Compliance
What the law in your country actually requires you to record, how long to keep it, and what an inspector will ask for.
8 articles
In this category
Germany: you are already required to record all working time
The obligation has been in force since September 2022, it applies to every employer, and it did not arrive through the Working Hours Act. Plenty of businesses are still waiting for a law that already effectively exists.
Ireland: the working-time records you must keep, and what happens if you do not
Missing records are not just a fine. Under the Organisation of Working Time Act, if you have no records, you are the one who has to prove you complied - not the employee who has to prove you did not.
Spain: what changes when your time records have to go digital
Paper has been legal in Spain since 2019. The reform in progress changes that, adds real-time access for the labour inspectorate, and moves fines from per site to per employee.
Netherlands: the rule covers rest times too, not just working times
The Working Hours Act asks for a sound registration of working *and* rest times, in no prescribed format, kept 52 weeks. The freedom is real, and it is where most employers get it wrong.
Italy: the Libro Unico is due on the 16th, and it is what an inspector believes
Italy does not just ask you to record hours. It asks for a specific document, consolidated by the 16th of the following month and kept five years, and in an inspection it is the record that counts.
Portugal: your time records have to be readable on the spot
Article 202 asks for entry and exit times plus every interruption, kept five years, in a place that allows immediate consultation. That last phrase does more work than it looks.
France: if your staff do not all work the same hours, the count is daily
Article D3171-8 applies the moment your team stops working to one posted collective schedule - which for shift work is always. It asks for a daily record and a weekly summary.
Travel between sites is working time
For staff with no fixed workplace, the Court of Justice held that the journey from home to the first job and from the last job home counts as working time. It is widely misreported, because it changes the clock and not necessarily the pay.