Delaware Pay Transparency Law: Coverage, Postings, and Penalties

The Delaware pay transparency law requires employers with four or more in-state employees to publish a good-faith salary range in every job posting for a Delaware-based position, and separately bars them from asking applicants about prior pay. The posting requirement, enacted as House Substitute 1 for House Bill 105 and signed on September 26, 2025, takes effect in September 2027.¹ The salary history ban has been in force since 2017.² Penalties for posting violations range from a written warning on a first offense to fines of up to $10,000 per violation after that.

Which Employers Are Covered

Coverage turns on headcount in Delaware, not total company size. Any employer with at least four employees working in Delaware at the time of an alleged violation is covered, including private companies, the state government, political subdivisions, school districts, and other public entities.³ Businesses with three or fewer Delaware-based workers are not.

The threshold is measured at the moment of the potential violation, so a company that crosses from three to four Delaware employees mid-year picks up obligations the same day. Multi-state employers should isolate their Delaware headcount rather than relying on nationwide totals.

What a Job Posting Must Include

Beginning in September 2027, every public and internal posting for a Delaware-based role must show a good-faith compensation range: the minimum and maximum pay the employer genuinely expects to offer. Placeholder language like “competitive salary” or “DOE” with no numbers will not satisfy the rule.¹

The requirement reaches any written or electronic listing that describes a specific opening, whether on a company careers page, a third-party job board, or social media. An outside recruiter filling a Delaware role must include the same salary information; outsourcing recruitment does not shift the obligation. Compensation here means the base salary or hourly wage. Employers can describe benefits, bonuses, or equity on top of that, but the pay range itself is the required piece.

Remote work does not create an exit from the rule. Positions based in Delaware are covered no matter where the employee physically sits, and non-international remote positions offered by Delaware-based employers also fall under the posting requirement. A Wilmington-headquartered company hiring a remote worker in Pennsylvania still needs a range in the listing.

The Salary History Ban Already in Effect

Separately, Delaware employers cannot ask job applicants about prior compensation. The ban reaches direct questions to the applicant and indirect inquiries through background check providers or former employers during the hiring process.²

Two exceptions matter. An applicant may volunteer their pay history; the employer just cannot be the one asking. And once a job offer with specific compensation has been negotiated, extended, and accepted, the employer may seek and confirm the applicant’s prior pay.² Verification is allowed after the deal is done, not as a tool for setting the offer.

Employers and applicants can still discuss compensation expectations for the role being filled. The restriction targets backward-looking questions about past earnings, not forward-looking negotiation about the current job.

What Current Employees Can Ask For

Delaware law already protects workers’ ability to talk about pay with each other. Employers cannot require silence about wages as a condition of employment, cannot force employees to sign agreements waiving the right to discuss compensation, and cannot punish anyone for asking about or sharing wage information.³ These protections sit in Section 711(j) and are separate from the posting rule.

When the posting requirement takes effect in September 2027, current employees also gain the right to request the pay range for their current position at any time. If an employee is promoted or transferred, the employer must disclose the pay range for the new role as well.¹ One limit: the law protects wage discussions but does not require any individual to share their own pay. A coworker who prefers privacy is under no obligation to disclose.

Penalties and How Complaints Work

The Delaware Department of Labor handles enforcement. Employees and applicants who believe an employer has violated the posting or salary history rules can file a complaint with the DOL, which investigates. There is no private right of action for these transparency violations, so individuals cannot sue employers directly in court over them.

Posting and pay range violations carry a tiered penalty structure:

First offense: a written warning with no monetary penalty.
Second and subsequent offenses: a civil fine of at least $500 and up to $10,000 per violation.¹

The written warning gives employers a chance to fix their practices before money is on the line, but the jump to a potential $10,000 fine per incident after that first warning is steep.

Retaliation Is Separately Punished

Employers cannot fire, demote, discipline, or otherwise punish anyone for exercising rights under the pay transparency law. Protected activities include filing a complaint with the DOL, providing information during an investigation, and testifying in related proceedings. Even expressing the intent to do any of those things is protected.

Retaliation carries its own civil fine of not less than $500 and up to $10,000 for each retaliatory act, with no written-warning first step. That penalty applies on top of whatever fines the employer faces for the underlying violation. Federal law reinforces the same ground: the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor treats inquiring about pay and asserting worker rights as protected activity, and treats adverse action designed to discourage either as unlawful retaliation.⁴

What Employers Should Keep on File

Delaware’s pay transparency law does not set a standalone retention period for job postings, but federal recordkeeping standards still apply. EEOC regulations generally require personnel and employment records to be kept for at least one year, and the Fair Labor Standards Act requires payroll records to be retained for three years and records explaining wage-rate differences between employees for at least two.⁵

In practice, employers should keep copies of every job posting along with the salary range used and documentation showing how that range was set. If a complaint surfaces months or years later, the original posting and supporting records are the cleanest way to show good-faith compliance.

1
Delaware General Assembly. HS1 for HB 105 – Legislation Document
2
Delaware General Assembly. House Bill 1 – Bill Detail
3
Justia Law. Delaware Code Title 19 Chapter 7 Subchapter II – Section 711
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Retaliation
5
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Recordkeeping Requirements