Digital time tracking 2026: meeting the mandate cleanly

The legal position is clearer than many companies assume. As early as 14 May 2019 the European Court of Justice ruled in the CCOO versus Deutsche Bank case (case C-55/18) that member states must require employers to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system for recording working time (European Court of Justice). The basis is the Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC and Article 31(2) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (European Court of Justice). The Federal Labour Court translated this into German law in 2022: Section 3(2) No. 1 of the Occupational Safety Act obliges all employers to set up a system for recording the start, end and duration of working time (Federal Labour Court) - and immediately, with no implementation deadline.

What remains open so far is the exact statutory shape. The draft bill of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of 18 June 2026 closes that gap: it provides that the start, end and duration of daily working time are in principle to be recorded electronically (BMAS). Staggered transition periods are planned for the changeover - one year for companies with 250 or more employees, two years for 50 to under 250, and up to five years for smaller companies above ten employees (BMAS). Small companies with up to ten employees are to remain permanently exempt from the electronic form (BMAS). As the draft is still in the legislative process, details may change; the underlying duty is unaffected.

In practice this means: anyone already recording cleanly and digitally need not rush anything in 2026 but at most adjust details. Anyone waiting for the law before starting at all is confusing the form with the duty. The duty to record overtime already exists under Section 16(2) of the Working Time Act (Working Time Act) - general recording is the logical extension of it, not a break with what already applies.

Digital time tracking is more than a punch clock in the browser. What matters is that it is created where the work happens. For office staff, starting with a click at the desk is enough; on the building site, in the field or in care work, capture via a smartphone app is the practical route - after all, 18 percent of the companies that record already use an app (Bitkom). At the entrance of a workshop or warehouse a terminal with a card or PIN proves its worth. The important thing is that all routes flow into the same data set, so that no second version of the truth arises.

Capturing alone is not enough; the data must be reviewable and correctable. A good solution separates cleanly between recording by the staff and approval by the responsible person: corrections are possible but logged, so the history stays traceable. Breaks, rest periods and premiums can be stored as rules and applied automatically - that takes off the payroll team exactly the arithmetic that otherwise piles up at month end; the balances land at the same time in reporting, without anyone hunting down hours.

For companies with projects or cost centres a second benefit is added: if time is assigned to an order or project straight away, a basis for costing and invoicing arises alongside the plain working time. A duty exercise thus becomes a tool that makes utilisation and profitability visible. How such figures can be evaluated without spreadsheet evenings is described in the article reading processes from system data.

Time tracking processes personal data and is therefore a matter for data protection. What may be collected is what is necessary for working time and pay - no more. Purpose, retention period and access rights belong fixed in writing before go-live: who sees which report, how long is data kept, when is it deleted? A sparing, clearly justified record creates trust; one that incidentally captures location or behaviour creates resistance.

Where a works council exists, it must be involved early. The introduction of technical facilities capable of monitoring the behaviour or performance of staff is subject to co-determination under Section 87(1) No. 6 of the Works Constitution Act (Works Constitution Act) - and a time tracking system is a typical example of that. Involving the works council before the selection rather than shortly before go-live avoids later blockages and at the same time gains the cases and exceptions that only the people doing the work know.

What matters is the separation between recording and monitoring. A system that documents attendance is something different from one that measures individual staff on processing times. What the data will be used for and what it will explicitly not be used for belongs clearly answered before go-live. Assessing a specific case under data protection law and drafting a works agreement belong in professional hands; this article does not replace them.

The larger share of a successful changeover sits with the company, not with the technology. A lot can be prepared before any solution is even in the house: collecting the working time rules that apply, noting the special cases that actually occur, and deciding which reports are needed. A company that goes into a project with this clarity saves rounds of coordination and gets a record that fits the business rather than the other way round. The same principle - capture once, apply rules automatically, pass on without a media break - also carries other recurring back-office workflows such as automated dunning.

An honest choice of date pays off just as much. The turn of the year, the previous month's payroll or a seasonal peak are poor moments to start. Postponing by two weeks costs little; starting in the middle of the payroll peak costs trust. And anyone already using industry or project software should check early whether its time module is enough or whether a connection to further systems is the better route. An overview of the possible building blocks is given on the services page.