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A family in Spain employed a domestic worker. After a few months, the family terminated the domestic worker, and a disagreement began about how many hours she had worked.

The disagreement arose because a Spanish rule exempted employers from registering the working hours of domestic workers. The question was whether the rule was lawful.

EU sets the clock

The European Court of Justice ruled that the rule was unlawful. It deprived all domestic workers of the possibility to record their actual daily working hours.

As a result, domestic workers could not objectively and reliably verify if they worked in accordance with the rules on daily and weekly rest periods and maximum weekly working time.

IUNO’s opinion

There is now a clear obligation to register working hours to comply with the working time rules in Denmark and Norway. However, in Denmark, the Ministry of Employment had originally stated that there was only an obligation to record deviations from the daily working time. It is difficult to see how that guidance can still be correct.

In Sweden, it is still not a requirement to record employee’s daily working hours although the case clearly confirms the obligation. Under Swedish law, it is only required to record certain types of overtime. This is not the first decision confirming the obligation on EU level, but it remains unclear how and whether Swedish law will change to comply.

IUNO recommends that companies have clear procedures to comply with the working time rules across the Nordics. When establishing the procedures, companies must be aware that the rules are different on various levels in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

We have previously written about the obligation to register working time here for Denmark, here for Sweden, here for Norway.

[The European Court of Justice judgment of 19 December 2024 in case C-531/23]