German employers need objective daily working-time records, and Everhour supports structured tracking, approvals, and team controls.
Enter your time in and out for each day. Overtime and gross pay are calculated automatically.
| Day | Time In | Break Start | Break End | Break | Time Out | Total |
|---|
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
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Use this page to turn each in-scope employee's day into a clear record: start time, end time, total duration, break context, and overtime where it occurs. Germany has a real recording duty for employees within scope, so a useful log does more than collect rough weekly totals. It gives managers a daily view of hours actually worked and gives HR or finance a clean handoff for payroll, client billing, and working-time review.
German teams also need local defaults that match daily work. Use German-language project labels if employees and managers review records in German, and keep euro (€) amounts on billing or payroll-facing exports. A one-person agency can keep a simple project log, while a larger employer needs consistent fields across departments, employment categories, and locations.
A German work-time entry should identify the employee, date, project or cost center, start of daily working time, end of daily working time, and resulting duration. Germany's Federal Labour Court held on September 13, 2022, that employers must introduce and use a working-time recording system under Section 3(2)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The court described the system as covering the beginning, end, and duration of daily working time, including overtime, for employees within scope.
Treat breaks as separate information rather than hiding them inside an unexplained total. German working-time rules require at least 30 minutes of pre-established rest break when work exceeds six hours and at least 45 minutes when work exceeds nine hours, with no work period longer than six hours without a break. A clean record lets reviewers see the span of the day, the time actually worked, and the break decision.
Use the record to check working-time boundaries before payroll or invoicing closes. Under Germany's Working Time Act, daily working time generally may not exceed eight hours and may extend to ten hours only if the average remains eight hours per working day over six calendar months or 24 weeks. Employees also generally need at least eleven uninterrupted hours of rest after daily working time ends.
Special retention rules apply to some worker groups. For marginally employed workers and workers in sectors named in the Act to Combat Undeclared Work, employers must record start, end, and length of daily working time no later than the end of the seventh calendar day after the work and retain those records for at least two years. Employee time data is personal data under the GDPR and Germany's Federal Data Protection Act Section 26. A monthly reconstruction fails that deadline.
A one-off tracker is enough for a freelancer recording a small client engagement, a founder checking one week of team capacity, or an employer drafting a first template for German daily records. It works best when the record stays simple, the reviewer is the same person each time, and the output only needs a clean weekly or monthly summary.
A managed workflow becomes the better choice when several people submit time across projects and clients, managers approve or correct entries, periods need locking, or teams need capacity limits by person. Everhour Team Management gives admins lock rules, admin time correction, personal tracking limits, weekly capacity, roles, project assignments, team groups, and team-wide defaults, so daily records turn into a repeatable review process.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
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Rated in the top time trackers across G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius — with consistent praise for ease of use, integrations, and support.
Yes. The CJEU held in Case C-55/18 that EU member states must require employers to set up an objective, reliable, and accessible system for measuring each worker's daily working time. Germany's Federal Labour Court then held on September 13, 2022, that employers must introduce and use a system under Section 3(2)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
Yes. Until Germany's legislature sets more specific rules, the required system does not have to be electronic in every case. Paper records may be sufficient depending on the activity and company, but the record still needs the beginning and end of daily working time, the duration, and overtime for employees within the rule's scope.
A usable work log should separate rest breaks from the worked-time total. German working-time rules require at least 30 minutes of pre-established rest break when work exceeds six hours and at least 45 minutes when work exceeds nine hours. The record should also prevent a work period longer than six hours without a break.
Marginally employed workers and workers in sectors named in the Act to Combat Undeclared Work have the specific deadline. Employers must record the start, end, and length of daily working time no later than the end of the seventh calendar day after the work, then retain those records for at least two years.
Yes. Employee time data is personal data, so the GDPR and Germany's Federal Data Protection Act Section 26 matter when employers choose fields, access rights, and monitoring settings. If a works council exists, it has co-determination rights over working-time arrangements, technical monitoring devices, and health-protection arrangements. The Federal Labour Court held that the council cannot force an electronic system when the duty already exists.
Everhour Team Management lets admins lock time after approval or after a chosen period, correct team member entries, set personal tracking limits, define weekly capacity, and manage roles, project assignments, and team groups. Those controls help managers turn daily entries into a consistent approval workflow.
Everhour Timesheets collect weekly project hours or working hours by person, then managers can approve, reject, or partially approve submitted time. Submitted and approved entries stay locked for regular members, which protects the reviewed record before payroll, billing, or reporting use.
Standardize German daily records with lock rules, admin corrections, personal tracking limits, weekly capacity, roles, and team groups. Everhour Team Management turns time entry into approval-ready team records.
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