Does Your State Require a Salary Range on Job Postings?
October 6, 2026
If more job postings you've seen this year actually list a real salary range, that isn't a trend some companies decided to follow on their own. In a growing number of states, it's the law. Virginia and Maine both added salary range posting requirements this summer, and Connecticut adds one on October 1, 2026. Here's what each one actually requires, and what a posted range does and doesn't tell you as a candidate.
What changed this summer
Virginia's HB 636, paired with SB 215's salary history ban, took effect July 1, 2026. It requires every employer, regardless of size, to include a good faith wage or salary range in every public and internal job posting, and bars asking candidates about their salary history. The Virginia Attorney General can bring a civil action for noncompliance, though employers get 15 business days to fix a posting after written notice before a penalty applies.
Maine's LD 54 followed on July 29, 2026, requiring a “range of pay” in job postings from any employer with 10 or more employees. Smaller employers are exempt from the posting requirement, though all employers still have to give a current employee their own position's pay range on request.
Connecticut's Public Act 26-12 (also called HB 5003) goes into effect October 1, 2026, and applies to every employer regardless of size. It moves Connecticut from a reactive model, where you had to ask for a range, to a proactive one: postings now have to state the wage or wage range up front, plus a general description of benefits like health insurance, retirement, and paid leave.
How many states actually require this
Worth saying plainly rather than picking a number that sounds more precise than it is: trackers genuinely disagree on the total, anywhere from about a dozen states to as many as 18 plus DC, depending on whether a given tracker counts states that only require disclosure on request or before an offer as “covered.” What's consistent across sources: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Washington all require a range in the posting itself, and Virginia and Maine joined that group this summer.
Coverage isn't the same size everywhere
Even among states that require a posted range, which employers are actually covered varies a lot. Colorado, Virginia, and Connecticut apply to employers of any size. New York's threshold is 4 employees, New Jersey's is 10, California sits at 15, and Minnesota's is 30. If you're job searching across state lines, the same size company can be legally required to post a range in one state and not another for the identical role.
A posted range is a floor, not a promise
Most of these laws require a “good faith” range, meaning the number an employer genuinely expects to pay, not a deliberately padded range built to technically comply while telling you nothing real. If a range looks suspiciously wide for the role, that's worth noticing rather than ignoring, and it's not a guarantee of where in that range an actual offer lands.
If you're applying to a role in a state that requires a range and the posting doesn't have one, that's not just an oversight to shrug off either. It's either a company that hasn't caught up with a law that applies to it, or a signal worth factoring into how much benefit of the doubt you extend elsewhere in the process.
What this doesn't change
None of this changes what belongs in your resume or cover letter. Salary information still doesn't belong in either unless a posting explicitly asks for it, see what to put in a cover letter for why volunteering it early narrows your position later for no benefit. What does change is how you use the range you're increasingly handed up front: it tells you whether a role is worth the time to tailor an application for before you invest in one, and gives you a real number to anchor a negotiation around instead of guessing.
Check the posting is worth your time first
A number on the posting is only useful once the role itself is a real match. Before you spend time tailoring a resume to a specific listing, see how it actually scores against what that posting is asking for.
FAQ
Is a posted salary range legally binding?
No. It's a good faith estimate of what the employer expects to pay for the role, not a guaranteed offer amount. An actual offer can land anywhere within, or occasionally outside, the posted range depending on your experience and how the negotiation goes.
What if a company in a covered state posts a job with no range?
Enforcement varies by state, some allow fines, some allow a private right of action. As a candidate you don't generally have to do anything about it yourself, but a required range that's missing is worth noting as you decide how much time to invest in that application.
Does a posted range mean I shouldn't negotiate?
No. The range is a starting point set by the employer, not a ceiling you're required to accept. It's more information to negotiate from, not less room to negotiate.