Starting November 1, 2026, BC's pay transparency reporting obligation expands to cover employers with 50 or more employees, significantly broadening the scope of the Pay Transparency Act and Pay Transparency Regulation (the "Act").
Employers approaching this threshold should act now to determine whether they are captured and, as a result, must collect the required gender and pay data and prepare a pay transparency report for submission using the BC government's online reporting tool.
1. Who Must Report
The reporting requirement applies to employers above a specified size, based on the number of employees in BC (on-site or remote). The reporting thresholds were phased in as follows:
- 2024: employers with 1000 or more employees in BC were required to report by November 1, 2024
- 2025: employers with 300 or more employees in BC were required to report by November 1, 2025.
- 2026: employers with 50 or more employees in BC must report by November 1, 2026.
2. Which Employees Count
Neither the Pay Transparency Act nor the Pay Transparency Regulation meaningfully defines "employee" for reporting purposes. In practice, the BC government has advised employers to apply the factors used by the Employment Standards Branch to determine whether an individual is an employee in BC for Employment Standards Act purposes. While the employee’s location within the province is typically the most important fact, this is a contextual, fact-specific test focused on whether there is sufficient connection between the individual's work and the province.
Key factors an employer should apply when scoping the employee population include:
- Residence in BC;
- Work performed in BC; and
- Nature of the work performed in BC
Employers should also confirm whether employees with a different reporting structure share the same legal employer entity; employees of a different legal employer are not combined for a single employer's report.
3. Contingent Workers and Contractors
The reporting obligation applies only to "employees". Independent contractors and other contingent workers (for example, staffing agency personnel) who are not legally employees of the reporting employer are not included in the report or headcount threshold.
4. What Counts as "Pay"
Under the Act, "pay" includes salary, wages, or commission paid for labour or services; incentive payments tied to hours of work, production, or efficiency; and other discretionary payments not tied to hours of work, production, or efficiency. The Regulation requires employers to report on gender-based differences in mean and median hourly pay, overtime pay, overtime hours, and bonus pay, each with its own defined meaning for reporting purposes.
5. Collecting Gender Information
Employers must make reasonable efforts to collect gender information from employees for the purpose of preparing the report, and must give employees notice of that purpose at the time of collection. It is recommended that employers use the BC Gender and Sex Data Standard when collecting gender information: Male, Female, Non-Binary, and Unknown/Prefer not to say.
Provision of gender information must be voluntary; if an employee declines, their pay data is still included in the report with their gender marked as unknown. Gender information collected for pay transparency reporting should not be used for other purposes unless the employee has separately consented or the use is otherwise required by law.
Employees must be able to update or withdraw their information at any time. Employers remain responsible for handling this personal information in compliance with their obligations under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act or the Personal Information Protection Act, as applicable.
6. Preparing and Submitting the Report
Pay transparency reports are prepared and submitted using the BC government's online Pay Transparency Reporting Tool at paytransparency.fin.gov.bc.ca. Employers must access the tool using a Business BCeID; employers who do not already have login credentials must complete the online registration at bceid.ca before they can log in and submit a report.
7. Publication Reporting Deadline
Employers must submit and publish their pay transparency report by November 1st of each year. Employers with a publicly accessible website must publish the report there. Employers without a public website must make the report available to employees at the workplace and to members of the public on request.
8. Enforcement
There are currently no statutory penalties for failing to comply with the reporting obligation. Any person may report suspected non-compliance to the Director of Pay Transparency, who may remind the employer of its obligations. Employers should note that this framework is relatively new and enforcement powers could be introduced in the future.
Takeaways for Employers
Employers should take immediate steps to confirm whether their organization meets the applicable employee-count threshold for the current (or past) reporting year and have new obligations as a result.
