French meal breaks follow statutory working-time rules. Everhour turns calendar events into timesheet entries for cleaner review.
Enter your daily hours and rate to instantly calculate total hours, regular pay, and any overtime — no spreadsheet needed.
The calculator gives you the number — Everhour takes it from there.
One click and you're timing. Start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Everhour.
Set a budget, assign rates, and get alerted before you're over.
Measurement
Track your budget through time or costs
Every report you need — configured your way, always up to date.
Tracked hours flow straight into a polished invoice — no copy-paste, no manual math.
A French meal break calculation answers one direct question: after subtracting a meal break from a shift, how many hours remain as paid working time? The answer starts with clock-in and clock-out times, then subtracts the break minutes that do not count as actual working time. French locale practice uses 24-hour time such as 09:00 to 18:00 and day-first dates such as 06/06/2026.
France also adds a legal scheduling check. An adult employee must receive at least a 20-minute consecutive break once daily work reaches 6 consecutive hours, either before the 6-hour point is fully reached or immediately after it. Employees under 18 must receive at least a 30-minute consecutive break after 4 hours 30 minutes of continuous work, with collective agreements allowed to provide a longer break.
Use this formula: paid hours = clock-out time minus clock-in time minus unpaid break minutes divided by 60. A shift from 09:00 to 18:00 spans 9 hours. A 45-minute unpaid lunch equals 0.75 hours. The paid-time result is 8.25 hours, because 9 minus 0.75 equals 8.25.
At €23.40 per hour, 8.25 paid hours equal €193.05 before taxes, deductions, overtime premiums, or agreement-specific premiums. The calculation treats the meal break as unpaid only because the employee is relieved from actual work during that time. If the employee must remain available to the employer during the break, the break qualifies as actual working time and stays in the paid total.
French law treats lunch time between two periods of actual work as break time, with no separate statutory lunch-break duration beyond the applicable break rules. That distinction matters because many timesheets label the break as lunch, but payroll needs the legal treatment: unpaid break, paid actual working time, or paid break under a collective, company, or branch agreement.
Full-time legal working time in France is 35 hours per week, equivalent to 151.67 hours per month or 1,607 hours per year. Hours beyond the legal duration are treated as overtime unless an exception applies. Actual daily work may not exceed 10 hours in the general case, and actual weekly work may not exceed 48 hours in the same week or an average of 44 hours over 12 consecutive weeks, subject to exceptional derogations.
A one-off calculation is enough for a single shift, a freelancer invoice check, or a payroll spot check where the break status is clear. It gives you the paid hours and the straight-time value. It does not prove that the break was taken at the right point, that the employee was relieved from actual work, or that an agreement made the break paid.
A managed workflow becomes necessary when teams repeat the calculation every week. Calendar events, clock-in and clock-out records, break handling, approvals, and payroll exports need one review trail. Everhour can turn Google, Outlook, and iCloud calendar events into timesheet entries within a configurable window, while all-day, recurring, and pre-connection events stay excluded from that calendar workflow.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
High Performer
G2
Summer 2026
Best Ease Of Use
Capterra
Summer 2026
Rated in the top time trackers across G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius — with consistent praise for ease of use, integrations, and support.
French law treats lunch time between two periods of actual work as break time. There is no separate statutory lunch-break duration beyond the applicable break rules. For adults, the key statutory rule is at least 20 consecutive minutes once daily work reaches 6 consecutive hours, with the break granted before that point is fully reached or immediately after it.
Break time in France is generally unpaid unless it qualifies as actual working time. A break counts as actual working time when the employee must remain available to the employer during the break. A collective, company, or branch agreement can also provide paid breaks, so payroll review needs both the time entry and the applicable agreement rule.
Employees under 18 in France use a stricter break rule. They must receive at least a 30-minute consecutive break after a continuous work period of 4 hours 30 minutes. Collective agreements can provide a longer break, so a minor's timesheet should be checked against both the statutory minimum and any applicable agreement.
A meal break affects the paid working-time total when the break is unpaid. France's legal working time for full-time employees is 35 hours per week, and hours beyond the legal duration are treated as overtime unless an exception applies. An unpaid meal break reduces counted working time, while a break that qualifies as actual working time stays in the total.
French time records should use 24-hour HH:mm entries, such as 09:00 and 18:00, because that format matches French locale conventions and avoids AM/PM ambiguity. Day-first dates such as 06/06/2026 also reduce parsing errors when payroll, billing, and approvals use the same timesheet record.
Everhour integrates with Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, and iCloud Calendar, turning events with defined start and end times into timesheet entries within a configurable 15-minute to 3-hour window. All-day, recurring, and pre-connection events do not sync, which keeps the calendar-based workflow narrow and auditable.
Use calendar-based entries for recurring shift review, then approve timesheets before payroll or billing. Everhour converts eligible Google, Outlook, and iCloud events into timesheet records for cleaner handoff.
14-day free trial · No credit card · Cancel anytime
