In the span of 72 hours last month, two governors signed pay transparency bills that will change how every recruiter in their states writes job postings, runs intake calls, and manages third-party vendor relationships.
Virginia signed its law on April 22, 2026. It takes effect July 1, 2026 - 40 days from today.
Maine signed its law on April 24, 2026. It takes effect July 29, 2026.
If you recruit into either state - or work with employers who do - your posting workflow and your intake scripts both need to change before those dates arrive. Here's what each law actually requires and what to do about it.
Virginia: The Toughest Version Yet
Virginia's law stands out from earlier state laws in three concrete ways.
No size threshold. Colorado, Illinois, and New York tied their laws to employer size - typically 15 or more employees. Virginia's law applies to any employer, full stop. One-person shops are technically covered. Enforcement will focus on larger employers in practice, but the written scope is the broadest of any state so far.
Internal postings are covered. Most state laws target external job ads. Virginia requires salary disclosure in both external and internal postings - promotions, transfers, and any "other employment opportunity." If you're filling a role from within and posting it internally, you need a range on that listing too. Employers with internal HRIS job boards often miss this one.
Salary history questions are banned. This is the provision that will catch the most recruiters off guard. Starting July 1, Virginia employers and their agents - including staffing firms and external recruiters working on their behalf - cannot ask candidates what they currently earn or previously earned. You cannot factor salary history into setting pay at offer. The only exception: if a candidate volunteers their salary history unprompted, you can use it to support a higher offer, and only if doing so doesn't violate equal pay law. You cannot use it to anchor them lower.
Penalties are civil: up to $1,000 for the first violation, up to $5,000 for each subsequent violation. There is a 15-business-day cure window if you receive written notice of a noncompliant posting, which means you can fix the listing and avoid the fine - but only if you act fast and have a clear process for receiving and triaging those notices.
Maine: Simpler, But Don't Underestimate It
Maine's law is narrower in scope but still requires real operational changes.
Applies to employers with 10 or more employees. Smaller employers are exempt from the job posting requirements, though Maine has signaled it may revisit that threshold in future sessions.
Job postings must include a pay range - or state the role is commission-only. If a role is compensated solely by commission, you can substitute a clear disclosure of that structure. For every other role, a specific range is required. "Competitive" and "DOE" (depending on experience) are not compliant.
Third-party postings are explicitly covered. If you post roles through a staffing agency, an RPO, Indeed, LinkedIn, or any job board on behalf of a Maine employer, the posting still has to comply. The employer remains liable for what their vendors post. This is the clause that most employers miss until they get their first violation notice.
Record retention is built in. Maine requires employers to maintain pay history records for each position an employee holds - during employment and for three years after their departure. This is not just about posting compliance. It is about being able to document your pay decisions if an employee or regulator challenges them later.
Penalties run $100 to $500 per violation. That sounds manageable until you consider that a company with 50 active postings, all missing ranges, could face penalties bundled across every noncompliant listing.
Why Virginia Is a Particularly Big Deal
Virginia is the DC metro corridor's professional backbone: federal contractors, law firms, consulting firms, defense tech, and financial services all cluster there. Many of these employers run national and remote hiring pipelines where Virginia roles are common.
The combination of no size threshold, internal posting requirements, and a salary history ban makes Virginia's law one of the strongest enacted anywhere. California bans salary history. Colorado requires pay ranges in postings. Virginia is now doing both, with no carve-outs for small employers.
Recruiters running contingency searches or retained work for Virginia-headquartered clients now have direct legal exposure if they ask "what are you making now?" during intake. That question has been standard practice for decades. Starting July 1, it is illegal in Virginia.
What Recruiters Need to Do Right Now
Six to ten weeks sounds like enough runway until you account for ATS updates, vendor notification cycles, and comp band documentation. Start this week.
Audit every active Virginia and Maine posting. Pull your ATS job feed and every job board where you post. If a listing doesn't include a specific pay range, flag it for immediate update. This is the most mechanical step - do it first.
Set real ranges, not placeholders. Both laws require ranges "set in good faith." Virginia's law specifically prohibits intentionally broad ranges designed to obscure actual pay. "$40,000 to $400,000" will not survive scrutiny. Your posted range needs to reflect what you are actually willing to pay for that specific role.
Delete salary history questions from your intake scripts. For Virginia, this is mandatory. Review every screening call guide, application form, and intake questionnaire your team uses. Remove any field or prompt asking about current or past compensation. If you use an applicant tracking system with a built-in salary history field, turn it off for Virginia postings.
Brief your third-party vendors in writing. Both Virginia and Maine make employers liable for postings made by agencies on their behalf. Email your staffing firms and RPO partners now. Get written confirmation they understand the requirements and will comply before July 1. Document that communication. If a vendor later posts a noncompliant listing, your paper trail matters.
Extend the review to your internal job board. Virginia's internal posting requirement is easy to miss. Any promotion, transfer, or internal role opening posted on your intranet or HRIS needs a range. Check whether your HRIS allows salary range fields on internal postings and enable them if not.
Build or tighten your pay bands. You cannot post a good-faith salary range without a documented pay band underneath it. If your bands are informal or inconsistent across job families, now is the time to formalize them. This work takes longer than the posting update itself - start it this week.
The Broader Pattern
Virginia and Maine are states 17 and 18 to enact pay transparency laws. Delaware's law takes effect in September 2027. Multiple states - including Alaska, Indiana, and Missouri - have bills in various stages of consideration.
At this pace, the question is not whether your state will pass one. It is when.
The employers who went through this in Colorado (2021), New York City (2022), and Illinois (2025) consistently report the same thing: the operational work is real but manageable. The harder part is building pay bands that are rigorous enough to post in writing and defend under legal scrutiny. Once those bands exist, posting compliance is mechanical.
What those employers also report: candidates in transparent markets now comparison-shop salary ranges across postings the way they compare product prices. A posting without a range next to postings with clear bands looks evasive. In the Northern Virginia labor market - where candidates often have multiple concurrent offers and strong optionality - that impression costs you applicants.
40 Days Is Not a Lot of Time
Start with your active postings. Work backward to pay bands. Then get your vendors aligned.
The July 1 deadline will land during the summer recruiting cycle - a period when candidate volume is typically solid and pipelines are active. You do not want to be auditing postings and retraining recruiters while simultaneously trying to close roles.
Get the compliance work done now so your team can spend July hiring.
If you are building pay bands from scratch to support posting compliance, BlueLine's compensation benchmarks can help you set defensible ranges faster. Get started at bluelinesearch.ai/register.