Working time records: what the law actually requires

Plenty of software is sold on the claim that UK law makes you clock everyone in and out. It does not. Here is what the regulations say, with the numbers, so you can decide what you actually need.

This is not legal advice. Everything below is quoted from the regulations themselves and was checked on 23 September 2026. It is a summary for employers, not advice on your situation. And no software makes anyone compliant: a program produces and keeps the record, the duty stays with you.

The short version

You must keep records adequate to show you have complied with the working time limits — regulation 9(1)(a), Working Time Regulations 1998.
In any format you reasonably think fit — regulation 9(2), added on 1 January 2024.
You need not record each worker’s daily hours if you can demonstrate compliance without doing so — regulation 9(3), added on the same date.
Keep them for two years from the date they were made — regulation 9(1)(b).
Unless minimum wage is in play, and then it is six years — regulation 59(8) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015.

What changed on 1 January 2024

The Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 rewrote regulation 9. Two new paragraphs were added: one confirming free choice of format, one saying in terms that daily hours need not be recorded where compliance can be shown another way. The duty is now openly framed as an evidential one.

That is a genuine relaxation, and we are not going to pretend otherwise in order to sell you something. But read the second half of it: if the employer is able to demonstrate compliance. The burden of demonstrating it is still yours, and it lands at the worst possible moment — a tribunal claim, an HMRC minimum wage check, an HSE visit.

The duties that did not get easier

The 48-hour opt-out register. Regulation 4(2) requires up-to-date records of every worker who has agreed in writing to exceed the 48-hour average. No relaxation, and it is separate from any hours record.
Minimum wage. Regulation 59(1) of the NMW Regulations 2015 requires records "sufficient to establish" that the worker is paid at least the minimum wage. Pay divided by hours is the test, so in practice you need the hours. Retention is six years, and the enforcement regime was replaced on 7 April 2026 by Part 5 of the Employment Rights Act 2025: under section 107 the penalty is 200% of the underpayment per worker, with a £20,000 ceiling per worker and a £100 floor.
Holiday for irregular-hours and part-year workers. Since leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, regulation 15B accrues leave at 12.07% of the hours worked in each pay period, and regulation 16A allows rolled-up holiday pay at 12.07%, shown separately on the payslip. Neither creates a record duty — but both take hours per pay period as their input, so you cannot do the sum without them.

So who actually needs to clock people in?

Honestly: not everyone. A ten-person office on fixed hours with an opt-out register and a holiday system may well be able to demonstrate compliance without a clock, and regulation 9(3) now says so out loud.

Where a record earns its keep is where hours genuinely vary and money turns on them:

Hourly pay at or near the minimum wage, where a six-year evidential trail decides an HMRC check.
Irregular-hours or part-year workers, because the 12.07% calculation needs hours per pay period.
Shift work, night work and anything where the 11-hour rest or the 48-hour average is genuinely tight.
Any workforce where a dispute about hours is plausible — and where the person with the record wins it.

What irot Time produces

Start, end and duration per person per day, with breaks, kept in a form you can hand over.
A monthly PDF to sign, and a full export in open formats whenever anyone asks.
An audit log: every correction shows who changed what, when and why, with the original kept alongside.
A break prompt before somebody misses a rest break, rather than a breach report afterwards.

It does not make you compliant. It means that when you are asked to demonstrate compliance, you can.

Questions we get

Does UK law require a time clock?

No. Regulation 9(2) of the Working Time Regulations 1998 lets you keep records "in such manner and format as the employer reasonably thinks fit", and regulation 9(3) says you need not record each worker’s daily hours at all if you can demonstrate compliance without doing so. What you must be able to do is prove it. Anyone selling you clocking software as a legal requirement is overstating the law.

How long must we keep working time records?

Two years from the date the record was made, under regulation 9(1)(b). For minimum wage purposes it is much longer: six years, under regulation 59(8) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 — raised from three years on 1 April 2021 by SI 2021/329.

What about the 48-hour opt-out?

That one is a hard record duty and it has not been relaxed. Regulation 4(2) requires up-to-date records of every worker who has agreed in writing to work beyond the 48-hour average. It is a list of names and agreements, not a clock, and it must be kept whether or not you record hours.

We are in Ireland. Is it the same?

No, it is stricter. Section 25 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 requires records for three years, and section 25(4) puts the onus on the employer to prove compliance where no records were kept. SI 473/2001 prescribes what they must contain and — this is the telling part — requires Form OWT 1 specifically where no clocking-in facilities are in place. Irish law expressly contemplates both.

Did the 2019 European ruling not make this compulsory?

Not directly, and not in the UK. In C-55/18 the Court of Justice ruled that Member States must require employers to set up an objective, reliable and accessible system for measuring daily working time — the duty runs to Member States, and the Court expressly left the form to national law. It never says "electronic". The UK has since moved the other way with regulation 9(3). In Ireland and the rest of the EU, national law implementing it still applies.

Sources, all retrieved 23 September 2026: Working Time Regulations 1998 regs. 4, 9, 10, 11, 12 (legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833); Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023, SI 2023/1426 reg. 7; National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 reg. 59 and SI 2021/329; Employment Rights Act 2025 s.107; Case C-55/18 CCOO v Deutsche Bank (EU:C:2019:402); Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 s.25 and SI 473/2001.

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Questions? Write to time@irot.com. We answer on working days, usually by the next one.