Yes, time tracking is mandatory for employers in the Netherlands. Article 4:3 of the Dutch Working Hours Act (Arbeidstijdenwet) requires you to keep a proper record of your employees' working and rest times, so that the Netherlands Labour Authority can check whether the law is being followed. You keep that record for at least 52 weeks. You choose the means: paper, Excel or an app. On top of that, the Minimum Wage Act, the tax rules on record keeping and the GDPR each set their own requirements for the same hours.
Is time tracking mandatory? What Article 4:3 requires
The recording duty is set out in Article 4:3 of the Working Hours Act (in Dutch). It requires "a proper record of working and rest times" that allows compliance with the act to be monitored. The government's business portal puts it plainly: you must keep track of the hours worked. Two requirements follow from the article. You record not only how much was worked but also when, so it is clear whether there was enough rest between shifts. And the yardstick is inspection: an inspector must be able to tell from your record whether the limits on shifts, working weeks, night work, breaks and rest were met. Those limits are set out in a table in time tracking for technicians.
The law does not say how to record, but the Netherlands Labour Authority's work instruction for inspectors sets out what they look for. A proper record:
- can be traced to one employee, by name or employee number;
- shows the actual start and finish time of each shift, not just the total hours;
- shows the break per shift; the total duration is enough;
- makes special duties recognisable: for on-call duty, such as standby for breakdowns, you note the start and end of each callout, and travel to the job and back counts as working time;
- records deviations from the roster: a fixed roster can serve as the record, but only if overtime and other deviations are noted separately.
One more point matters for maintenance teams. In a sudden, unforeseen situation that threatens serious injury or exceptionally serious damage to property, some of the normal limits do not apply (Article 5:10). And if work cannot be postponed and there is no reasonable alternative, a shift may run to 14 hours once every two weeks (Working Hours Decree, Article 4.3:1). If you rely on either after a major breakdown, the work instruction says this, including travel time, must be apparent from the record. If it isn't, the inspector applies the normal limits.
How long to keep time records: four rules side by side
The Working Hours Act is not the only rule that applies to your hours. Four rules overlap, and each asks something different:
| Rule | What you record | How long to keep it |
|---|---|---|
| Working Hours Act (art. 4:3) | Start, finish and break per shift, per employee | At least 52 weeks |
| Minimum Wage Act (art. 18b) | Hours worked per employee | No set period |
| Tax retention duty (art. 52 AWR) | Hours that support pay or invoices | 7 years |
| GDPR (art. 5) | Only what the purpose requires | No longer than necessary |
Working Hours Act. The 52 weeks run from the date the records relate to (Working Hours Decree, Article 3.2:1). You choose where to keep the record, as long as you can produce it within a reasonable time.
Minimum Wage Act. Since 1 January 2024 the Dutch statutory minimum wage has been an hourly wage. Every hour worked therefore counts, and on request you must be able to show records of how many hours each employee has worked (Article 18b). The act sets no retention period of its own, so keep the hours with your payroll records.
Tax retention duty. Hours that form the basis for pay, such as overtime and premiums, or for invoices, are part of your accounting records. Dutch tax law requires you to keep those for seven years (Article 52 of the General State Taxes Act, AWR). The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration counts payroll records as core data, for which that period always applies. How to keep a signed timesheet is covered in timesheet sign-off.
GDPR. Hours are personal data. Record only what the purpose requires, keep it no longer than necessary, and tell employees beforehand what you record, why and for how long (Articles 5 and 13 GDPR).
The diagram below sets the periods side by side.
Who the recording duty applies to, and who it doesn't
The duty covers everyone who works under your authority: permanent and temporary staff, on-call workers and trainees (Article 1:1). A few situations need extra care.
Agency workers, contractors and crews from abroad
If someone works for you through an agency or on secondment, doing work your company normally has done, you count as the employer under the Working Hours Act and you record their working and rest times. The agency needs the same hours for payroll, and under the Minimum Wage Act the inspectorate can also request the hours records from the business where someone actually works (Article 18b(3)). Agree in the contract who keeps which records, and for how long.
A contractor working on your site with its own people records their working times itself. Your gate or badge records are meant to show who is on site, but the inspectorate can set them against the contractor's data. More on arrangements with outside firms is in managing maintenance contractors.
If specialists employed by a foreign employer work for your company on that employer's instructions, the obligations under the Working Hours Act that carry a fine also rest on you (Article 10:5(4)). During a shutdown with crews from abroad, that is no small detail.
High earners and offshore work
If an employee aged 18 or over earns at least three times the annual statutory minimum wage, including holiday allowance and pro rata for part-timers, the recording duty and the working time limits do not apply (Working Hours Decree, Article 2.1:1). The exact amount is published each year in the Government Gazette. The exception falls away for work on or from a mining installation or offshore wind farm, for employees who normally work night shifts and for work involving serious hazards to safety or health. A well-paid specialist who normally works night shifts or works on hazardous plant can therefore still be covered by the recording duty.
On a manned mining installation or offshore wind farm, the record must be kept on site, with a copy at the Dutch head office within six weeks (Working Hours Decree, Article 3.1:1).
Self-employed contractors
As a rule the Working Hours Act does not apply to the self-employed, unless the safety of others is at stake: self-employed lorry drivers, for example, must still keep to driving and rest times. If a self-employed contractor you hire actually works under your authority, the act may apply after all (Article 1:1(2)). The self-employed track their own hours to support invoices for hourly work, and for tax: the hours criterion decides whether they qualify for the entrepreneur allowance, including the self-employed deduction. More on that in the questions below.
Paper, Excel or app: what a proper record means in practice
For most sectors, the law does not prescribe a means. Paper timesheets, a time clock, a spreadsheet or an app are all allowed, as long as the record makes inspection possible. In 2019 the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that member states must require employers to set up "an objective, reliable and accessible system enabling the duration of time worked each day by each worker to be measured" (case C-55/18). The form is up to each member state. The Netherlands already had a recording duty in Article 4:3 and has not changed its substance since the ruling. The Court's three words still make a useful test:
- Objective. You record the actual times, as they happen or at the latest the same day, not the times on the roster or the schedule.
- Reliable. Every shift of every employee is in it, and every change is visible: who changed what, when and why, with the original alongside.
- Accessible. Employees can see their own hours, and you can hand the record to an inspector straight away.
For a small team, a well-built spreadsheet can be enough; how to set one up, with a free template, is covered in timesheet template in Excel. A spreadsheet does not show by itself who changed what, though, and you end up with a separate file per employee or per week. When that becomes too much, read what to look for in a time tracking app. What locked versions and corrections with a reason look like in practice is shown in time tracking in TimeQeeper.
Inspections and fines: what happens if you don't record
The Netherlands Labour Authority enforces the Working Hours Act. An inspection usually starts with the record. The inspector initially looks at a four-week period and, according to the work instruction, requests six weeks of records; where people work more than 48 hours a week on average, eighteen weeks. If your record is flawed but the inspection can still be carried out, you first get a warning. If your record makes a full inspection impossible, a fine follows straight away, and in serious cases the inspector can have the work stopped.
The amounts are set out in the government's fining policy for the Working Hours Act. The base fine is €10,000 for an improper record and €10,000 for failing to keep it. That base applies to an employer with 50 to 99 employees; below 10 employees it is halved, from 10 to 49 it is three quarters and from 100 upwards one and a half times as much. An immediate fine is multiplied by 1.5, and a repeat offence within five years adds 100 per cent (Article 10:7).
A ruling of 20 April 2022 by the Council of State, the highest general administrative court in the Netherlands, shows this is not theoretical (ECLI:NL:RVS:2022:1146). An employer recorded only total hours for seven employees, not start and finish times. That made inspection impossible; the employer was fined €11,250 straight away, and the Council of State let the fine stand.
A fine under the Minimum Wage Act can come on top of that. If you fail to provide the records showing pay and hours worked, or provide them late, the fine is €12,000 per employee, or less where the employment lasted under six months.
Checklist: does your time tracking comply?
If you can answer yes to all ten questions, you are in a strong position when the inspector calls.
- Does the record cover everyone who works under your authority, including agency workers, on-call staff and trainees?
- Can every entry be traced to one employee?
- Does each shift show the actual start and finish time, not just the total?
- Is the break per shift recorded, and only when it really was a break?
- Are overtime and other deviations from the roster noted?
- Are callouts during on-call duty recorded with start, finish and travel time?
- Are times recorded the same day, rather than at the end of the month?
- Are changes visible, with name, date and reason, while the original is kept?
- Can employees see their own hours, and do they know what you record, why and for how long?
- Can you produce the past 52 weeks of records within a reasonable time, and do hours that support pay or invoices stay in your records for seven years?
Common mistakes with the recording duty
- Recording only total hours. "8 hours" a day says nothing about the rest between two shifts. That is exactly what earned the employer in the ruling above an immediate fine.
- Using the roster as the record, without deviations. If overtime, cover shifts and early departures are not noted, the record is not a proper one.
- Mistaking gate records for time records. Entering and leaving at the gate rarely coincides exactly with the start and end of work. Use that data as a cross-check at most.
- "Fixed salary, so no recording." A fixed salary does not exempt you. Without a fixed roster, record start, finish and breaks each day.
- Mixing paid time and time worked. A paid break is not working time, and neither is an hour of time off in lieu that is taken. Record what was actually worked.
- Skipping high earners automatically. The exception does not apply to regular night work, offshore work or work involving serious hazards.
- Keeping records too briefly, or for ever. Deleting before 52 weeks makes inspection impossible; keeping everything for years conflicts with the GDPR.
Frequently asked questions
Do self-employed contractors have to track their hours?
Not under the Working Hours Act, but keeping track is wise. To claim most parts of the Dutch entrepreneur allowance, such as the self-employed deduction, you must spend at least 1,225 hours a calendar year on your business, and more time than on other work, unless you were not self-employed in one of the five previous years. Quotes and bookkeeping count; hours when you are available without working do not. You must be able to substantiate the hours, for instance with your diary, quotes, timesheets and invoices.
Can an employer require staff to record their hours?
Yes. Under Dutch law, employees must follow the employer's instructions on how the work is done (Article 7:660 of the Civil Code), and you have a legal duty to record working and rest times. If you introduce a new system, the works council normally has a right of consent, because such a system is suitable for monitoring attendance (Article 27 of the Works Councils Act). Under the GDPR you must also tell employees what you record and why.
Should overtime be recorded separately?
Yes: overtime is a deviation from the roster and belongs in the record with its start and finish time. Under the Minimum Wage Act you must also be able to show when extra hours or overtime arose, how many there were and when they were paid or compensated with time off (Article 18b). The law does not set an overtime premium; that comes from the collective agreement or the employment contract. How to calculate overtime is covered in recording overtime.
Can employees see their own time records?
Yes. Under the GDPR, employees have a right of access to their personal data, including a copy, and time records fall under that. You must respond without undue delay and in any case within one month. If the hours are wrong, the employee can ask for them to be corrected. In practice it works better to show employees their own hours as standard, in the app or on the weekly timesheet, so that mistakes surface early.
Does the recording duty apply to small businesses?
Yes. Article 4:3 applies to every employer, even one with a single employee. The Court of Justice allowed member states to take company size into account when deciding the form of the system, but the Netherlands has no exemption for small employers. The fine is lower, though: for an employer with fewer than 10 employees, the base amount is halved. A simple record on paper or in a spreadsheet can be enough, as long as it shows start, finish and break for each shift.