Pay Transparency Laws by State: All 51 Jurisdictions

Updated August 7, 2026. Quick answer: 16 of 51 jurisdictions require an employer to disclose pay — but they are not the same law, and treating them as one is the standard error. Only 13 require a range in the job posting. The rest require it on request, or after an interview, or only to existing employees — and a reader who believes their state posts ranges when it only discloses on request will never ask, and never get the range. A salary-history ban is a different law again, held by 18 jurisdictions, and it is the one most often mislabelled as pay transparency. All 51 jurisdictions are listed, including the 35 with no disclosure law — those rows are the product, not filler.

Four different laws, and which one your state has

Disclosure in the posting · disclosure on an applicant’s request · disclosure after an interview · disclosure only to existing employees. Distinct rules with distinct triggers. Two states do not fit any tidy category and are described in their own words in the table:

• Nevada discloses automatically to any applicant who has completed an interview (NOT in the posting, NOT on request); on request only for promotion/transfer.
• Connecticut discloses on applicant request or before an offer; and to existing employees on hire, position change, or first request – NOT a job-posting requirement.
• California is both: in the job posting (15+ employees); on applicant request and to existing employees on request (all employers).

Delaware has the statute and it is not in force yet

This is the row most likely to be published wrong, and it is why Delaware is not counted among the 16 above. 19 Del. C. § 709C exists and the Delaware Code prints it with the bracketed heading “[Effective Sept. 26, 2027]”. A table built by reading the code index and seeing a section captioned Transparency in pay rates will mark Delaware a pay-transparency state today. It is not one today. Delaware’s salary-history ban at § 709B is separate and is already in force.

Salary-history bans are a different law

18 jurisdictions ban an employer from asking about or relying on your pay history — each row below carries its own statute: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington. This restrains the employer; it does not give you a number. Oregon is the clearest case of the confusion: it is routinely listed as a pay-transparency state and it has no disclosure duty at all — what it has is the salary-history ban at ORS 659A.357.

Two states where a city has it and the state does not

Michigan and Wisconsin have a local ordinance but no state law. A city ordinance is not a state law and this table does not let one stand in for the other — but a reader in that city is covered, which is exactly the kind of fact a state-level table normally erases.

The table: all 51 jurisdictions

The 35 with no disclosure law — and why we split them

CONFIRMED ABSENT (23): Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. The source that would contain the rule was read and does not contain it.

NOT FOUND (12): Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Tennessee. The search was incomplete or a source was unreachable, so a law may exist. These are not publishable as a negative, and we are not publishing them as one.

Why this split exists at all. Every published version of this table lists only the states that have the law, which cannot answer the question a reader actually has — does my state have this? — and quietly implies the other 35 were never checked. They were. The bias in the split is deliberate and one-directional: any hint of an access failure lands a row in NOT FOUND. A row wrongly demoted costs you nothing; a row wrongly promoted tells you a law does not exist when it might.

Cite this data

Compiled from the states’ own statutes and agency sources, each row carrying its citation, its source type and the date it was read. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link. Limits: this covers state law and the two local ordinances noted; it is not a municipal survey, and it does not cover federal contractor rules. General information, not legal advice — and an employer’s duty can turn on facts a table cannot see, such as where a remote role is performed.

Suggested citation: “Pay transparency laws by state,” Clear Money Guide, 2026, clearmoneyguide.com/pay-transparency-laws-by-state/.