Working time regulation in Europe is changing. Are you keeping up?

The four-day working week has been one of the most talked-about workplace topics in Europe over the past few years. Pilot programmes, political proposals, and union negotiations have kept it in the headlines. But while the debate continues, a quieter set of changes has already arrived.

Across the EU, governments updated their working time legislation in 2023 and 2024. Some changes affect how hours must be recorded, others how leave works or who controls scheduling. Together, they point to the same conclusion: working time is becoming a more dynamic regulatory area, and businesses that assume the rules are stable may find themselves caught out.

The four-day week debate is real, but it is not the whole story

Interest in shorter working weeks is genuine and growing. Portugal ran a national four-day week pilot in 2023, and Italy's public sector introduced a compressed four-day week through a collective agreement in November 2024. In Spain, a proposal to cut the standard working week from 40 to 37.5 hours without cutting wages reached the Council of Ministers in early 2025, was blocked in September, and is expected to return, affecting an estimated 12 million workers if approved.

These reflect a broader direction: more flexibility, more employee autonomy, and more regulatory specificity around working time. But the four-day week is still a debate. The changes already in force are a different matter.

What has already changed

Several legislative changes came into effect in 2023 and 2024 with direct implications for employers. While countries are taking different approaches, the direction is the same: working time rules are becoming more detailed and more varied.

Denmark now requires daily time registration. Since 1 July 2024, all Danish employers must record employees' daily working hours, regardless of size or sector. This follows a 2019 European Court of Justice ruling, part of a broader EU push toward verifiable working time records where enforcement is tightening.

Belgium and France updated leave entitlements. Both countries aligned more closely with the EU Working Time Directive in 2024. Belgian employees who fall ill during annual leave can now retain those days, and French employees can accrue leave during sick leave with a 15-month carry-over. For HR, absence tracking now needs to reflect why leave was taken, not just how many days.

Hungary and Czechia gave employees more scheduling control. Hungarian employees can now decide the timing of at least seven working days of their leave with 15 days' notice. In Czechia, the right to self-schedule working hours, previously limited to remote workers, now extends to on-site employees where agreed in writing. Both shifts mean less manager control over when work happens, and more pressure on forward planning.

Greece moved the other way. Law 5053/2023 allows employers in specific sectors, such as continuous 24/7 operations, to require up to a six-day working week, with a 40% wage premium on the sixth day. Different direction, same underlying dynamic: working time arrangements are becoming more varied, not less.

The question worth asking

Not every change applies to every business, but together they point to something that does: the rules around working time aren't fixed, and the pace of change is increasing. That creates a practical question. When a rule changes, whether it's a registration requirement, a leave entitlement, or an hour limit, how long does it take your business to reflect that change in how you actually track and manage time?

If working hours are recorded in a spreadsheet someone built a few years ago, the answer is: however long it takes someone to notice, decide what to update, and do it correctly. In the meantime, the records are out of step with current requirements, and that kind of gap tends to surface at the worst moment: a payroll query, an employee dispute, or a compliance check.

Businesses with a structured setup, where schedules, leave rules, and registration requirements are configured into the system rather than updated by hand, are the ones that don't have to scramble when the next change lands.

Keep pace with changing regulations

If your business operates across changing regulations, it's worth reviewing whether your time tracking setup can keep pace. Try TimeMoto Cloud free for 30 days.