Working-time records in Austria: what § 26 AZG requires

Austria's duty to record working time is older than any debate about home working or electronic time clocks. It has been in § 26 of the Working Time Act for decades, it applies to every employer and every employee, and it applies whether or not there is a time clock on the wall. Failing to comply usually causes no problem at all — until the labour inspectorate calls, or a former employee sues for unpaid overtime. At that point the record decides whose account of the hours stands.

This article sets out what the law requires, where it allows something less, and where the common misconceptions are. It is written for employers in Austria and for companies elsewhere with staff employed under Austrian contracts.

Who has to keep records

§ 26(1) AZG is brief:

“The employer shall, in order to monitor compliance with the matters regulated in this Federal Act, keep records at the establishment of the hours worked.”

Three things sit inside that sentence and are regularly missed.

The duty falls on the employer, not the employee. It can be delegated in organisational terms — more on that below — but responsibility stays with the business. “The employee did not fill it in” is not a defence; it is a description of the employer's own failure.

The purpose is monitoring compliance. The record does not exist for its own sake but so that adherence to maximum hours, rest breaks and rest periods can be checked. What must be recorded follows from that purpose: a monthly total of 168 hours says nothing about whether twelve hours were worked on a particular day. This is why the labour inspectorate and the courts require the start and end of working time along with rest breaks — and why the federal business service portal lists exactly those as the contents of the record.

“At the establishment” means the records have to be available where an inspection happens. A web application satisfies this if it can be opened at the business; a folder at the tax adviser's office that first has to be requested does not.

§ 26(1) additionally requires the start and length of any averaging period to be documented where averaging is used. This is routinely forgotten and counts as a separate finding in an inspection.

The three simplified forms

The law recognises situations in which a full record is not required. They are narrowly drawn, and each one has a precondition.

Employees who largely determine their own time and place of work

§ 26(3) AZG:

“For employees who are largely able to determine the timing of their working hours and their place of work, or who perform their work predominantly in their own home, only records of the length of daily working time shall be kept.”

Here the daily total is enough — no start, no end, no breaks. The decisive words are “and” and “largely”: both conditions have to be met, time and place. An office worker on flexitime who sits at the same desk every day does not qualify. Neither does a field sales representative whose appointment times are set by the company.

Someone who works predominantly from home is expressly covered. This is the provision that ordinary home working falls under.

A fixed working-time schedule

§ 26(5a) AZG:

“For employees with a fixed working-time schedule recorded in writing, employers need only confirm adherence to it at least at the end of each pay period and on request by the labour inspectorate.”

This is the leanest option: instead of daily entries, a confirmation at the end of the month that the agreed schedule was kept. It carries two conditions. The schedule must be recorded in writing — an established habit does not qualify. And every deviation still has to be recorded. That is exactly where the simplification fails in practice: a business where people routinely work longer ends up keeping a record anyway, only an incomplete one.

Flexitime: records kept by the employee

§ 26(2) AZG permits an agreement under which the employee keeps the records. With flexitime this is the norm. The provision attaches duties to the employer in exchange: they must instruct the employee in keeping the records properly, obtain the records at the end of the flexitime period, and check them.

Delegating is therefore not handing over. An employer using a time-tracking system in which employees make their own entries satisfies the handover part automatically; the checking remains a management task.

Rest breaks

For rest breaks, § 26(5) AZG allows a simplification by works agreement: where the start and end of breaks are fixed, or where the employee may choose them within a defined window, only deviations need to be recorded. Without such an arrangement the break belongs in the record.

Where work is performed during a rest period or at a weekend, § 25 ARG additionally requires the place, duration and nature of the activity to be documented. This is a separate obligation alongside the AZG and is frequently overlooked.

How long records must be kept

This is where most of what circulates online is wrong, and it is worth being exact.

§ 26 AZG itself states no retention period. A source claiming a period “under § 26 AZG” should be treated with suspicion.

The federal business service portal gives one year for general working-time records, 24 months for records concerning drivers and two years for the register of young workers. Where averaging is used, the year runs from the end of the averaging period.

In practice, though, one year is the wrong answer to the question an employer is actually asking, because:

• Tax law. Working-time records underpin payroll and are therefore relevant to taxation. § 132 BAO requires seven years.
• Social insurance. Audits reach back several years.
• Pay claims. An employer wanting to contest an overtime claim needs the record for as long as the claim can be brought. Forfeiture periods in collective agreements are often short; the statutory limitation period is not.

Working to the seven years in § 132 BAO keeps you on the safe side and avoids administering two different periods. It is also defensible in data protection terms, because a statutory retention obligation supports the storage.

What employees may demand

§ 26(8) AZG entitles every employee to demand a free copy of their working-time records once a month. With flexitime, § 26(2) requires a copy to be provided on request at the end of the flexitime period, or otherwise access to be granted.

§ 26(9) has a consequence many employers underestimate: if the copy is refused, forfeiture periods are suspended. A business that delays handing the records over extends the window in which claims can still be raised. Refusing is therefore not merely a formal breach; it worsens the employer's own position.

What the labour inspectorate may do

Under § 26(6) AZG the employer must give the labour inspectorate the information it requires and, on request, access to the records. No advance notice is needed.

What a missing record costs

§ 28(2) no. 3 AZG makes deficient record-keeping an offence: €72 to €1,815, rising to €145 to €1,815 for a repeat offence.

The real exposure is in § 28(8). Where missing records make it impossible or unreasonably difficult to establish actual working time, the offence is penalised separately for each employee affected. One administrative offence becomes thirty.

The more expensive consequence lies elsewhere in any case. In a dispute over overtime the employee bears the burden of proof in principle — but where the record the employer was required to keep is missing, that operates to the employer's disadvantage. A plausible estimate by the employee then stands against nothing at all.

What this means in practice

For most businesses it comes down to four points.

1. Record start, end and breaks for each day, unless one of the simplifications demonstrably applies. The daily total alone is sufficient only in the case of § 26(3).
2. Document the simplification rather than assuming it. An employer relying on § 26(3) or § 26(5a) should note in writing why — in an inspection that is the difference between a justification and an assertion.
3. Keep records for seven years, following § 132 BAO, in a form that can be produced at the business.
4. Hand over the monthly copy without argument. It is the employee's right, and refusing it suspends forfeiture periods.

Whether this happens through software, a spreadsheet or on paper is not something the AZG prescribes. What it prescribes is that the record exists, that it is complete, and that it is available when somebody asks for it.