Whereas quantitative studies show that the ‘new’ EU entrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are the forerunners in the transposition of EU directives, case studies indicate the existence of a gap between legal and practical compliance. This study aims to reconcile these divergent findings by comparing member states’ performance regarding different compliance aspects: delayed transposition; legal and practical conformity. We address the following questions: Do we observe systematic variation in compliance (a) between different EU member states, (b) between different forms of compliance? To what extent do preference- and capacity-based factors explain differences in implementation between the EU-15 and the EU-10 states? Our analysis shows that the CEE member states are generally more efficient in transposing the EU rules than their Western counterparts. In addition and with the exception of social policy directives, the CEE member states do not lag behind the EU-15 countries with respect to practical implementation.