When do working hours start in law?

Under the German Working Hours Act, working hours start when an employee takes up the contractually owed activity at the designated place of work. But exactly what counts towards it – whether changing time, travel time or set-up time is included, for example – depends on several factors. You can read more about this in the article.

Do set-up time and changing time count as working hours?

Set-up time and changing time can count as working hours that must be paid – but only if they are required by the business or strictly necessary. We explain in the article when this is the case and how employers can handle it in a legally compliant way.

Does travel time count as working hours?

Travel time usually does not count as working hours, for instance the journey to work. But there are exceptions – in field service or with particular places of work, for example. Find out here when travel time has to be paid and how digital time tracking such as clockin helps. Since the CJEU ruling of 9 October 2025 (C-110/24) this expressly also applies to organised group journeys to changing places of work, even when employees are only passengers.

When do working hours start? The rules explained

What do working hours actually mean?

The German Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz, ArbZG) defines working hours as the time from the beginning to the end of work, excluding rest breaks. The beginning is reached when employees take up the contractually owed activity at the place of work determined by the employer. Breaks and rest periods do not count as working hours.

However, the exact start of work is not always easy to pin down. Travel time, return journeys and changing time often lead not just to discussions but to legal disputes. On top of that, collective agreements can contain specific rules setting out, for example, whether set-up time, changing time or travel within the company premises has to be paid.

When do working hours start in legal terms?

The Working Hours Act answers the question of when work begins as well. Paragraph 2 states that working hours start when employees take up the contractually owed activity at the place of work specified by the employer.

Put differently, working hours start when the employee begins the work laid down in the contract. To do so, they have to be at the relevant place of work. But that can get tricky again. If working from home is allowed, working hours start when employees take up their actual work. In other cases the place of work itself marks the start of working hours, above all where set-up time is involved.

Set-up time - when working hours really start

Working hours often start not with the “actual work” but with preparatory activities. These are what is meant by set-up time. It covers all the steps that are necessary to be able to carry out the work. Examples are putting on protective clothing, booting up the computer, setting up the workstation or laying out tools.

Set-up time counts as part of working hours if it is required by the business and necessary. It has to be recorded and paid, even if it is only a few minutes.

We have covered the topic of set-up time in more detail here.

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Travel time - when it counts as working hours

Travel time is the time you need to reach your workplace. Normally the commute, meaning the journey from home to the place of work and back, does not count as working hours. That time is your own responsibility.

It is different for field service and mobile work. If the job is set up around visiting various customers or sites, the journeys there count as working hours. The Hessen Regional Labour Court (10 SLa 564/24) made clear: journeys to external work locations count as working hours if the economic purpose of the activity is to visit these customers. That is also in line with the position of the Federal Labour Court (31 March 2021 - 5 AZR 148/20).

In these cases travel time has to be recorded and paid, which matters particularly in field service.

Update: CJEU clarifies travel time on group journeys (C-110/24, 9 October 2025)

‍In addition, on 9 October 2025 the CJEU spelled out when travel time to changing places of work counts as working hours: when the journey is part of the activity, the employer specifies the meeting point, the vehicle and the departure time, and the employee cannot freely dispose of their time during it. Unlike the Hessen Regional Labour Court case (routes within company premises), this is about organised group journeys, for instance from the depot to changing job sites – for the outward and the return journey alike, and even when simply travelling as a passenger. Whether and how this affects pay has not yet been finally settled. Read more in our article Travel time is working time: what the CJEU ruling means.

Changing time - when getting dressed counts as working hours

Changing time arises when employees have to change clothes for work. This time does not always count as working hours. If you wear work clothing voluntarily or can put it on at home as well, employees cannot expect to be paid for it.

It is different when changing on site is required by the business. The Federal Labour Court (5 AZR 678/11) ruled: if putting on special work or area-specific clothing is necessary and may only be done on the premises, this changing time also counts as working hours that must be paid. In that case the routes within the premises to the changing room also have to be paid, if they arise on top of that.

If employees are free to put the clothing on and take it off at home as well, there is no entitlement to payment.

Here too the rule is: compulsory changing time has to be recorded and paid.

Case example: when do working hours start?

In spring 2024 the Hessen Regional Labour Court (10 SLa 564/24) decided a case that is of interest to many people working on large industrial or airport sites. An employee working as a driver on an airport site claimed payment for various periods that in his view counted as working hours. Specifically, this was the time from entering the security area to the actual start of work: passing through several checkpoints, the shuttle ride across the site, reporting in at the terminal and changing clothes on site. The employee argued that all of this served the business and therefore had to be paid as working hours.

The court saw it differently. The Hessen Regional Labour Court made clear: travel time within the site, even when it is shaped by security checks and shuttles, does not automatically count as working hours that must be paid. The reason: these routes are within the business, but they do not directly serve the economic purpose of the company; they are merely necessary framework conditions. Passing through security checks or using a shuttle does not perform a work task in the employer's interest. Instead it is a form of operational travel risk that the employee has to bear.

Changing clothes? Only if the business requires it

The changing time was part of the claim too - and here as well the employee did not win. The court argued: the work clothing was neither particularly conspicuous nor strictly prescribed, above all not for changing on site. The employee could also have put the clothing on at home. As there was no operational obligation to change on the premises, there was no activity serving someone else's purposes here and therefore no working hours to be paid.

And what about set-up time?

Set-up time, meaning preparatory activities such as setting up a workstation or laying out tools, was not the central point of dispute in this case. Even so, the ruling allows one conclusion: here too the employee would only have had a claim to payment if the set-up had had to take place on the premises and clearly served the business interest.

When would the court have decided differently?

It gets interesting when you consider the circumstances in which the claimant might have succeeded.

For example: if the employer had expressly required changing on the premises, perhaps for hygiene reasons or because the clothing was particularly conspicuous. Then the changing time would have become working hours. The same applies if the route across the site had been inseparably bound up with the work task. For instance, if the shuttle had not just been a means of transport but at the same time a work tool (e.g. to inspect the site or to transport material).

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Digital time tracking creates clarity

Recording working hours precisely and in a legally compliant way is a challenge, particularly in complex cases such as set-up, travel or changing time. This is where a digital solution such as clockin helps: with the app, employees can document their working hours simply and transparently - on the move, in the office or on the works site. That not only saves time on follow-up work, it also makes sure statutory requirements are reliably met.