Legislation & compliance

Time Registration Mandatory from 2027 in Belgium?

Q: How long must I keep the data?

Common practice is 5 years, in line with the statute of limitations for social offences. Preferably keep the data at least as long as the deadline for possible social or tax audits (up to 7 years in some cases).

For years, the European Court of Justice has required all EU employers to record the working time of their employees. Belgium is rolling out that obligation step by step — and every sign suggests that every employer, in every sector, will soon be next. Here is what you need to know today.

The question is being asked ever more loudly in Belgian SME circles: will employers soon be required to register the working hours of their staff? The short answer: that obligation already exists in essence — Europe definitively established it in 2019. The only question now is when Belgium will hold every sector to that rule in practice, and what a “valid” registration actually entails.

In this article we lay it all out: the European background, who the obligation applies to, what will change in the coming years and — most practically — how you as an employer can already prepare today.

Why is time registration actually necessary?

Time registration is not a bureaucratic whim. It serves three concrete purposes:

Protection of employees. Recording when an employee starts and finishes makes it possible to verify whether rest periods and maximum working time are respected. Without registration, overtime is hard to prove — and hard to avoid.
Legal certainty for employers. In a social law dispute or inspection, correct registration provides the irrefutable proof that the law has been followed.
Correct payroll calculation. Overtime, night work, weekend work — all those special pay components require you to know the actual hours.

The European origin: the Court of Justice ruling (2019)

The legal basis lies in a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice of 14 May 2019 (case C-55/18, CCOO / Deutsche Bank SAE). In that judgment, the Court ruled unambiguously:

“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.”

That ruling was not a non-binding piece of advice, but an interpretation of the existing EU Directive 2003/88/EC (the Working Time Directive). That directive sets minimum standards for rest and working time throughout the European Union:

Maximum 48 working hours per week (averaged over a reference period)
Minimum 11 hours of uninterrupted rest per day
Minimum 24 hours of uninterrupted weekly rest
Minimum 4 weeks of paid leave per year

The Court reasoned that those rights structurally cannot be guaranteed if an employer does not track how much an employee actually works. By definition, anyone who does not record the hours cannot prove that the legal limits have been respected.

Who is affected by the obligation?

This is the first question most employers ask. Based on the European directive and the expected Belgian regulations, the obligation in principle applies to:

All employers with at least one employee under an employment contract, regardless of sector
Employers using temporary agency workers or posted workers
Possibly also self-employed persons with assisting helpers, depending on the definition in the law

Self-employed persons without staff usually fall outside the scope of the Working Time Directive, which specifically covers the employer-employee relationship.

Exceptions

Certain categories of workers are traditionally excluded or enjoy specific rules:

Senior management staff who largely determine their own working time (e.g. directors, managers with genuine autonomy)
Home workers with fully autonomous control over their time management — although this is interpreted ever more restrictively
Seafarers and military personnel are subject to separate regimes

Important: the fact that someone teleworks or holds a senior role does not automatically make them exempt. Only when an employee truly independently determines their working hours and is not subject to supervision can an exemption be defended.

Part-time employees

For part-time employees, time registration is even more important. The law gives them special protection: part-time employees may in principle not structurally work more hours than their contract provides. Overtime on top of a part-time contract requires extra compensation. Without registration, this is impossible to verify.

Will a time clock become mandatory for everyone?

Short answer: yes — though it does not need to be a classic wall-mounted time clock. The law requires a system that is objective, reliable and accessible. That can be a digital app, a QR terminal or a traditional time clock. What counts is that the data is correct and cannot be manipulated.

The Belgian Labour Deal (2022)

Under the De Croo government, the so-called Labour Deal was approved in 2022 (Law of 3 October 2022). That law reformed the Belgian labour market on several fronts: the right to a four-day working week, more flexibility around schedules, the right to disconnect. The law also sharpened the debate around time registration: flexible schedules are only legally sustainable if there is a watertight system for recording the actual hours.

European pressure is increasing

The European Commission is closely monitoring the implementation of the 2019 ruling. Member States that lack enforceable national legislation — or that fail to enforce that legislation sufficiently — risk an infringement procedure. So far, Belgium has opted for a gradual approach via sectoral collective agreements, but the call for a horizontal, cross-sector law is growing louder.

2027 as the target year

In Belgian policy circles, 2027 is being circulated as the year when a general time registration obligation could enter into force for all employers with staff. Concrete legislation has not yet been definitively adopted at the time of writing, but the direction is clear: it is not a question of if, but of when. Employers who introduce a system today will not face an emergency solution later, but a well-oiled operation.

What must you record?

Correct time registration covers more than just the start and end time of a working day. According to the European directive and Belgian labour law, you must record at least the following data:

Daily registration

Start time of the working day
End time of the working day
Breaks: duration and timing (when the working day exceeds 6 hours, a break is legally required)
Overtime: any performance outside the normal schedule

Weekly and monthly overviews

Total hours worked per week
Comparison with the contractually scheduled hours
Overtime balance (positive or negative)

Additional data

Identification of the employee (name, personnel number)
Workplace or location where relevant (important when working at multiple sites)
Nature of the work under special pay regimes (night work, weekend work)

Which registration methods are permitted?

The legislation does not prescribe a specific system. However, the system must meet the three criteria laid down by the European Court of Justice:

Objective: the recorded data cannot be unilaterally adjusted afterwards without traceability
Reliable: the system must be technically robust and exclude manipulation
Accessible: both employees and supervisory authorities must be able to consult the data

In practice, the following methods are in use:

Paper registers

A manually completed attendance register is technically permitted, but vulnerable to dispute. Paper registers are difficult to verify, prone to falsification and offer no automatic overtime calculation. The social inspection looks critically at paper systems.

Excel and manual digital entry

Spreadsheets are popular with small employers, but suffer from the same issue as paper: they can be modified afterwards without an audit trail. During an inspection, it is hard to prove that the data was not changed.

Time clocks and badge systems

Classic time clocks with magnetic cards or badges are reliable, but require expensive hardware per location. They are inflexible for staff working at multiple sites and offer no real-time insight.

Digital time registration apps

Modern apps solve all of the above problems:

Employees clock in and out via their smartphone (QR code, PIN code or NFC)
All entries are timestamped in the cloud and cannot be retroactively modified without an audit log
GPS verification is possible to confirm the location of the clock-in
The employer has real-time visibility of who is present
Automatic calculation of hours, overtime and breaks
Exportable to PDF and CSV for social secretariats

Penalties for non-compliance

A missing or incomplete time registration system can lead to serious consequences:

Administrative and criminal fines

The Directorate for the Supervision of Social Laws (TSW) and the Social Inspection can carry out unannounced inspections. If infringements are established, you risk:

Administrative fines: from €400 to €4,000 per infringement (level 3 sanction), multiplied by the number of employees concerned
Criminal prosecution in case of repeated or intentional infringements: imprisonment from 8 days to 1 year and/or fines from €800 to €8,000 (multiplied per employee)

Liability in case of workplace accidents

When a workplace accident occurs and the employer cannot demonstrate time registration, this can seriously weaken their liability position. The employer will find it hard to show that legal rest periods have been respected.

In a dismissal or pay dispute, the court will ask for proof of the hours worked. Without a reliable registration system, the employer is in a weak position.

Practical steps to prepare today

Don’t wait for the official legal text. Those who invest now in a good system won’t have to switch in a panic later.

Step 1: Take stock of your current situation

How do you currently record working hours? For which employees do you have a system? How do you check whether deviations from the schedule are recorded?

Step 2: Choose a system that meets the three criteria

Make sure your system is objective, reliable and accessible. A digital solution with an audit log and cloud storage usually meets these requirements with ease.

Step 3: Inform your employees

Time registration touches on the private sphere. You are required to inform employees about what data you record, how long you keep it, who has access and for what purpose. This can be done via an update to your GDPR policy or a change to your work regulations.

Step 4: Adapt your work regulations

The work regulations form the legal basis for organising working time in your company. When you introduce a new time registration system, it must be formally included via the legal procedure (notification to staff representation or posting).

Step 5: Test, roll out and link with your payroll provider

Choose a pilot period, gather feedback and then roll out across the whole organisation. A tool that exports to the formats of your payroll provider (Acerta, SD Worx, Securex, Partena…) saves you double data entry.

What should a good time registration tool be able to do?

Now that you know what the legislation expects, choosing a tool becomes easier:

No extra hardware required: employees use their own smartphones
Multiple clock-in methods: QR code, PIN code or NFC — also for less digitally skilled staff
Real-time dashboard: who is here right now, who is absent?
Automatic calculation of overtime, break time and balances
Correction with audit log: changes are visible and traceable
PDF and CSV export for payroll administration and inspection
GDPR compliant: data stored within the EU, retention periods configurable
Affordable at small scale — no high fixed costs or per-location licences

A detailed cost comparison between classic time clocks and digital apps — including ROI calculation and an overview of what you legally need — can be found in our article about affordable time clocks and digital time registration.

Frequently asked questions

Is time registration already mandatory in my sector?

It depends on your joint committee. In construction, cleaning, security, the meat processing industry and hospitality there is already a formal sector obligation. In other sectors a universal obligation does not yet apply, but the European baseline obligation from the 2019 ECJ ruling does — and can be invoked during an inspection.

What if I have no employees, only self-employed collaborators or freelancers?

The Working Time Directive only applies to employees under an employment contract. Self-employed subcontractors and freelancers in principle fall outside its scope. Beware of bogus self-employment though: if a collaborator factually works as an employee, the inspection can reclassify the relationship.

Can I just use an Excel file?

Technically it is not forbidden, but it offers insufficient legal protection. An Excel file can be edited afterwards without an audit trail, and the social inspection may challenge that. A digital tool with timestamps and audit log is legally much stronger.

How long must I keep the data?

Common practice is 5 years, in line with the statute of limitations for social offences. Preferably keep the data at least as long as the deadline for possible social or tax audits (up to 7 years in some cases).

Should employees register their hours themselves or can the employer do it?

In principle the employer is responsible for the system, but the registration itself can be carried out by the employee. The key requirement is that both parties have access to the recorded data and that an employee can view and, if needed, contest their own hours.

What if an employee forgets to clock in?

A good system provides a correction procedure: the employer can adjust the registration, but every correction is logged with timestamp and the name of the person who made the change. This way integrity is preserved.

What does a digital time registration system cost for a small employer?

Simple cloud-based apps start from just a few euros per month for small teams — a fraction of the cost of a classic time clock, with no hardware investment.

Conclusion

The question is not whether time registration will become mandatory for your company, but when. The 2019 ECJ ruling established the legal obligation at European level. Belgium is following step by step, and 2027 is expected to be the year of the general obligation.

Employers who wait now will have to switch under time pressure later. Employers who already introduce a digital system today will have gone through all the steps calmly — and will also have months of data to effortlessly answer any questions from the inspection.

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