Coverage thresholds, what has to be disclosed, by when, and what happens if it isn’t — for employers with people in Hawaii.
Hawaii routes pay transparency through its civil rights statute rather than its wage law. A violation is an unlawful discriminatory practice — which is a different, and generally more serious, category of exposure.
Effective 1 January 2024. Employers with 50 or more employees.
Violations are treated as an unlawful discriminatory practice under HRS chapter 378.
Most pay transparency statutes create a discrete wage-law violation with a fixed penalty. Hawaii folds it into the discrimination framework, so a posting failure sits alongside the organisation’s other HRS chapter 378 exposure, is investigated by the Civil Rights Commission, and carries the remedies of a discrimination claim rather than a schedule fine.
For a nonprofit or employer already managing an HCRC matter, that coupling is the thing to understand.
Several states ask for a good-faith range. Hawaii asks for one that reasonably reflects actual expected compensation. A wide defensive range that technically contains the eventual offer is a weaker position here than in states using the good-faith formulation.
We support Hawaii employers on the compensation side — pay equity analysis, range architecture, and how executive pay reads inside a filing or a published range. We are not attorneys and this page is not legal advice; anything marked unverified above should be confirmed with employment counsel before you act on it.
For advisory work in the region see our Honolulu executive compensation page.
Employers with 50 or more employees, since 1 January 2024. The statute does not define whether the 50 are Hawaii-based or total company headcount — every source we reviewed flags this as unresolved. Internal transfers and promotions with a current employer are exempt, as are public positions where pay is set by collective bargaining.
No dollar amount is specified. Violations are treated as an unlawful discriminatory practice under HRS chapter 378, enforced by the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission with remedies under HRS § 378-5, and there is a private right of action.
Generally yes where the role could be performed in Hawaii or reports into a Hawaii supervisor, office or worksite. The specifics vary — some statutes test on where work is performed, others on the reporting line, and several reach out-of-state employers recruiting locally-based remote staff.
No. It is a compensation practitioner's summary of published requirements, current as at July 2026, intended to help scope the compensation work these obligations create. Items we could not verify are marked as such rather than glossed. Confirm current requirements with employment counsel before acting.
Pay equity analysis and range architecture, sequenced so findings can be acted on rather than merely disclosed.
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