What Do Pay Transparency Laws Mean for Your Small Business?

New York City, Colorado, California, and Washington have already enacted pay transparency laws. Other states like Illinois, and Massachusetts are either in progress or enforcing new rules this year.

If your business is scaling and posting jobs across multiple platforms or locations, now is the time to review your job listings, hiring practices, and pay policies.

What Is Pay Transparency and How Does It Affect Your Business?

Pay transparency laws typically require employers to list the minimum and maximum salary or hourly pay in job ads. Some also require businesses to share pay ranges with current employees or applicants upon request.

Some laws apply based on where your job posting is visible—not just where your business is located.This means remote jobs posted online can fall under these laws, even if you're not based in that state.

If you're a growth-stage business with 10+ employees and you're hiring—or plan to—there’s a good chance this applies to you soon, if not already. Even unintentional non-compliance can lead to fines, employee complaints, or legal risk.

Here’s what this means in practice:

• You must create and share clear salary ranges for each open role.
• You may need to explain how those ranges were set (based on market data, internal equity, etc.).
• You may need to share pay info with existing employees to maintain trust and fairness.

Questions SMBs Should Be Asking About Pay Transparency

Before you make any decisions, ask yourself a few key questions to check if your business is at risk or missing an opportunity to build trust:

• Does a pay transparency law apply to us? Are we hiring in—or posting jobs that can be seen in—states with these laws?
• Have we created fair, well-documented salary ranges? What data or benchmarks are we using to define these ranges?
• What happens if we leave salary info out? Could we face penalties, bad reviews, or compliance problems?
• Are we ready to share this info with current employees? Will our internal pay structure hold up to employee comparisons?

Checklist: What You Can Do Next

Once you’ve reviewed the questions above, take a few simple steps to protect your business and improve how you hire:

• Audit your job postings for salary info and location reach.
• Draft a salary range policy or ask Rocket Copilot to help get you started.
• Use market data tools to build fair, competitive ranges.
• Talk to a Legal Pro if you’re hiring across state lines or aren’t sure about the rules.

Being proactive helps you avoid legal trouble—and shows job candidates that your business is fair and forward-thinking.

Get ahead of the rules by building clarity into your hiring. Clear pay ranges can protect your business and build stronger, more trusting teams.