Compensation in Flux: Crypto Pay, EU Transparency, and the Latest U.S. State Laws

The global compensation landscape is evolving at an extraordinary pace. From digital assets entering payroll discussions to sweeping transparency mandates on both sides of the Atlantic, HR and business leaders face a convergence of novel legal challenges that demand immediate (and continual) attention.

Specifically, three significant developments are shaping the future of employee compensation: the legal complexities of cryptocurrency as pay, the uneven march toward EU pay transparency, and the notable features of new pay transparency laws in Maine and Virginia.

Cryptocurrency as Compensation: Opportunity Meets Legal Uncertainty

A growing number of employers, particularly those in the technology sector, are exploring compensation models that incorporate cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and stablecoins to attract top talent and streamline cross-border payments. Traditional international payroll often incurs additional fees and takes days to process, whereas crypto transactions, particularly stablecoins, can settle in minutes at negligible cost. The appeal is clear: crypto compensation signals innovation and can serve as a competitive differentiator for globally distributed teams.

However, there are legal challenges to this evolution of money. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay minimum and overtime wages in “cash or negotiable instrument payable at par,” which has long been interpreted to include only fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, the Euro, or British Pounds.

Numerous state laws compound the difficulty. For example, Maryland requires payment in “United States currency,” Pennsylvania requires wages in “lawful money of the United States,” and California prohibits compensation made through “coupon, cards or other thing[s] redeemable…otherwise than in money.” Neither the Department of Labor nor the courts has yet definitively resolved whether certain cryptocurrencies qualify as permissible forms of wage payment under applicable federal and state law.

Beyond wage-and-hour compliance, employers should consider the tax implications of crypto-compensation. The IRS treats digital assets like cryptocurrency as property, not wages.  This means there are different reporting and tax impacts for employees receiving cryptocurrencies.  The dramatic price volatility inherent to non-stablecoin assets can also create challenges for payroll administration and can lead to underpayment claims if the value of crypto compensation falls below minimum wage thresholds at the time of receipt. Therefore, employers contemplating crypto payroll need to carefully consider how to create a structure and system that complies with both tax and wage payment laws.

The EU Pay Transparency Directive: A Patchwork of Readiness

The EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970) represents the most comprehensive piece of pay equity legislation enacted globally since the 1960s, and its transposition deadline of June 7, 2026, is now upon us. Yet the reality on the ground is sobering: Slovakia is the only member state that has implemented the Directive, with Italy and Lithuania making a late sprint to the finish line.  However, the vast majority of member states — including the Netherlands, Sweden, and France — have indicated they will miss the deadline. Sweden has gone so far as to declare it will not implement the Directive in its current form, seeking instead to reopen negotiations at the EU level.

The Directive’s core obligations are not subject to national negotiation and include recruitment transparency (providing actual pay or pay ranges before interview and banning salary history inquiries), workers’ right to information on pay levels disaggregated by gender for employees performing either the same or similar work or work of equal value, prohibitions on pay secrecy clauses, requirements for gender-neutral pay structures, and mandatory pay gap reporting for employers with 100 or more employees.

Where a pay gap between genders within a worker category exceeds five percent, employers must objectively justify it or remedy the pay gap within six months, or they will be required to conduct a joint pay assessment (equal pay audit) across their entire workforce in conjunction with employee representatives (as applicable).

Member states are at vastly different stages of implementation. Countries such as Germany, Denmark, and Finland have published draft legislation under consultation, while others, including Portugal and Hungary, have yet to release any draft at all. Estonia’s Economic Affairs Minister has openly stated the country would rather pay a fine than impose what it views as excessive administrative burdens on businesses.

For HR leaders operating across Europe, the practical takeaway is urgent: Since the first pay gap reports for employers with 250 or more employees will be based on 2026 pay data, this compensation cycle may be the last opportunity to identify and address inequities before data is locked in for public reporting.

Maine and Virginia: New Nuances in U.S. Pay Transparency

Domestically, Maine and Virginia will become the latest states to impose pay transparency requirements when their laws take effect in July 2026, joining approximately twenty-five other states and local jurisdictions. Virginia is notable as the first Southern state to enact such a law, while Maine completes the set for New England. Although both laws share the common requirement of disclosing salary ranges in job postings, they diverge in significant ways from each other and from the broader national landscape.

Virginia’s law, effective July 1, 2026, applies to all employers without any headcount threshold and uniquely combines posting requirements with a salary history ban and a private right of action. Virginia joins Washington as one of only two states providing individuals a private cause of action for job posting violations, though the enacted version limits recovery to actual damages within a one-year statute of limitations and includes a fifteen-business-day cure period for posting deficiencies. The law also requires that ranges be set in “good faith,” with the breadth of the range serving as a factor in that evaluation — a provision that signals increasing regulatory scrutiny of overly broad pay bands.

Maine’s law, effective July 29, 2026, takes a different approach by imposing a 10-employee coverage threshold and relying solely on state Department of Labor enforcement without specifying private remedies or penalties. Distinctively, Maine goes beyond posting obligations by requiring employers to disclose the pay range for a current employee’s position upon request, and by mandating that employers maintain records of each position held and the employee’s pay history during employment and for three years after termination. These record-keeping obligations are unusual in the pay transparency landscape and will require employers to ensure their HRIS and payroll systems can retain and produce the required data.

For multistate employers, the message from these latest enactments is clear: Pay transparency compliance has evolved from a job-ad formatting exercise into an operational discipline that ties together compensation architecture, recruiting practices, internal mobility, and records retention. The time to audit pay structures, train recruiters, and build defensible salary ranges is now.

Daniella McGuigan, co-chair of the Pay Equity Practice Group and London partner at Ogletree Deakins, contributed to this article.