Make the hours provable
An overtime dispute rarely fails on the law and almost always on the records. The law obliges the employer to record hours beyond eight — you still need your own notes.
✓ Verified: 11/08/2026
WHAT TO DO
› Details and tips
Make it a habit to note one line at the end of the day with hours and task. After six months that table weighs more than any verbal understanding with your manager.
Messages in work chats with date and time are underrated evidence: they show not only the work but that the manager knew about it.
Useful Tools
- BMAS — Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales legal-info
Federal Ministry of Labour: official guidance on employment law, leave and working time.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Must the employer record working time? ▾
Yes. The law expressly requires recording working time that goes beyond eight hours per working day and keeping those records for at least two years. This is health and safety law and applies regardless of any dispute about money.
What do the courts want to see from the employee? ▾
Under the case law a total figure is not enough: you must set out on which days, for how long, and on whose instruction or with whose acquiescence the work was done. A log of hours therefore weighs more than recollection a year later.
Is my own spreadsheet any use? ▾
Your own records do not replace the employer records, but they supply the specifics: dates, tasks, names. Combined with correspondence and system data they form the evidence.
What if you have no access to the time system? ▾
Request an extract in writing. A refusal, or missing records, works against the employer, because keeping and retaining them is their statutory duty.
Do home office and evening messages count? ▾
Working time does not stop being working time because it happens at home. The same test applies: was it instructed or tolerated, and are there traces — messages, emails, tickets.