Cleveland Adopts Salary History and Transparency Law

On April 28, 2025, the Cleveland, Ohio City Council adopted Ordinance 104-2025, which requires employers with at least 15 employees in Cleveland to include salary ranges in job postings and prohibits inquiring about an applicant’s salary history. The ordinance, which will take effect on October 27, 2025, builds on a nationwide trend of state and municipal laws aimed at pay transparency and salary history inquiries.

The ordinance marks a seismic shift for Cleveland employers, which will be prohibited from asking applicants about their current or prior salary, relying solely on an applicant’s salary history to offer employment, or retaliating against an applicant who refuses to disclose salary history. Salary, defined broadly in the ordinance, includes wages, commissions, hourly earnings, other monetary earnings, and benefits. But it excludes objective measures of an applicant’s productivity, such as revenue, sales, and other production measures. The ordinance permits discussing salary expectations with applicants.

The ordinance does not apply to: (1) reliance on salary history as authorized by any federal, state, or local law; (2) applicants for internal transfer or promotion; (3) an applicant’s voluntary and unprompted disclosure of salary history; (4) an employer’s attempt to verify an applicant’s disclosure of non-salary related information; (5) applicants who are rehired if the employer already has the applicant’s past salary history; (6) salaries for positions set by collective bargaining; and (7) governmental employers, other than the City. 

Perhaps the most administratively burdensome part of the ordinance requires employers to provide the salary range or scale in job notifications, advertisements, and other formal postings. The ordinance does not define “salary range or scale,” which will certainly leave employers with questions about how to comply with the law.

Complaint Procedure, Investigation, and Enforcement 

The ordinance empowers the Fair Employment Wage Board (FEWB) to investigate violations and enforce its provisions. Any person may allege a violation of the new law, and the FEWB may assess civil penalties up to $1,000, $2,500, and $5,000, depending on whether the employer has committed zero, one, or two or more violations in the preceding five years. But first, the FEWB will attempt to resolve a violation through education, conference, conciliation, and persuasion without imposing a civil penalty.

Practical Considerations

Before the law becomes effective, employers should consider:

• Developing salary ranges/scales for all positions;
• Evaluating template job postings, employment applications, and internal guidance to comply with the ordinance by October 27, 2025;
• For employers already complying with other Ohio municipal pay transparency and salary inquiry laws, ensuring that existing practices comply with new Cleveland requirements;
• Evaluating hiring practices to ensure uniform treatment of all applicants;
• Training managers and employees with human resources and hiring responsibilities to ensure they are not unlawfully inquiring into salary history;
• Developing a remediation plan to quickly address alleged violations of the ordinance to avoid civil penalties; and
• Educating employees on the bounds of inquiries regarding compensation expectations to avoid asking about current and past compensation history.

As the City implements the ordinance, employers with questions should contact employment counsel to evaluate their practices to ensure compliance and avoid steep civil penalties.