The new law on time registration has been adopted and will enter into force on 1 July 2024. The law outlines employees' rights to rest periods and days off to protect them against working overtime. What does this new law mean for you as an employee or manager? We'll try to answer that.
TL;DRDenmark's mandatory time registration law takes effect July 1, 2024, requiring all employers to ensure employees record their working hours to protect rights around maximum weekly hours and rest periods. The law originated from a 2017 Spanish court case against Deutsche Bank and the resulting 2019 ECJ ruling that shaped EU-wide requirements.
On 1 July 2024, it will be a legal requirement for all Danish employers to ensure that their employees register their work time
According to the law, all employees have the right to a limitation of maximum working hours and rest periods. Specifically, employees are entitled to:
In June 2017, the Spanish trade union CCOO filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank. The union believed that the bank should have a system for recording the daily working hours of its employees, as it suspected that the employees were working too much.
In 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a judgment stating that Member States must require employers to establish processes that ensure employees’ actual daily working hours are recorded.
The new law on time registration is, therefore, the result of the EU’s efforts to protect workers from overtime.
As an employer, you also gain a better overview. It becomes easier to see how staff resources are used and who is responsible for which projects around the organization – if your time registration system allows you to link registrations to projects.
The database, which will be built up through continuous entries, can also provide insights into the average time certain types of tasks take – this is a very good starting point for project planning.
In addition, the law will mean more transparent 1:1 conversations, as the conversation topics can be backed up by data that ensures precise communication between manager and employee.
The system that employees must use for time registration must be objective, reliable, and accessible. This includes allowing employees to access information about their entries.
The system must measure daily and weekly working hours. Last but not least, the information in the system must be available for five years from the time it is entered.
As we mentioned earlier in the blog post, project-based time registration has several benefits. So, in our opinion, it is definitely a good idea to investigate the possibility of acquiring a time registration system that allows time registration to be connected to current projects—however, this is not a legal requirement.
You just have to make sure to acquire a system where employees can and must only record their total daily working hours – there is, therefore, no requirement to specify time periods or anything else.
Our mTIME system provides you and your employees with a simple solution with an intuitive user interface – both for administrators and individual employees. With the option of automatic registration of working hours, your employees only need to register deviations from their normal working hours, which saves time and simplifies the process.
If you are already a customer with us, all data will, of course, be automatically sent to your payroll system so that everything is gathered in one place.
Contact us to learn more about mTIME or by booking a free demo in the calendar. Let’s achieve a more efficient and trouble-free time recording for your company together!
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Denmark's new time registration law require from employers?
All Danish employers must ensure employees register their actual working hours from July 1, 2024. The system used must be objective, reliable, and accessible. It must document compliance with the 48-hour weekly maximum averaged over four months, 11-hour daily rest periods, and a weekly day off.
What rights do employees gain from the new time registration law?
Employees gain documented protection from excessive overtime through formal records of their actual working hours. Beyond compliance, they also gain a tool for understanding their own work patterns, structuring their days, and identifying whether they are consistently working beyond contracted hours.
What triggered the EU's push for mandatory time registration?
A 2017 lawsuit in Spain by the trade union CCOO against Deutsche Bank, which suspected employees were working excessive hours without a proper recording system. The 2019 ECJ ruling that followed determined that all EU member states must require employers to record employees' daily actual working hours.
What are the benefits for employers who implement time registration proactively?
Beyond legal compliance, employers gain visibility into how their workforce's time is actually spent across projects and tasks. This data supports better resource planning, more accurate client billing, and earlier identification of workload imbalances that could lead to burnout or quality issues.
Does the time registration law apply to all employees, including those with flexible working arrangements?
Yes. The law applies broadly regardless of working arrangement. In Denmark, where flexible working is common and employees do not always work fixed 8-to-4 schedules, the requirement to register actual hours worked means accounting for all hours including those worked outside standard times.