Restaurant, café and bar scheduling in Greece: the Digital Work Card, split shifts, Sundays and seasonal staff

02

Changing clothes and preparation time

Entering the premises, changing clothes when the job requires it, walking to the workstation and washing after work are not working time. In food service and accommodation they take no more than 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after, unless objective reasons justify more. The card is punched after preparation at the start and before it at the end (circular 3496/2025).

03

Split shifts

• On a full-time split shift, the two parts are at least 3 hours apart (Labour Code, article 172 §3). In the ΕΡΓΑΝΗ declaration, the second part starts at least 3 hours after the first ends (Ministerial Decision 40331/2019, article 2Α).
• The card is punched four times a day: in and out for each part (circular 3496/2025).
• Part-time staff with shorter daily hours do not work split shifts: their work is one continuous block a day (article 113 §7).
• Ministerial Decision 80016/2022 lists “applying split hours to kitchen staff” as a breach (Annex I).

04

Sundays, public holidays and nights

• Restaurants, patisseries, bars, cafés, dairy shops, canteens and similar businesses, as well as hotels, are exempt from Sunday rest (article 210).
• Work on a Sunday or one of the nine public holidays is paid +75% (article 219), and work between 22:00 and 06:00 +25% (article 150).
• More than 5 hours of work on a Sunday earns 24 hours of compensatory rest on another working day of the same week (article 212).

05

The sixth day

The rules allowing an exceptional sixth working day in a five-day week do not apply to hotel and food-service businesses (articles 191 §4 and 192 §4). Full time is 40 hours, on a five-day or six-day week (article 189), and a sixth day worked in breach of the five-day week is paid +30% (article 196).

06

Seasonal and part-time staff

• In seasonal hotel and food-service businesses, written part-time contracts are made for a daily or weekly work period (article 113 §5).
• Every hour above the agreed part-time hours is paid +12% (article 113 §11).
• The working-time arrangement — more hours at the peak, fewer later — also applies to seasonal businesses (article 202 §9).

07

Rest and breaks

• At least 11 consecutive hours of rest in every 24 (article 171): closing at 01:00 and opening at 09:00 the same day leaves 8.
• Weekly rest of 24 + 11 hours (article 173).
• A 15–30-minute break once work exceeds 4 consecutive hours (article 172).

08

Fines

Under Ministerial Decision 80016/2022:

• Split hours for kitchen staff, no break, or no minimum gap in a split shift: a fine per breach depending on the size of the business, from €500 up to 10 employees to €3,000 above 250 (Annex I).
• Splitting a part-time employee’s hours: €950 per employee; not respecting daily rest: €400 per employee; weekly rest: €800 per employee (Annex II).

09

The schedule in practice

• Plan the peak shifts first — lunch, evening, weekends — and give split shifts only to full-time staff who are not in the kitchen.
• Share Sundays and late nights, and put each Sunday’s compensatory rest in the same schedule.
• In 365shift the two parts of a split shift are two shifts on the same day; with the ΕΡΓΑΝΗ add-on both are declared as that day’s working periods. The rest check treats them as one working day: it asks for the 11 hours between days, and warns about parts less than 3 hours apart.
• Save a week as a template or copy a week, and the hours panel shows each employee’s working, night, Sunday and public-holiday hours for the period you are viewing.