§ Law & obligations · 3 min read
Break and rest period rules
Four figures every business should know. They are set out in the Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz) and apply regardless of what the employment contract says.
1. Maximum working time: 8 hours, 10 by way of exception
Important: working days are Monday to Saturday. Six working days of 8 hours each make a permissible weekly working time of 48 hours.
So the 10 hours are not a free pass, but a balancing account. Anyone who works 10 hours a day for three weeks must then stay correspondingly below that.
2. Minimum break: 30 or 45 minutes
The break must be fixed in advance. Anyone who “takes a break when things are quiet” is legally not taking a rest break — it then counts as working time, but must still be granted.
How Zeitflex handles this: Recording breaks correctly.
3. Rest period: 11 hours between two working days
This is the rule most often broken in the shift plan: late shift until 23:00, early shift from 6:00 — that is 7 hours and therefore not permitted.
Zeitflex checks this while planning, not only afterwards. See Planning shifts.
4. Sunday rest
Zeitflex counts Sunday work for premiums, but does not check the 15 free Sundays or the substitute rest day. This is a deliberate limit: both depend on exemptions and collective agreement rules that software cannot know.
What Zeitflex checks — and what it does not
| Rule | Does Zeitflex check it? |
|---|---|
| Maximum working time § 3 | yes, in the shift plan and in the month-end close |
| Minimum break § 4 | yes, applied in the calculation |
| Rest period § 5 | yes, in the shift plan and in the month-end close |
| Balancing period 6 months / 24 weeks | partly — via the overtime balance |
| 15 free Sundays § 11 | no |
| Substitute rest day for Sunday work | no |
| Youth employment protection (under 18) | no — stricter rules of their own apply there |
Where you see breaches
- In the shift plan, directly when creating a shift
- In the month-end close, step 1
- In the weekly compliance report by email to owners and management (from Starter)
Still stuck?
For logistics, the special regime of driving times and rest periods also applies (§ 21a ArbZG, Regulation (EC) No 561/2006). Zeitflex does not replace a tachograph and does not reflect driving times.
Last checked on . We check every article against the application — if something no longer matches, that is a bug and not a difference of opinion.
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Related articles
- Recording breaks correctlyHow breaks are recorded in Zeitflex, what the law requires as a minimum and why the statutory break is deducted even if nobody clocks it.
- Record-keeping duty — clearly explainedWho has to record working time, what exactly, since when — and what already applies today from the planned change in the law.
- Planning shiftsWeekly grid, creating a shift, spotting conflicts, publishing the plan — and what reaches employees after publishing.