You should be free to not disclose your current salary, but do not tell lies during your hiring process.

Depending on the clauses of your current contract, disclosing your current pay to a competitor might be a breach of contract. Please read your contract with your current employer before answering this request. I would respectfully deny such request as it provides no value to them and it is a risk for you. None of the UK companies I worked with asked me for a payslip, they asked what are my salary expectations, or hourly rates, never a payslip.

Is this the recruiter asking or the company you'll work for?

@BoboDarph It is always recommended to know what's written in your contract, but preventing disclosure of a salary is pretty rare in my experience, it's probably mostly unenforceable and I'm pretty sure trying to prevent that may actually be illegal in some places (not sure too sure about the UK specifically).

You almost certainly don't want this job. I am UK based.

In Australia, some companies will call your the past employers listed on your resume to verify that you worked there. The payslip thing sounds weird. But do you have anywhere else to go?

Very irregular to ask for payslip in the US and I probably wouldn't deal with it. But my favorite head cannon is you've lied about your previous salary and they're not doing this to low ball you but instead to figure out if you're a liar and if they want to deal with that. (I've solved the problem by just lying about the salary)

Just to be clear, they have not actually asked for the payslip, but you are worried they might?

@BolucPapuccuoglu The title and message of the post seem to differ in what was actually asked.

@rtaft I think the OP is asking "I can go ahead and lie about my current salary, how likely am I to be found out if the company asks for my payslip?"

With a confident smile simply ask 'oh, I don't usually share that information, I'm interested, can you please tell me why you need it?'

@BolucPapuccuoglu is correct. Btw, from my experience, asking for your current salary is pervasive in the FAANG industry (I've been asked the very same question on multiple ones, both at London and in other capital European cities)..

N.B. The salary history bans in the US are mostly about being more equitable to women and POC: marketplace.org/2020/07/08/…

@foreverska I've heard of head canon before; head cannon sounds terrifying!

Do not lie about your current salary., Try to avoid lies in general.

@NotThatGuy - I'm UK-based and I've had clauses in all my previous contracts (to be fair, I've only had five jobs so I'm not a great sample base) that bar disclosure of my salary to anyone, but that's always been to prevent staff comparing salaries and those paid less then kicking up a fuss than anything else. The wording has always had an exclusion for "authorised purposes" such as dealing with your bank, getting life insurance, a loan, a mortgage, whatever, but technically it would have barred me revealing that information to a new employer. Then again (cont.)

(cont.) I've only ever been asked my last salary by one employer (my current one) and that was because my new manager wanted to use it as leverage to get me a better deal at the new company. I would definitely be wary of disclosing my salary to any potential employer and would definitely invoke the confidentiality clause if asked.

TL;DR;In India sometimes even very reputable companies( US based) do ask about previous salary structure, offer letter, if they have not heard about the organization you were working at the time of interview. Happened to me. But the offer they made to me was well above my expectation and market rate. So no complaints here :) . What would be the case for you I don't know.

Just remember, unless you plan not to give them a P45 when you join, they will eventually find out what you used to be paid. So just bear that in mind if you plan to outright lie during the interview process.

Pretty common asking for how much you earn/a payslip in India and South Africa. Last time an Italian interviewer working for an Irish firm tried to pull that stunt and insisted, told her the interview was so over. They should mind their own business.