Pay transparency laws by state: what has to be in the job posting

As of September 2026, at least fourteen states and Washington, D.C. require covered employers to disclose a pay range in job postings, and two more, Connecticut and Nevada, require the range be given to an applicant on request or after an interview rather than printed in the ad. Coverage turns on employer size and where the job is performed, not on where the company is headquartered, so a recruiter posting one role nationally can owe a range in some states and not others for the same posting.

States that require a pay range in the posting

These fourteen states plus Washington, D.C. require the range in the job posting itself, not only on request. The employer-size threshold, the statute and the effective date decide whether a given posting is covered.

This list is not exhaustive. Several cities and counties layer their own posting ordinances on top of state law, and a handful of additional states require disclosure in narrower circumstances we could not confirm well enough to summarize in one line here. Check your specific state and any city or county ordinance before you finalize a posting.

States that require the range only on request or after an interview

Two states require a wage range be disclosed, but not necessarily printed in the ad itself.

• Connecticut (Gen. Stat. § 31-40z, effective October 1, 2021): the employer must give the wage range to an applicant on request, or by the earlier of the applicant's request or the time an offer is made, and must give a current employee the range when hired, when their position changes, or on the employee's first request.
• Nevada (NRS 613.133): the employer or employment agency must provide the wage or salary range or rate to an applicant who has completed an interview for the position, whether or not the applicant asks. The Labor Commissioner may impose an administrative penalty of up to $5,000 per violation.

For a recruiter, the practical effect of an on-request state is the same as a posting state: have the range ready before you post, because a candidate can ask for it at almost any point in the process.

What counts as a compliant range

Every statute above uses some version of "a good faith estimate of what the employer expects to pay," and regulators have been specific about what that rules out.

• No open-ended ranges. Colorado's implementing rules treat phrasing like "$30,000 and up" or "up to $60,000" as noncompliant; a range needs both a floor and a ceiling.
• No placeholder ranges. Illinois guidance gives the example of $1 to $1,000,000 as failing the good-faith standard on its face.
• The range must reflect what the employer would actually pay, built from an existing pay scale, the budgeted amount, or what people currently in equivalent roles are paid, not a number picked to look competitive.
• Benefits usually come with it. California, Washington, Illinois, Maryland and Minnesota all pair the pay range requirement with a general description of benefits in the same posting.

Remote roles and which state's law applies

A posting is not exempt because the employer is based somewhere without a pay transparency law. The statutes above generally reach a role if it can be performed, even in part, from the covered state, or if it reports to a supervisor, office or worksite there:

• New York's law covers jobs performed at least in part in the state and remote jobs that report to a New York location.
• Illinois covers positions performed at least in part in Illinois or that report to a supervisor, office or work site in Illinois.
• Maryland's disclosure duty applies to work that will be physically performed, at least in part, in the state.

A staffing agency posting one req to a national job board should treat it as covered by every state where a qualified applicant could actually do the work, not just the state where the client's office sits.

Penalties compared

Other states in the table enforce through their labor department or attorney general without a dollar figure we could confirm here. A missing number in this table means we did not find one on an official source, not that the state has no enforcement mechanism.

Pay transparency versus salary history and expectation questions

A pay transparency law tells the employer what it must disclose. A separate, overlapping category of state law restricts what the employer may ask the candidate about pay history. California, Colorado, Illinois, New York and several other states in the table above also ban or limit salary history questions, but the two rules do not always travel together: a state can require a posted range with no history ban, or ban history questions without requiring a posted range.

Recruiters who ask about pay expectations instead of pay history need wording that stays on the right side of both rules. See salary expectation questions for phrasing that asks about expectations without asking for history, and illegal interview questions for the broader list of topics federal and state law restrict in an interview.

A checklist before you post a role

1. Identify every state the role could be performed from, including remote candidates, not just the state where the office sits.
2. Check the strictest applicable threshold. If the role could be filled from Colorado or Maryland, the posting needs a range regardless of your company's headcount, since neither state has a size threshold.
3. Build the range from something real: a pay scale, a budget line or the pay of people already in equivalent roles, not a number chosen to sound attractive.
4. Give the range a floor and a ceiling. Reject any draft that says only "up to" or only "starting at."
5. Add the benefits line where the state requires it alongside the pay range.
6. Keep the source of the range on file. Several states, including California, require pay-scale and history records to be kept for years after the posting.
7. Re-check before every repost. A range that was accurate six months ago may no longer reflect what the employer would actually pay today.

For the separate question of which forms recruiters and staffing agencies need to be licensed to operate in a given state, see employment agency license requirements. For how AI tools used in screening are regulated state by state, see AI hiring laws by state.