The checklist has 48 rows in two parts. Part A holds 27 rows that official sources show as in force or enacted with a date, and Part B holds 21 items that are announced or proposed, or are not yet confirmed as binding. Eight Part A rows start on January 1, 2027, in Great Britain, Germany, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington and California, and Maryland’s FAMLI payroll deductions start that month, so those documents come first. Review a document when a Part A row points at it. Record an announced or proposed Part B row and set a check-again date, and read the instrument for an enacted one.

Each row has a trigger date and a status word, and each points to an official source. Part B keeps announced and proposed changes apart from Part A, so nobody rewrites a contract for a rule that is not confirmed as binding. Eleven Part A rows have trigger dates before 2027, and ten of those dates have passed. Check those rows against the documents you use today as well as the 2027 ones. Everything is as of October 27, 2026, except for the Germany mini-job notice and the Colorado act and attorney general page, which were read on October 28, 2026. The file is a printable DOCX and PDF with tick boxes and blank fields. It is a planning aid and gives no legal advice, and each row reports what one source says about one rule.

What is in the checklist

The DOCX and the PDF hold the same content. A removable first page carries the guidance and the disclaimer. The body then runs in a fixed order. It starts with blank fields for the company and the review owner, then a tick list of 9 jurisdictions and a table of status words. Part A and Part B follow. The inventory lists 11 document types. A sign-off block and a source list close the file, and the source list gives the URL and page date of each of the 66 sources. The PDF runs 13 pages and has 126 tick boxes.

Every row in the two parts has the same seven columns, from the reference and its Reviewed box through to the source. Part A adds a Yes and No pair under “Applies to us?” and a blank for the owner and due date. Part B adds a check-again date and an owner instead.

The status words come from what each source says. The counts below are from the file.

How to fill it

Work through the file in this order.

1. Tick the jurisdictions where you have workers. Mark Part A rows for other places No, or delete them in the DOCX, and delete the Part B rows for those places. The UK rows cover Great Britain, so check Northern Ireland separately.
2. Read the source behind each remaining Part A row before you mark it Yes or No. Scope decides. Delaware’s pay range rule does not apply to employers with 25 or fewer employees, and Washington’s exempt-salary thresholds depend on whether an employer has 1 to 50 employees or 51 or more.
3. Give each Yes row an owner and a due date before its trigger date, then tick Reviewed when the document has been checked against the source.
4. Give each Part B row for a place where you have workers a check-again date. For an announced or proposed row, leave the document as it is until that date. For a row with a January 1, 2027 trigger, set the date no later than December 1, 2026, so there is time to change a document. For a row with status Enacted, details unconfirmed, read the instrument now and decide whether and when it applies to you.
5. List your documents in the inventory with the next review date for each, then sign off.

A worked example

This example uses invented headcounts and is illustrative, not a benchmark. An employer has 9 employees in Connecticut and 60 in Washington, and it advertises jobs and uses noncompetes in Washington.

Connecticut gets a Yes. Paid sick leave there covers employers with 1 or more employees from January 1, 2027. In 2026 it covered employers with 11 or more, so an employer with 9 moves from outside the rule to inside it. Washington gets three Yes rows. With 60 employees, the overtime-exempt threshold is $1,773 a week, so an exempt employee paid an invented $1,700 sits below it. The noncompete row applies from June 30, 2027. The written notice deadline in the same row, October 1, 2027, falls 93 days later. The third Washington row is the pay range correction window for postings, which closes on July 27, 2027. It covers employers with 15 or more employees. That makes 4 of 27 Part A rows marked Yes. In Part B the employer deletes the rows for places where it has no workers and keeps the federal noncompete row, which gets a check-again date and changes no document.

The Part A dates in order

The table lists 17 Part A triggers by date, from October 2026 to December 2027. The file holds all 27 rows and names the clause and the documents to check for each. The UK employment law changes for 2027 and US employment law changes for 2027 pages give the background for most of them, and the AI hiring laws for 2027 page covers the AI rows.

A date already past, such as Canada’s October 20, 2026, stays in the table because the rule binds now. Colorado’s SB 26-189 is in Part A because the signed act sets January 1, 2027, but the attorney general’s page, modified October 27, 2026, posts no adopted or final rules as of October 28, so read the rules the week they appear before you fix the wording.

What stays in Part B

Part B has 21 rows in six statuses, and 12 of them are announced. Three more are enacted law or rules whose details are unconfirmed: Singapore’s Workplace Fairness Act, a UAE wage protection resolution and India’s Industrial Relations (Central) Rules. Read those instruments now.

Seven Part B rows have a January 1, 2027 trigger: the UK trade union and tipping rows, the Maine and California exempt-salary thresholds, Ontario’s Bill 105 if it passes, and the Singapore CPF rates and pass salaries. Set the check-again date for each of them no later than December 1, 2026.

The largest group is the UK. Eight Great Britain rows rest on the GOV.UK timeline, updated October 22, 2026, which says all future dates remain subject to parliamentary processes and may change. Only the January 1, 2027 unfair dismissal step has commencement regulations that set a 2027 date in what we read.

Several rows show why an announcement is not yet a rule. Australia’s non-compete ban is draft legislation released on September 7, 2026. Consultation closed on October 2. The minister’s release says it would cover workers under $190,100 a year. The FTC says its noncompete rule is not in effect and is not enforceable.

The Maine and California overtime-exempt salary thresholds also sit in Part B. Both agencies have published 2027 figures, $905.79 a week in Maine and $72,384 a year in California, but we read the agency notices and not the underlying rule text. A row moves to Part A once the instrument is confirmed.

Where the checklist can mislead you

A row is a prompt to open a document, and it is no finding that your clause is wrong.

The UK rows are labeled Great Britain. business.gov.uk says the unfair dismissal changes apply across England, Scotland and Wales and do not apply in Northern Ireland, and the Act’s section pages for the other UK rows show extent England, Wales and Scotland. Check Northern Ireland separately.

Scope can turn a Yes into a No. Ontario’s posting rules do not apply to employers with fewer than 25 employees, and Maryland employers with fewer than 15 employees remit only 50% of the FAMLI rate. India’s Handbook says it primarily covers establishments where the Central Government is the appropriate government. Sites under a State Government need a separate check.

A checklist built from official pages is only as current as those pages. Twenty-four of the 66 sources print no usable date, so a page can lag the law without showing it. Recheck the source before you act on a row, and read each status word as a reading taken on one date.

One date in Part A is ours. The October 20, 2026 start for the Canadian federal rule is the 180th day after the April 23, 2026 order, which we counted because the order states a number of days and no calendar date.

What we could not confirm

• What Northern Ireland requires on the same subjects. The UK rows cover Great Britain only, and we did not read Northern Ireland law.
• California’s automated decision-making scope for employment rests on the regulation text, because the CPPA announcement does not mention employment and the text we read shows no approval date.
• Which EU countries already bar pay confidentiality clauses. Article 7(5) of the Directive tells Member States to prohibit them, with a transposition deadline of June 7, 2026. The EU pay transparency tracker shows each country.
• Whether the UAE measures against non-compliant establishments started on July 1, 2026, as MoHRE’s December 31, 2025 item says they would. We found no later notice in the pages we read.
• Whether India has notified the text of the Model Standing Orders. The Central Rules copy we read refers to the model and does not set it out.
• Whether the Australian non-compete Bill has been introduced. None of the pages we read says so.
• The day of the Maryland FAMLI employee notice. The employer page says July 2027 and gives no day.

What to do in your 2027 plan

Start with the January 1, 2027 rows that apply to you, since six Part A rows start that day and Maryland’s FAMLI deductions start that month. Next, check the nine Part B rows with a January 1, 2027 trigger by December 1, 2026, and read the four enacted Part B rows. Then put the later Part A dates in your calendar, from the February 1 notice to the December 2 AI Act date. Give every other Part B row a check-again date, and move a row to Part A in your own copy once you have confirmed its instrument.

Rows that set pay, such as the exempt-salary thresholds and the Australian award rates, belong with whoever owns the pay budget. That person can set them beside the published salary increase budgets for 2027.

The next step is to enter the Part A dates for your jurisdictions in your calendar. The HR compliance calendar for 2027 lists the filing and notice dates that fall beside them.

Written and reviewed by the HR Riant Editorial Team. General information, not legal advice.