Overtime and working hours: what the Working Environment Act requires
Overtime is legal, but it is strictly regulated. Here are the rules for standard working hours, overtime, breaks, and rest periods – and how a good system helps you stay within the limits.
Working hours are among the most strictly regulated areas in Norwegian working life. The rules are found in Chapter 10 of the Working Environment Act and apply whether you track hours on paper or digitally. The purpose of the rules is to protect employees from excessively long working days and insufficient rest. Here are the key points every employer should know.
Note: this is a general introduction, not legal advice. In case of doubt, you should check the legal text or seek advice.
Standard working hours
The starting point in the law is that standard working hours should not exceed 9 hours within 24 hours and 40 hours within seven days. Many collective agreements set the limit lower, typically 37.5 hours per week. Any work beyond the standard working hours is considered overtime, subject to the following rules.
When is it overtime?
Overtime is only permitted when there is a “special and time-limited need” – for example, unexpected absence, seasonal peaks, or unforeseen events. Overtime should not be a fixed way to cover staffing. The law sets clear limits:
- Up to 10 hours of overtime within seven days.
- Up to 25 hours within four consecutive weeks.
- Up to 200 hours within a 52-week period.
Additionally, there is a combined limit: standard working hours and overtime together should not exceed 13 hours within 24 hours or 48 hours within seven days. Overtime work must be compensated with an additional payment of at least 40 percent.
Breaks
According to §10-9, employees are entitled to at least one break if the daily working hours exceed five and a half hours. If the working day is eight hours or more, the total break time must be at least half an hour. Breaks are generally not considered working time – unless the employee cannot freely leave the workplace.
Daily and weekly rest
The law requires continuous rest:
- Daily: at least 11 consecutive hours of rest-free time within 24 hours.
- Weekly: at least 35 consecutive hours of rest-free time within seven days.
This is why scheduling and time tracking are interconnected: a shift that ends late and one that starts early the next morning can easily violate the 11-hour rule without anyone noticing.
Special rules for young workers
For employees under 18, stricter limits apply to working hours, evening work, and night work under Chapter 11 of the Working Environment Act. If you have young employees, your schedule must account for this.
How the system helps you
Keeping track of all these limits manually is almost impossible when you have many employees. A good time registration system calculates hours in real time and alerts you when a shift approaches a limit – for insufficient rest, excessive overtime, or missing breaks. This way, you catch the breach before it happens, not after.
Brief summary
Standard working hours, overtime limits, breaks, and rest periods are legally required and closely interconnected. Know the main limits, plan your schedule with rest periods in mind, and let the system alert you when something approaches a limit. This way, you stay safely within the rules – without having to do mental calculations.
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