How many hours a week can you work in Sweden?

At most 40 hours of ordinary working time (section 5). With overtime and additional hours, total working time may be at most 48 hours per seven-day period on average over a period of at most four months (section 10 b). Collective agreements may have other rules.

How much overtime is allowed in Sweden?

General overtime at most 48 hours per four weeks or 50 hours per calendar month, and at most 200 hours per calendar year (section 8). For special reasons, extra overtime of at most 150 more hours a year may be worked (section 8 a).

Does the Working Hours Act apply to hourly employees?

Yes. There is no separate cap for hourly staff, the same rules apply as for other employees. Read more about hours tracking for hourly employees.

Must the employer record working hours?

On-call time, overtime and additional hours must be recorded (section 11), and employees have the right to see the records. There is no general duty in the Working Hours Act or AFS 2023:2 today to record all working time, despite the 2019 ruling of the EU Court of Justice.

Who checks that the Working Hours Act is followed?

The Swedish Work Environment Authority (section 20). It may issue injunctions and prohibitions (section 22) and, for several of the rules, charge a penalty fee (sections 26 and 27).

Does a break count as working time?

No. A break is a stop when the employee is not obliged to stay at the workplace (section 15), and the Work Environment Authority writes that breaks are not counted as working time. Pauses and meal pauses, however, do count (sections 16 and 17).

The Swedish Working Hours Act for employers

By Klokka. Reviewed 30 September 2026, sources at the end. This is a general overview, not legal advice.

The Swedish Working Hours Act (1982:673) sets the limits on how much an employee may work: ordinary hours of at most 40 a week, a cap on overtime and additional hours, and rules on daily rest, weekly rest and breaks. Employers must also keep records of on-call time, overtime and additional hours, and employees have the right to see them.

This guide goes through the rules one at a time, with the section and a link to the law text on riksdagen.se (in Swedish). Many of the rules can be replaced by a collective agreement, so if you have one, start there.

The Act in brief

The Working Hours Act (arbetstidslagen) covers most employees, including hourly and part-time staff. Among other things, it does not cover work in the employer's household or employees in a company-management position (section 2).

Large parts of the Act may be replaced by collective agreements (section 3). That is why the rules often differ between trades, and the numbers below are where the Act starts. Check your collective agreement.

Ordinary working hours

Ordinary working time may be at most 40 hours a week (section 5). Where the nature of the work or the working conditions require it, it may instead be 40 hours a week on average over at most four weeks. Full time is therefore 8 hours a day, five days a week. How many hours that makes in a given month is in working hours per month.

Overtime and additional hours

Overtime is working time beyond ordinary working hours and on-call time (section 7). Additional hours (mertid) are hours a part-time employee works beyond their ordinary hours and on-call time under the employment contract (section 10). The Act sets these limits, and collective agreements may set others:

General overtime: at most 48 hours over a four-week period, or 50 hours in a calendar month, and at most 200 hours in a calendar year (section 8).
Extra overtime: if there are special reasons and the situation could not reasonably be solved another way, at most 150 more hours per calendar year, still within 48 hours per four weeks or 50 hours per calendar month (section 8 a).
General additional hours: at most 200 per calendar year (section 10). Extra additional hours for special reasons: at most 150 per calendar year, with the same cap per four weeks or calendar month (section 10 a).
Total working time, overtime and additional hours included, may be at most 48 hours per seven-day period on average over a period of at most four months (section 10 b).

Daily and weekly rest

Every employee must have at least 11 consecutive hours off in every 24-hour period, and as a rule it must include the time between midnight and 5 am (section 13). Every seven-day period must include at least 36 consecutive hours off (section 14). Check your collective agreement, it may have other rules.

Breaks and pauses

Breaks must be placed so that no one works more than five hours in a row (section 15). A break (rast) is a stop in the daily working time when the employee is not obliged to stay at the workplace (section 15), and breaks are not counted as working time, according to the Work Environment Authority (in Swedish). If a break is replaced by a meal pause at the workplace, that pause does count as working time (section 16), and so do pauses, short stops in the work (section 17).

If you need to work out a shift with a break, there is a work hours calculator.

Night work

For night workers, working time may not exceed eight hours per 24 hours on average over a calculation period of at most four months (section 13 a). A night worker is someone who normally works at least three hours of their shift at night, between 10 pm and 6 am, or is likely to work at least a third of their annual working time then. Collective agreements may have other rules.

Keeping records of working time

Under section 11, the employer must keep records of on-call time, overtime and additional hours. Employees have the right to see them, themselves or through someone else, and so does the union at the workplace.

How the records are kept is set out in the Swedish Work Environment Authority's regulations, AFS 2023:2 chapter 9, summarised on av.se (both in Swedish):

Records for each employee, clear and well laid out. The employer decides in which document they are kept (chapter 9, section 3), and according to the Work Environment Authority paper or a computer are both fine.
The employer's name, the workplace, the employee's name and personal identity number or employee number, and the period covered (chapter 9, section 4).
On-call time, general overtime, extra overtime, general additional hours and emergency overtime or additional hours are kept apart, for example in separate columns (chapter 9, section 5).
On-call time, general overtime and general additional hours should be recorded as they arise and must be recorded at the latest 14 days after the calculation period (chapter 9, sections 8 and 9).
The records are kept at the workplace for the calendar year they cover and the two following calendar years (chapter 9, section 6).
The Act and the working-time schedule must be available at the workplace (chapter 9, section 7).

Do all hours have to be recorded?

The Act requires records of on-call time, overtime and additional hours (section 11). Neither the Act nor AFS 2023:2 chapter 9 contains a general duty to record every employee's ordinary hours. The Work Environment Authority (in Swedish) still writes that all employers must keep track of both ordinary working time and the time beyond it.

On 14 May 2019 the EU Court of Justice ruled, in case C-55/18 (CCOO v Deutsche Bank), that member states must require employers to set up a system enabling each worker's daily working time to be measured (the Court's press release). No such general duty is yet found in the Working Hours Act or in AFS 2023:2.

In practice most employers record all hours anyway: for hourly staff the hours are the pay, and overtime and additional hours can only be worked out if you know how many hours were worked in total. Read more about how to track employee hours.

Supervision

The Swedish Work Environment Authority (Arbetsmiljöverket) supervises that the Working Hours Act is followed (section 20) and may issue injunctions and prohibitions (section 22). If an employer breaks, without support in a collective agreement, among others the rules on ordinary hours, overtime, additional hours, daily rest or weekly rest, a penalty fee (sanktionsavgift) is charged (section 26). An employer who intentionally or negligently breaks section 11 on records can be fined (section 24). There is more on av.se (in Swedish).

Making it simple in practice

Log the hours per day, let the employee see them, and close the month once you agree. Then the basis for overtime and additional hours is already there, and nobody has to reconstruct a month afterwards.

Klokka is one way to do that: the employer logs the hours, the employee sees them and can flag mistakes, and the month is locked and exported. Klokka does not calculate overtime or additional hours, but the hours are there when whoever runs payroll does. If you would rather start on paper, there is a free timesheet template. If you have hourly employees, the same rules apply to them.