Austrian working time law

The most important laws and rules are summarized for you here. We accept no liability for this article. If you have any legal questions or require more detailed information, we recommend that you consult a legal expert.

You can read the exact regulations and exceptions HERE (in German). 

Maximum working hours for employees

The Austrian working time law protects employees by stipulating maximum working hours and prohibitions for certain days.

The normal weekly working time can be extended to up to 60 hours and the normal daily working time to up to 12 hours if this is permitted by a collective agreement or a company agreement and employees must be regularly and extensively available for on-call duty.

Rest breaks

All employees have the right to breaks during their working hours. These are mainly for rest and refreshment. 

If the total working time in a day is longer than 6 hours, a rest break of at least 30 minutes must be taken.

Under certain conditions, for example in the interests of employees or for operational reasons, two 15-minute breaks or three 10-minute breaks may be granted instead.

Rest periods

Rest periods are important to maintain the health, safety and performance of employees.

After finishing work for the day, employees are entitled to an uninterrupted rest period of at least 11 hours. Within a week, employees must have a continuous rest period of 36 hours in total. 

A collective agreement may reduce this rest period to at least 8 hours. However, such shortened rest periods must be compensated within 10 days by extending other rest periods. A reduction to less than 10 hours is only permitted if the collective agreement provides for additional measures to ensure employees' rest. However, compensation is not measured in this software and must therefore be considered and implemented independently.