Can breaks be postponed or skipped?

From 6 hours of working time, the law requires a break of at least 30 minutes. It must be taken after 6 hours of continuous work at the latest, but it can be split into 2 x 15 min.

Are there exceptions to the rest period?

Rest periods can be shortened, particularly in the context of standby duty. But there are requirements here too. For example, it must be possible to give the employee half of the rest period. That means employees on standby duty must have at least 5.5 hours of rest period while on standby. Rest periods can also be shortened in other industries, such as agriculture.

Rest periods and breaks: the rules that apply

The duty to record working time is the wake-up call

The duty to record working time is here, and suddenly you notice that your employees are not taking their breaks? That can have serious consequences for you and your company.

The 2022 ruling by the Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG) is based on the German Occupational Safety Act (Arbeitsschutzgesetz). On the basis of employers' duty of care, the Federal Labour Court ruled that the working hours of employees must be recorded in every company in Germany. Only in this way, it held, can it be ensured that employers meet their duty of care and that the Occupational Safety Act, and with it the German Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz, ArbZG), is complied with. That also includes observing the statutory break times and rest periods.

Rest periods and break times: what is the difference?

The law draws a clear distinction between a rest break and a rest period. Rest periods are the times between the end of one work assignment and the start of the next. Rest breaks, or break times, are the interruptions within a work assignment.

What are break times and rest periods for?

Breaks make sure that staff stay focused and productive even after several hours of work. Rest periods in particular serve employees' recovery and safeguard safety and health protection. That is why rest breaks are especially important in physical work and shift work.

How long each of these has to be is also laid down in law:

Statutory requirements for break times

The German Working Hours Act (ArbZG) requires employees to take a certain amount of break from their daily working time. Under the ArbZG, employers are obliged to make sure that employees actually observe it.

Pushing breaks back so you can reach the end of shift earlier already breaches the ArbZG.

How long a break has to be depends on the length of the working time. A distinction is made here between working times of under six hours, from six hours and from nine hours, as well as the age of the employees.

Up to six hours

For a working time of up to six hours at a stretch, no breaks are required by law. There is nothing to stop you taking one anyway, though, to keep your performance up.

From six hours

If you work between six and nine hours, you are legally entitled to a 30 min break. You can also split this break into two lots of 15 min. What is not allowed, though, is splitting the break into 10 and 20 min!

More than nine hours

From a working time of nine hours you are entitled to at least 45 minutes of break. This too can be split into 15 min breaks. A working time of more than six hours without a break is not lawful, however!

Minors

The statutory rules for young people look somewhat different: under the German Youth Employment Protection Act (Jugendarbeitsschutzgesetz), special exceptions have to be taken into account for minors. From a working time of 4.5 hours, young people under 18 must take a break of at least 30 minutes. After six hours they are even required to take a break of over an hour.

Unless the employment contract says otherwise, breaks are not paid!

Exceptions

There can be exceptions too! Section 7 of the ArbZG states that shift operations and transport operations may fall back on so-called “short breaks of appropriate length”. The 45 min allocated in the example above may therefore be split into units of less than 15 min.

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Statutory requirements for rest periods

Section 5 of the ArbZG requires a rest period of at least 11 hours. That means: if Maren works until 8 p.m. on a Tuesday, she may not work again until 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning. It makes no difference whether that is in the same job or in her second job.

Under Section 7 of the ArbZG, the rest period may be shortened by up to two hours “if the nature of the work requires it”. The shortening of the rest period must, however, be compensated within a compensation period that has to be set. With on-call duty, too, rest periods can be adapted to the specifics of the service, as long as staff are not called on for more than half of the rest period.

In various institutions, for example in hospitals, in care, in agriculture or in hospitality venues, the rest period may be shortened by up to one hour where applicable. This shortening also has to be compensated within one month.

Checking that rest breaks are observed is also part of employers' statutory duty of care.

What happens if rest periods and break times are not observed?

The supervisory authorities are responsible for monitoring that employers ensure compliance with the ArbZG in their company. They are entitled to visit businesses and to require the employer to let them inspect the relevant business records.

If employees breach the requirements of the ArbZG of their own accord, the supervisor is obliged to point this out to them and, if necessary, issue a formal warning.

A fine of up to €30,000 or, in extreme cases, a prison sentence of up to one year can only be imposed on employers – which makes it all the more important to remind employees to comply with the law.

Securing break times and rest periods with digital time tracking

Making sure your employees comply with the statutory requirements on break times and rest periods is therefore essential. Keeping track of that and being able to step in if necessary calls for a tool that gives you a good overview of the hours your employees have worked and the breaks they have taken.

That is why we want to introduce you to clockin: a tool for digital time tracking. clockin lets you record your employees' break times and rest periods reliably and without hassle, so you always keep track. To do this, your employees clock in each morning with one click, either via a tablet terminal, the browser or the app on their phone. They record their breaks just as easily and clock out again at the end of the work assignment. The recorded data goes straight into the cloud and therefore to you in the Office Center, where you can view it without any effort.

At the end of the month clockin even produces an automated timesheet for you, which you can forward to your accounting department without any trouble using the integrations.

You work in projects and want to record time separately against those projects too? clockin makes that possible as well. With project time tracking, your employees can clock in on the relevant projects, record travel time and loading time, clock breaks, and with our digital project file they also have all the important information for the project directly on their mobile device.

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