Working-time records in Germany: what applies now and what is coming

Working-time recording in Germany is still discussed as though the obligation were yet to arrive. That is the single most important misconception in the subject. The obligation already exists — since the Federal Labour Court's decision of 13 September 2022. What is missing is not the duty but the statute setting out its details.

This article separates the two: what applies today, and what the June 2026 draft bill would change.

How the duty arose without a new statute

The route runs through two decisions.

CJEU, 14 May 2019, C-55/18 — the CCOO case against Deutsche Bank in Spain. The Court held that member states must require employers to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system for measuring daily working time. The reasoning: without measurement, the maximum hours and rest periods in the Working Time Directive cannot in practice be enforced by the worker.

The judgment was addressed to member states, not directly to employers. The German legislature then did nothing for three years.

Federal Labour Court, 13 September 2022, 1 ABR 22/21 — the decision that changed the position, and it came out of a case about something else. A works council wanted to force the introduction of electronic time recording. The court denied that right of initiative — on the ground that it was unnecessary: read in conformity with EU law, § 3(2) no. 1 ArbSchG already obliges the employer to introduce a system for recording working time. Where a statutory duty exists, there is nothing left to force.

The recording duty therefore sits in occupational safety law, not in the Working Time Act. That is not a technicality; it explains why the position feels so unsatisfactory. The ArbSchG is framework legislation. It says a suitable organisation must be in place — not in what form, by what deadline, or for how long records must be kept.

What this means concretely

The decision requires the start, end and duration of daily working time to be recorded for all employees. Not only overtime, and not only a weekly total.

The ArbSchG says nothing about form. Paper is permissible, a spreadsheet is permissible, software is permissible. Recording may also be delegated to employees; responsibility for records existing and being accurate stays with the employer.

Alongside this, two older and more specific duties continue unchanged:

• § 16(2) ArbZG. Working time beyond eight hours per working day must be recorded, as must a register of employees who have consented to an extension under § 7(7). The records must be kept for at least two years. A breach is a regulatory offence and can attract a fine.
• § 17(1) MiLoG. In the sectors listed in § 2a SchwarzArbG — construction, hospitality, forwarding and logistics, the meat industry and others — and for marginally employed staff, the start, end and duration of daily working time must be recorded no later than the end of the seventh calendar day following the day worked, and kept for at least two years. Compliance is checked by the customs authority's undeclared-work unit.

Anyone in one of those sectors has therefore long had a more detailed and deadline-bound duty than the ArbSchG expresses.

What the June 2026 draft bill would change

On 18 June 2026 the Federal Ministry of Labour published a draft bill amending the Working Time Act. It is intended to do what has been outstanding since 2019: write the duty expressly into the ArbZG and settle its details.

On status, note this: a Referentenentwurf is a ministry draft. It has not been adopted by cabinet, has not passed the Bundestag or Bundesrat, and is not in force. It has drawn considerable criticism and may change during the procedure. Anyone reading online that electronic recording becomes mandatory in 2026 is reading past this point.

The draft provides for:

Transition periods are staggered by company size and only start once the law enters into force:

• all employers: one year
• fewer than 250 employees: two years
• fewer than 50 employees: five years
• up to ten employees and private households: permanently exempt from the electronic form

Employers bound by collective agreements are also to be able to agree permanently on non-electronic records.

The second part of the draft does not concern recording at all but maximum working time: a move from a daily to a weekly limit. That is the politically contested part and the reason the procedure remains open.

What a business sensibly does today

The transition periods are tempting, but they relate only to the electronic form. The duty to record at all has no transition period — it has applied since 2022.

That leads to an unspectacular recommendation.

1. Record start, end and duration for each day, for all staff, from now on. That is the ArbSchG duty and it exists independently of the draft.
2. Record on the same day. The draft provides for it, the MiLoG already requires it within a deadline in its sectors, and reconstructing hours after the fact is precisely the source of error at issue here.
3. Treat two years as a floor, not a target. § 16(2) ArbZG and § 17 MiLoG both say two years; the limitation period for pay claims under § 195 BGB is three. An employer wanting to contest overtime still needs the record then.
4. Start electronically if you are introducing something new anyway. The permanent exemption reaches only ten employees, and a business introducing a paper process today will do the work twice within a few years.

The difference from Austria

If you employ people in both countries, note the difference in character. Austria has had the recording duty expressly in its Working Time Act for decades, with simplifications, deadlines and penalty ranges. Germany currently derives it from occupational safety law and is only now regulating the details. In practice: a record that satisfies Austria's § 26 AZG will as a rule also satisfy German requirements — the reverse does not hold, because Austrian law demands specifics the ArbSchG leaves open.