Overtime in Greece: extra work, limits, pay and the ΕΡΓΑΝΗ declaration

02

What each extra hour pays

Premiums are calculated on the hourly wage actually paid (article 194):

• Extra work: +20% (§1).
• Legal overtime: +40%, up to 4 hours a day and 150 hours a year (§3).
• Illegal overtime — when the formalities and approval procedure, such as the ΕΡΓΑΝΗ declaration, were not followed: +120% (§§4–5).
• Overtime beyond the annual limits, with special permission for urgent work: +60% (§6).

03

The limits: per day, week and year

• Up to 4 hours of legal overtime a day and 150 a year (article 194 §3). The daily limit was 3 hours until Law 5239/2025.
• On average no more than 48 hours a week, overtime included, over each period of four months (article 174).
• At least 11 consecutive hours of rest in every 24 hours (article 171), and 24 consecutive hours of weekly rest plus the 11 of daily rest (article 173). Overtime is allowed only subject to these rules.

04

Can the employee refuse?

Extra work is the employer’s decision (article 194 §1). For overtime, since Law 5239/2025 the employee may refuse, as article 12 provides: they must do additional work only if they are able to and refusing would be contrary to good faith. Refusal is not a ground for dismissal and may not lead to unfavourable treatment (article 194 §2), and a dismissal for that reason is void (article 350).

05

Declaring it to ΕΡΓΑΝΗ ΙΙ

• Legal overtime is entered in ΕΡΓΑΝΗ ΙΙ before the overtime starts, like every schedule change before the employee starts work (article 581 §1).
• Businesses on the Digital Work Card may choose the retrospective system (article 581 §3): the choice is declared by the end of the previous month, and changes and overtime are entered by the end of the following calendar month (Ministerial Decision 40331/2019, article 5Α).
• Switching between the two systems within the same month is not allowed (circular 25291/2026).
• The card records actual start and end times; declared changes and overtime are cross-checked against its clock-ins.

06

Fines

The fines of Ministerial Decision 80016/2022 are multiplied by the number of employees the breach concerns:

• €1,000 for overtime not entered in ΕΡΓΑΝΗ, and €1,000 for overtime beyond the legal limits (Annex II).
• €10,500 per employee when, in a business on the retrospective system, a change or overtime is not matched by the card’s clock-ins (article 581 §3).
• €2,000 when the 12% premium is not paid to a part-time employee (Annex II).
• General framework: €300 to €50,000 per breach (article 572), and criminal penalties for breaches of working-time limits (article 576).

07

Part-time: +12% for every extra hour

• A part-time employee who works beyond the agreed hours gets +12% on the agreed pay for every extra hour (article 113 §11).
• They may refuse when the additional work happens regularly, and the extra hours can reach at most the full daily hours of a comparable full-time employee.
• An employee on rotating work (εκ περιτροπής) may work beyond the full daily hours under the overtime limits and pay (article 113 §3).

08

A sixth day in a five-day week

• In continuous-operation businesses with rotating shifts, and in businesses open around the clock Monday to Saturday facing an unforeseen peak, a sixth working day is allowed if it is entered in ΕΡΓΑΝΗ ΙΙ before it starts (articles 191–192).
• On that day work may not exceed 8 hours, no extra work or overtime is allowed, and the day’s wage is paid +40%. This does not apply to hotels and food service.
• A sixth day worked in breach of the five-day week is paid +30%, regardless of penalties (article 196).

09

What this means for the shift schedule

• Count each employee’s hours per week, not per shift: the 41st hour may fall on the last shift of the week.
• Keep extra work and overtime apart; they are paid differently, and only overtime counts towards the 150 hours a year.
• Declare overtime to ΕΡΓΑΝΗ before it starts, unless the business has chosen the retrospective system for the month.
• In 365shift, the “maximum hours per week” rule stops auto-fill from assigning a shift that would go over it, and the minimum-rest rule — 11 hours by default, adjustable per team or per person — marks every shift that breaks it in the schedule.