Timesheets in Germany: template, required entries and the seven-day rule

A timesheet records who worked on which day, from when until when. It serves two purposes, and most businesses need both: it is your proof to the German customs authority that you record your employees' working hours, and it is the basis for the money — the wages you pay out and the hours you invoice to a customer.

For that it needs six entries: name, date, start, end, break and duration. There is no official form, so you may build the sheet yourself. Two deadlines still decide whether it counts: for mini-jobbers and in eleven named industries the entry must exist by the seventh day after the day worked, and you must keep it for at least two years. Anyone who has the sheets filled in from memory at the end of the month has already missed the deadline, even if every figure is correct.

This article is written for employers in Germany and for self-employed people who bill by the hour — including those who run a business in Germany from abroad. It does not cover the timesheet for German respite care (Verhinderungspflege) that the care insurance fund requires; that follows its own rules.

This article provides general information and does not replace legal advice. For your own business, ask your chamber of commerce or a lawyer specialising in employment law.

Contents

1. What belongs on the timesheet
2. When it has to be filled in
3. Who the strict deadline applies to
4. Recording public holidays, sickness and leave
5. Breaks: deduct or show?
6. How long you keep the sheets
7. Does anyone have to sign?
8. When you bill a customer by the hour
9. If you work on your own
10. What a missing sheet costs
11. Frequently asked questions

What belongs on the timesheet

Six columns are enough. For daily working time the law requires the start, the end and the duration — to which you add the person's name, the date and the break, because otherwise the duration cannot be verified.

This is what a completed week looks like:

The Note column is optional and still the most useful one on the whole sheet: it holds the customer, the site and the reason for an empty day. That is exactly the information you will miss later, when you want to bill the hours or when someone asks why nothing was entered on a Wednesday.

If the hours are meant to end up on an invoice, an invoicing program that keeps times and invoices in one place saves you from typing everything twice.

There is no official template you would have to use. The Minijob-Zentrale does provide its own form as a PDF, with exactly these columns. If you do not want to build anything yourself, print that one.

When it has to be filled in

For mini-jobbers and in eleven industries you have seven calendar days, counted from the day the work was performed. If the entry appears later, the record is formally defective — even if every figure in it is correct. This is where most businesses fail: the sheet only reaches the office at the end of the month, and by then the deadline has passed for three weeks of entries.

The wording in section 17(1) of the Minimum Wage Act: the start, end and duration of daily working time must be recorded "at the latest by the end of the seventh calendar day following the day on which the work was performed".

For all other employees the law names no such deadline. You still have to record their working time — the Federal Labour Court decided that in 2022, and the ministerial draft of 18 June 2026 for a new Working Hours Act wants to turn it into a same-day electronic obligation. That draft has not been adopted. Which case applies to you, and what the draft proposes for businesses with up to ten employees, is explained in Digital time recording: do you need it?.

Who the strict deadline applies to

Check two things: whether you employ mini-jobbers and whether your trade is on the list. If either applies, the seven-day deadline is binding and customs may inspect it.

Always covered: marginally employed staff (mini-jobs). Only mini-jobs in private households are excluded. What a mini-job costs in 2026 and where the 603-euro threshold comes from is explained in Hiring a mini-jobber.

Also covered, regardless of earnings, all employees in these sectors under section 2a of the Act to Combat Undeclared Work:

• Construction
• Restaurants, hotels and accommodation
• Passenger transport
• Freight forwarding, transport and logistics, including platform-based delivery services
• Travelling showmen
• Building cleaning
• Setting up and dismantling trade fairs and exhibitions
• The meat industry
• The prostitution trade
• Security services
• Hairdressing and cosmetics

Customs explicitly exempts two groups. These exemptions apply only to this recording duty, not to the general duty under the Working Hours Act:

A third relief applies to staff with exclusively mobile work who have no set daily hours and organise their own time — the regulation names delivery, waste collection, street cleaning, winter services and transport. There the duration alone is enough; start and end may be left out.

Recording public holidays, sickness and leave

On these days enter zero working hours and write the reason next to it — do not put the contractual hours in the "duration" column. Under section 2(1) of the Working Hours Act, working time is the time from the start to the end of work. On a sick day no work was done, so there is no working time to record.

The money follows a different rule, and that is exactly where the confusion comes from. These days are paid regardless:

In practice: the row stays, the hours column shows zero, and the note says "sick", "leave" or "public holiday". An abbreviation is enough. This is a recommendation from practice, not a legal requirement — what is prescribed is only what was actually worked. But an empty day without an explanation looks like a gap in any inspection, and in a mini-job it also explains why the full pay was settled despite fewer hours.

Breaks: deduct or show?

Put the break in its own column instead of quietly deducting it from the duration. Both lead to the same number of hours, but only a separate column shows that the break happened at all.

That counts twice during an inspection. The statutory rest breaks — 30 minutes for more than six hours of work, 45 minutes for more than nine — are set out in section 4 of the Working Hours Act. If you only net them out, you cannot prove afterwards that they were taken. Anyone recording a nine-hour shift without any break entry supplies the evidence of the breach at the same time.

How long you keep the sheets

Two years, counted from the point the record relates to. That is stated in section 17(1) of the Minimum Wage Act and likewise in section 16(2) of the Working Hours Act for hours beyond the eighth.

Two years is the floor for this one duty, not for your entire payroll file. Wage accounts and payroll tax records follow other deadlines, and the pension insurance audits further back. If your timesheets are the basis of the payroll, keep them as long as the payroll documents — which deadline applies to your records is a question for your tax adviser.

Does anyone have to sign?

No. Neither the Minimum Wage Act nor the Working Hours Act requires a signature from the employee. Your staff may enter their own times; for assembly work and field service that is the only variant that works anyway. Responsibility for the record being correct stays with you as the employer.

Towards a customer, however, the signature makes all the difference. That is the next section.

When you bill a customer by the hour

Have the customer sign the timesheet while you are still on site. Later you will not get that signature, and in a dispute the person who wants to be paid for the hours has to prove them — that is you.

What you have to present is less than many fear. On 28 May 2020 the Federal Court of Justice ruled (VII ZR 108/19) that for a coherent claim to remuneration measured by time spent, it is generally not necessary to state which working hour went into which activity. The number of hours and the hourly rate are enough. Even so, the burden of proof stays with you if the customer disputes the hours — and a sheet carrying their signature is the strongest paper you will then have.

In a construction contract under the German VOB/B, an extra deadline works in your favour. Under section 15(3) VOB/B you submit the hourly work sheets daily or weekly. The client must return them without undue delay, at the latest within six working days of receipt. And then the decisive sentence: hourly work sheets not returned on time are deemed to be accepted. Silence counts as agreement.

Three limits, so you do not rely on it where it does not hold:

• The VOB/B only applies if it has been agreed. In an ordinary contract for work under the Civil Code this deadline does not exist.
• You need evidence that the sheet reached the customer. Without receipt no deadline runs.
• An accepted sheet proves that the work happened and how long it took. On its own it does not create a claim to hourly pay — for that, billing by the hour has to have been agreed.

How to turn those hours into an invoice that a private customer can claim against tax is explained in Writing a tradesperson's invoice. Which hourly rate actually covers your costs is calculated in Calculating a tradesperson's hourly rate. And if the customer still does not pay in the end: Customer not paying — what now?

If you work on your own

None of these duties applies to your own hours. The Working Hours Act protects employees, and as a sole trader or freelancer you are not your own employee. You do not have to record to anyone when you started.

A timesheet is still worth keeping, but for a different reason: it is the basis of your invoice and your evidence if the customer disputes the hours. For that you do not need a start and end column, but an assignment to customer and job.

What a missing sheet costs

Up to 50,000 euros. Anyone who fails to produce the record under section 17(1) of the Minimum Wage Act, or produces it incorrectly, incompletely or late, or does not keep it for two years, commits an administrative offence; section 21(3) of the Minimum Wage Act sets that range. It is enforced by the customs unit for undeclared work (Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit).

The range is the ceiling, not the standard case — the authority sets the fine according to severity and duration. What matters is the wording "not in due time": records that are correct in substance are still a breach if they were created after the seventh day.

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Frequently asked questions

Is there an official timesheet template?

There is no form you would be required to use. The Minijob-Zentrale does provide its own PDF form, with name, date, start, end and working time less breaks. If you want a template that an inspector will not object to, take that one.

Is an Excel sheet enough as a timesheet?

Yes. The law prescribes no particular form; paper and spreadsheet are equally permissible. The catch is not the technology but the deadline: a spreadsheet filled in at the office from paper slips at the end of the month does not meet the seven-day rule.

Does travel to the site count as working time?

That depends on where the working day starts. If the employee first goes to the yard and travels to the customer from there, the journey is working time from the yard onwards. If they drive from home straight to the site, the point is disputed and it comes down to your contractual arrangements. Settle this once, in writing — otherwise everybody calculates differently.

What about apprentices?

Apprentices are not mini-jobbers, but they are employees. If your business operates in one of the eleven named sectors, the seven-day deadline applies to them as well. For apprentices under 18 the stricter rules of the Youth Employment Protection Act apply on top.

How do I add up a shift that runs past midnight?

The hours count towards the day the shift started. Someone starting Monday at 22:00 and finishing Tuesday at 06:00 books eight hours on Monday, less the break. The reason: the working day under the Working Hours Act is not the calendar day. It starts when work starts and lasts 24 hours, so it can sit differently for each person. For the monthly total, work in decimal hours — 30 minutes as 0.50, 45 minutes as 0.75 — otherwise hours and minutes add up wrongly.

May I have the sheets filled in at the end of the month?

Not for mini-jobbers or in the eleven sectors — there the seven-day deadline runs from each individual working day. For all other employees the law currently names no deadline, but a record created three weeks later from memory is usually wrong in substance too. The draft from June 2026 wants to require the record on the day the work is performed.

Sources

• Section 17 Minimum Wage Act — creating and keeping documents
• Section 21 Minimum Wage Act — fines
• Section 2a Act to Combat Undeclared Work — sectors covered
• Section 2 Working Hours Act — definitions
• Section 4 Working Hours Act — rest breaks
• Section 16 Working Hours Act — records of working time
• Section 1 Minimum Wage Recording Regulation — exclusively mobile work
• Section 2 Continued Remuneration Act — pay on public holidays
• Section 3 Continued Remuneration Act — continued pay during sickness
• German customs — recording duties and exemptions under the Minimum Wage Documentation Regulation
• Minijob-Zentrale — timesheet form (PDF)
• KomNet, occupational safety authority of North Rhine-Westphalia — position of the working day
• Section 15 VOB/B — hourly work
• Federal Court of Justice, judgment of 28 May 2020, VII ZR 108/19