Recording working time: what German hospitality really has to do

Two duties that get confused

The first and most important one for hospitality sits in §17 of the Minimum Wage Act (MiLoG): in the sectors listed in §2a of the Act to Combat Illicit Work — and hospitality and accommodation are among them — the employer must record the start, end and duration of daily working time. It applies above all to marginally employed staff (Minijob) and to employees in those sectors. This duty is independent of any debate about electronic time recording, and it has been in force for years.

The second follows from the Working Time Act (§16 ArbZG): working time exceeding eight hours on a working day has to be recorded and kept for two years.

On top of that comes the general line from the Federal Labour Court's decision of 13 September 2022: under existing occupational safety law, employers are already obliged to introduce a system for recording working time. Legislation setting out the form and details has been in preparation since — but waiting for it does not help a restaurant, because §17 MiLoG already applies.

What exactly is recorded — and how quickly

Three pieces of information per working day and person: start, end and duration of working time. No particular technology is prescribed, and nobody expects timing to the second — what is expected is that the record exists, is accurate and can be found.

Two deadlines decide the outcome when it matters:

• Within seven days of the working day the record must exist. Writing everything up at the end of the month breaches the duty — even if the numbers end up correct.
• Two years is the retention period, counted from the time of recording.
• Available on site: during an inspection the records have to be producible — a folder at the tax adviser's office in the next town is little help mid-inspection.

The limits that become visible along the way

Once hours are recorded properly, the rules of the Working Time Act surface — the ones nobody had been counting. For hospitality, with its split shifts and long Saturdays, these matter most:

• Eight hours per working day is the rule. Ten hours are permitted if the average over six calendar months or 24 weeks stays within eight.
• Breaks: at least 30 minutes for more than six hours of work, at least 45 minutes for more than nine. Divisible into blocks of at least 15 minutes.
• Rest period: eleven uninterrupted hours between shifts as a rule — in restaurants reducible by one hour under certain conditions, provided it is compensated.
• Sundays and public holidays: permitted in hospitality, with substitute rest days in return.

Who inspects: the FKS unit of German customs

The competent body is the Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit (FKS), the customs unit against illicit work, and hospitality has always been on its priority list. Inspections are unannounced, often mid-service and frequently at weekends. Officers talk to the staff, note who is working right now, and later compare that against your records, payroll documents and social-security registrations.

The typical finding is not deliberate fraud but a gap: the assistant has been in the kitchen for two hours yet appears in no record, because “she was only filling in”. From the inspector's point of view that is indistinguishable from undeclared work — and the burden of proof lies with the business.

Missing or incorrect records are an administrative offence and can be fined; the ranges in the MiLoG are substantial. Where undeclared employment is suspected, back-payment of social-security contributions follows, and that usually hurts the business far more than the fine.

Where businesses regularly come unstuck

The mistakes look the same from one business to the next, and none of them comes from bad intent:

• Passing the rota off as the record. A plan says who was supposed to work — not who was actually there and when. That distinction is exactly what gets checked.
• Writing up at month's end instead of within seven days. Often obvious from identical times across whole weeks.
• Breaks as an accounting item. A flat 30 minutes deducted although the shift ran through — that comes out as soon as staff are asked.
• Casual help and family members missing. Someone who only fills in on Saturdays belongs in the record too.
• Notes in a drawer. They exist, but illegible, incomplete, or ending three months ago.
• Missing the Minijob threshold: the monthly earnings limit is tied to the minimum wage and rises with it. Without ongoing hour tracking you notice the overrun only once it has happened.

The rota and reality

You need both, and they are not the same thing. The rota (Dienstplan) is planning: it tells the team when to come in and tells you whether shifts are covered. Time recording is documentation: it captures what actually happened — including the half hour that turned into overtime because the last table would not leave.

The sensible arrangement is one where planning feeds recording: the plan proposes the times, the person confirms or corrects them on arriving and leaving, and the deviation stays visible instead of being smoothed away. Declare the plan itself to be the record and you have documented a wish, not working time.

For the business the deviation is incidentally the more interesting number: it shows which shifts chronically overrun — that is, where staffing does not match reality.

Why this is easier on a phone

Paper fails in hospitality not on principle but on the kitchen: the sheet gets wet, wanders off, goes into the wash with the apron. And it demands nothing — nobody notices that there have been no entries since the 14th until somebody asks.

A digital clock-in solves exactly the three points the duty hangs on: it sets a real timestamp (so the seven-day deadline takes care of itself), it loses nothing across two years, and it makes the gap between plan and reality visible instead of swallowing it.

In Servio the two belong together: the rota is built in the app, the team clocks in and out on their own phones — in their own language, which in a kitchen with Ukrainian, Turkish or Vietnamese staff is the difference between “understood” and “signed”. For an inspection you export the hours per person and period, in German.