where AI uses subliminal, deliberately manipulative or deceptive techniques that materially impair a person’s ability to make an informed decision. The result must be a decision that the person would otherwise not have made, and the conduct must cause, or be reasonably likely to cause, significant harm.

A subliminal technique can broadly be understood as influencing a person outside their conscious awareness. Imagine an application offering financial products. Based on the user’s behaviour, it is able to determine that the person is under severe financial pressure. Instead of simply displaying an offer, it deliberately exploits that situation. It creates an artificial sense of urgency, presents the offer as though it were the only available solution, and guides the person towards taking out an unfavourable consumer loan.

In such a case, the issue may no longer concern only consumer protection law, a consumer contract, general terms and conditions, or whether the conduct constitutes misleading advertising or another unfair commercial practice. A prohibition under the AI Act may also become relevant.

However, it remains true that not every aggressive advertisement constitutes prohibited AI manipulation. It is not enough that an advertisement persuaded someone. The AI Act requires additional conditions to be met, including a material impairment of decision-making and significant harm.

It is therefore necessary to distinguish between ordinary marketing, issues such as misleading advertising under commercial law, unfair competition in practice or consumer protection, and the specific prohibition on manipulation using AI.

Social Scoring Does Not Exist Only in the Public Sector

At first glance, the term “social scoring” may sound somewhat remote.

The principle is relatively simple. AI collects information about a person, assesses their behaviour or inferred characteristics, and uses that information to create an overall score. That score is then used to determine how the person will be treated.

The AI Act prohibits this type of assessment in certain circumstances.

Imagine an insurance company that, when entering into an insurance contract, does not rely solely on information relevant to the insured risk. The AI also begins analysing the customer’s public social media posts, purchasing habits, leisure activities and other information from various areas of their life.

It then creates a general “trustworthiness score”. A person with a low score is subsequently denied a service or offered significantly worse terms by the insurance company.

That is very different from an ordinary assessment of a specific insurance or credit risk. What matters in particular is which data the AI combines, for what purpose the person is being assessed, and what consequences result from the score.

And where personal data is being processed, the AI Act does not, of course, displace the GDPR. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and, where relevant, Slovak data protection legislation must still be taken into account.

The AI Act and the GDPR are simply two different layers of regulation. The fact that a particular use of AI is not prohibited under the AI Act does not automatically mean that it is lawful from a data protection perspective.

A Supplier Contract or Terms and Conditions Cannot Turn Prohibited AI Into Permitted AI

In business, we are accustomed to addressing many risks contractually.

A contract may include provisions on supplier liability, representations of legal compliance, rules on data use, or trade secrets. If necessary, an amendment can be signed, a licence modified, or general terms and conditions updated.

When it comes to prohibited practices under the AI Act, however, one simple rule applies: a contract cannot turn a legally prohibited use of AI into a permitted one.

For example, if a company uses a system for prohibited biometric categorisation, it does not help that the supplier promised compliance with the law in the contract. Likewise, it cannot automatically be assumed that obtaining the consent of the person concerned resolves everything.

In some legal regimes, consent is highly important. The GDPR recognises consent, and the AI Act itself expressly works with consent in connection with the new prohibition concerning intimate content.

For companies using AI products, it is therefore important to look beyond the validity of the contract, the terms and conditions or the licence.

The AI Act Does Not Operate in Isolation: GDPR, Consumer Law, Copyright and Other Rules Still Apply

One common mistake when conducting a legal assessment of artificial intelligence is to look for a single “AI law” that resolves every issue.

European regulation does not work that way.

The AI Act expressly does not replace the GDPR or existing rules on data protection and consumer protection.

A single AI product may therefore require simultaneous consideration of, for example:

• the AI Act, in relation to how the AI may be used;
• the GDPR and Regulation (EU) 2016/679, where the system processes personal data;
• national data protection legislation;
• consumer protection law, where AI is used in relation to consumers;
• rules against unfair commercial practices, where the system influences customers’ commercial decisions;
• unfair competition or misleading advertising rules;
• copyright law, where AI works with photographs, texts, software code or other protected works;
• licensing agreements and intellectual property rights, where the company uses a third-party model, database or software;
• and, of course, traditional commercial law, contractual obligations and liability for damage.

Fines May Reach Millions of Euros

Prohibited practices are among the infringements for which the AI Act provides the most severe penalties.

Failure to comply with the prohibitions under Article 5 may result in an administrative fine of up to EUR 35 million or 7% of the undertaking’s total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year, in accordance with the rules of the AI Act.

This does not mean that every small business or startup will automatically receive a EUR 35 million fine. The specific circumstances are taken into account when determining a penalty, and the AI Act also contains specific rules applicable to smaller businesses.

The maximum level of the penalty nevertheless illustrates how seriously the European Union views these practices.

For the managing director of a limited liability company, a startup or any other business, the legal assessment of an AI product should therefore not be something that begins only after the service has already been launched.

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The Minimum Wage for 2027 Will Be EUR 972 per Month

The main piece of legislation is Act No. 663/2007 Coll. on the Minimum Wage. If the social partners fail to agree on the amount of the minimum wage, Section 8 of the Act provides that the monthly minimum wage is set at 60% of the average nominal monthly wage in the Slovak economy for the calendar year two years preceding the relevant year.

According to the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic, the average monthly wage for 2025 reached EUR 1,620. As a result, the minimum wage for 2027 will amount to EUR 972 per month. For a standard 40-hour working week, the hourly minimum wage will be EUR 5.586. In 2026, the minimum wage is EUR 915 per month and EUR 5.259 per hour, meaning that the monthly amount will increase by EUR 57, or approximately 6.23%.

However, the EUR 57 increase does not fully reflect the actual financial impact. A higher gross wage also increases the employer’s contribution burden, while statutory wage supplements will also rise for employees whose working hours include night work, shift work or weekend work.

Job Difficulty Levels and Employment Contracts: Review the Actual Job Content

The minimum wage is not automatically the lowest possible wage for every employee. Under Section 120 of the Labour Code, an employer whose remuneration system is not governed by a collective agreement must classify each job into one of six job difficulty levels. The classification is determined by the most demanding work activity that the employee is required to perform within the agreed type of work, rather than merely by the employee’s job title.

For this reason, employers should compare the employment contract, job description and the work actually performed. Collective agreements may contain their own remuneration rules. Where Section 120 applies, the minimum wage entitlements for full-time employment in 2027 will be as follows:

Each level will increase by EUR 57 year on year. The minimum wage entitlement is not calculated simply by multiplying the current minimum wage by the relevant coefficient. For example, the minimum wage entitlement for Level 2 will not be 1.2 × EUR 972, but EUR 1,088. The Labour Code uses a specific formula that still takes into account the minimum wage applicable in 2020, which amounted to EUR 580.

Labour Code: Night Work, Weekend Work and On-Call Duty

The higher hourly minimum wage will directly increase several statutory wage supplements. Based on an hourly minimum wage of EUR 5.586, the statutory minimum supplements from 1 January 2027 will generally be as follows:

Under precisely defined conditions, the Labour Code allows lower supplements to be agreed for regular work on Saturdays or Sundays, or in workplaces where the majority of work is performed at night. However, an employer may not introduce such lower supplements unilaterally.

In continuous-operation workplaces, the difference may be significant. For every 100 hours worked on Sundays, the Sunday wage supplement alone will cost approximately EUR 32.70 more in 2027 than in 2026.

Overtime and Work Performed Under Agreements: Supplements Do Not Replace the Minimum Wage

When assessing whether an employee has received the minimum wage or the applicable minimum wage entitlement, certain payments are excluded from the relevant wage. These include, for example, pay for overtime work, as well as wage supplements for work on public holidays, Saturdays, Sundays or at night, and wage compensation for work performed under difficult conditions.

Overtime pay and overtime supplements therefore cannot be used to “top up” a basic wage that is set below the statutory minimum.

The same level of attention is required for work performed under agreements outside an employment relationship. Workers engaged under such agreements must also receive at least the minimum wage, and the Labour Code expressly applies several provisions concerning supplements for Saturday, Sunday and night work to them as well. In practice, employers should therefore also review documents such as agreements to perform work and agreements on work activity.

Employer Rights and Obligations Before January 2027

Preparing payroll for 2027 should involve more than simply entering a new amount into payroll software. From the perspective of employers’ rights and obligations, it is advisable in particular to:

1. review the classification of jobs into job difficulty levels based on the work actually performed;
2. compare the agreed wage and the employment contract with the amounts applicable from 1 January 2027 and amend employment documentation in good time where necessary;
3. recalculate the cost of night work, weekend work, work performed under difficult conditions, on-call duty and operations where shift work is common;
4. review work performed under agreements, payroll settings and payslips to ensure that the statutory minimum is not being improperly supplemented through wage premiums;
5. reflect the increase in the payroll budget as a total employment cost, including employer contributions, rather than merely as a EUR 57 increase in gross wages.

For ten employees whose monthly wage increases by EUR 57, the employer will already face an additional EUR 570 per month in gross wages alone, before taking into account higher contributions and wage supplements.

2027 Will Test Both Remuneration Compliance and Employment Relationships

The EUR 972 minimum wage is not merely a new figure. A payslip is the end result of a broader remuneration framework, and a number of employment and wage-related entitlements are linked to the minimum wage.

A company that waits until the January payroll is being processed may discover that it has underestimated basic wages, job difficulty classifications or wage supplements. Failure to comply with wage obligations may result in the employer having to pay the employee the outstanding difference and may also create a risk of penalties. Under the Labour Inspection Act, breaches of labour law regulations may be subject to a fine of up to EUR 100,000. Inspections may be carried out by the relevant labour inspectorate.

Proper preparation is therefore not solely the responsibility of the payroll accountant. It is a joint task for payroll, HR and legal departments and should include a review of job positions, employment contracts, working time, actual working arrangements and other employer obligations before the end of the year.

Author: Mgr. Nikoletta Nagyová

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