Mandatory time tracking in France: what employers must record and prove

Is time tracking mandatory in France in 2026?

No new law imposes it in 2026, and no rule requires a time clock. However, recording hours has been mandatory since 2008 for every employee who does not follow the posted collective schedule: Article D.3171-8 of the Labour Code (Code du travail) requires daily recording “by any means”. The articles that organise this control were not amended in 2025 or 2026.

What has changed is the case law. In a published judgment of 13 November 2025 (No. 23-19.055), the employment chamber of the Cour de cassation, France's highest court for civil and criminal matters (Cass. soc.), held that:

• the record required by Article D.3171-8 covers every employee who is not subject to the collective schedule, not only relay or rotating teams;
• the absence of this record must be assessed in light of the employer's safety obligation (Art. L.4121-1);
• the court must examine whether this breach made it impossible to continue the contract, which can justify its judicial termination.

The Court relies on the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) of 14 May 2019 (CCOO, C-55/18): Member States must require employers to set up an “objective, reliable and accessible system” that measures each worker's daily working time. That is the real meaning of “mandatory time tracking”: there is no new text, but the courts penalise the lack of a reliable measure of hours.

Collective schedule: what must you post and send?

For employees on the collective schedule, the Labour Code organises control through posting. The schedule shows the start and end times of work and the times and length of breaks (Art. L.3171-1), and follows these rules:

• it is dated, signed by the employer or its delegate and clearly posted in each workplace; for employees working off-site, in the establishment they report to (Art. D.3171-2);
• any change is posted before it applies (Art. D.3171-3);
• a copy of the schedule and of each correction is sent in advance to the labour inspectorate's control officer (Art. D.3171-4);
• where working time is organised over several weeks, the notice gives the number of weeks in the period and the schedule for each; any change is posted 7 days in advance, unless an agreement sets another period (Art. D.3171-5);
• for relay, rotating or successive shifts, the names of each team's members, temporary agency workers included, appear on a posted table or an up-to-date register (Art. D.3171-7).

A collective schedule does not remove all monitoring: no employee may work outside it except as overtime (Art. D.3171-1). Those hours must still be recorded, paid and shown on the payslip. The calculation is explained on our page From time clock to payroll.

Employees outside the collective schedule: how do you record hours?

For each employee who does not follow the collective schedule, the employer records every day the start and end times of each work period, or the number of hours worked, then totals each employee's hours every week (Art. D.3171-8). Records may be electronic if equivalent control safeguards are maintained (Art. D.3171-15).

Daily recording does not apply to employees on a fixed-hours agreement (forfait en heures) where the collective agreement sets how their working time is monitored (Art. D.3171-9). Employees have a right of access to the documents that record their working time (Art. D.3171-14), and the social and economic committee (CSE, the staff representative body) may consult them (Art. L.3171-2).

The records must also make it possible to check maximum working hours and rest periods:

Maximum working hours allow strictly framed exceptions: collective agreement, administrative authorisation or emergency (Art. L.3121-18 to L.3121-25).

Remote workers: the remote work agreement or charter must provide for monitoring of working time or regulation of workload (see Remote work in France).

Forfait jours: how do you monitor the workload?

Under a forfait jours (an annual arrangement counted in days rather than hours), working time is counted in days or half-days, totalled every year (Art. D.3171-10), and the employer regularly checks that the workload is reasonable (Art. L.3121-60). The employee is exempt from maximum daily and weekly working hours, but not from rest periods (Art. L.3121-62).

• It requires a written individual agreement and a collective agreement that sets, among other things, the number of days (218 at most), the assessment and regular monitoring of workload, periodic communication and the right to disconnect (Art. L.3121-55, L.3121-63 and L.3121-64).
• If the collective agreement falls short, the employer keeps a control document of the days and half-days worked, checks rest periods, holds an annual interview (workload, organisation, personal life, pay) and sets the disconnection arrangements (Art. L.3121-65).
• Giving up rest days requires a written amendment and a premium of at least 10%, up to 235 days a year where there is no agreement (Art. L.3121-59 and L.3121-66).

An agreement that provides neither real monitoring of workload nor a way to remedy overload makes the individual agreement void (unpublished judgment of 24 September 2025), and overtime becomes payable. Conversely, a monthly control document (days worked and type of days not worked) and monthly monitoring by the line manager were held compliant (Cass. soc., 6 May 2026, No. 24-10.699, published). Senior executives (cadres dirigeants) are excluded from the rules on working time and rest (Art. L.3111-2).

Overtime disputes before the labour court: who must prove the hours?

The employee provides “sufficiently precise” evidence of the hours claimed; the employer, which is responsible for monitoring hours, must answer with its own evidence, and the court may not place the burden of proof on the employee alone (Art. L.3171-4; Cass. soc., 13 November 2025). An automated recording system must be reliable and tamper-proof.

• A table giving start and end times for each half-day is sufficiently precise, even if it includes travel time that is not separated out (Cass. soc., 2 September 2026, No. 25-16.106, published).
• Before any trial, the employee can obtain a summary court order for the production of documents on their hours (Article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure); the court limits the request and has third parties' data redacted (Cass. soc., 24 June 2026, No. 25-10.397, published).
• Back pay for overtime covers 3 years of salary (Art. L.3245-1).
• Exceeding a maximum working time or failing to give daily rest entitles the employee to damages in itself (unpublished judgment of 2 April 2025), and the claim for exceeding maximum hours is time-barred after 2 years (Cass. soc., 18 February 2026, published); a missed break alone led to €5,000 in damages (unpublished judgment of 17 December 2025).
• Knowingly showing fewer hours on the payslip than were worked is concealed employment (travail dissimulé): a lump-sum indemnity of 6 months' salary on termination, up to 3 years' imprisonment and a €45,000 fine (Art. L.8221-5, L.8223-1 and L.8224-1).

Without records, the employer has nothing to set against the employee's table.

How long must you keep time records, and what are the penalties?

The Labour Code requires records to be kept available to the labour inspectorate for 1 year, and 3 years for forfait jours (Art. L.3171-3 and D.3171-16). The CNIL sets maximum periods of its own.

In case of breach, the employer faces:

• an administrative fine of up to €4,000 per employee concerned for failing to record hours, as for maximum working time and rest, with the ceiling doubled for a repeat breach within 2 years (Art. L.8115-1 and L.8115-3);
• a 4th-class petty offence (up to €750, applied as many times as there are employees concerned) for the posting, the recording or a copy not sent, and a 3rd-class offence (up to €450) if documents are not shown to the inspectorate (Art. R.3173-1 to R.3173-3); for a legal entity, these ceilings are multiplied by five (Art. 131-41 of the Criminal Code);
• back pay and damages before the labour court (conseil de prud'hommes).

Time clocks, biometric clocks, geolocation: what does the CNIL allow?

Monitoring of working hours must be proportionate: the CNIL considers biometric badges, facial recognition and a photo taken at each clock-in excessive (guidance updated on 17 June 2026). Its 2019 standard regulation on biometrics allows biometrics only for access to restricted premises or to identified devices and applications, not for monitoring working hours.

Before introducing a badge reader or time tracking software:

• check that the system is justified and proportionate to its purpose (Art. L.1121-1);
• inform and consult the CSE before the decision in companies with at least 50 employees (Art. L.2312-38): the CNIL cites a badge reader installed without this consultation as unlawful;
• inform each employee beforehand and clearly, for example by internal memo: purposes, legal basis, recipients, retention period, rights and the option to complain to the CNIL (Art. L.1222-4);
• enter the processing in the record of processing activities, limit access rights and log access;
• do not use the logs of a security badge reader to monitor working hours, nor track movements within the premises or time spent on staff representative duties.

Geolocation is lawful for monitoring working time only if this cannot be done by another means, “even a less effective one”, and never for an employee who is free to organise their work (Cass. soc., 19 December 2018, No. 17-14.631). The CNIL also excludes it outside working time and for staff representatives.

Common mistakes

• Assuming a posted collective schedule removes all monitoring: hours worked outside it are still overtime to be recorded, paid and shown on the payslip.
• Installing a fingerprint or facial recognition clock, or a badge reader that takes a photo at each pass: the CNIL considers these excessive for monitoring working hours.
• Signing forfait jours agreements without real workload monitoring or an annual interview: the agreement can be annulled and overtime claimed over 3 years.
• Purging records after one year, as Art. D.3171-16 allows, when the employee can claim 3 years of salary.
• Letting managers correct clock-ins without a trace or reason: a court can disregard a system that is not reliable and tamper-proof.
• Calculating working time from vehicle geolocation when another means exists, or for mobile staff who are free to organise their work.

Your checklist

• Identify employees outside the collective schedule and set up a daily record and a weekly total for them.
• Post the dated and signed collective schedule in each workplace and send a copy to the labour inspectorate before it applies.
• Attach the monthly summary of overtime and rest to the payslip (Art. D.3171-11 and D.3171-12).
• Check the records against maximum working hours, breaks and rest periods.
• Check workload monitoring for employees on forfait jours and schedule their annual interview.
• Consult the CSE and inform each employee before any new badge reader or time tracking software.
• Log every correction of a clock-in: author, date, old and new value, reason.
• Keep records for at least 3 years, then delete them after 5 years at the latest.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• Cour de cassation, employment chamber, 13 November 2025, No. 23-19.055 (time records and safety obligation)
• Cour de cassation, employment chamber, 2 September 2026, No. 25-16.106 (proof of hours)
• Cour de cassation, employment chamber, 24 June 2026, No. 25-10.397 (pre-trial production of evidence)
• Cour de cassation, employment chamber, 6 May 2026, No. 24-10.699 (forfait jours)
• Cour de cassation, employment chamber, 19 December 2018, No. 17-14.631 (geolocation)
• Labour Code, Art. L.8115-1, version of 27 June 2026 (Légifrance, in French)
• CNIL, Access to premises and monitoring of working hours (17 June 2026, in French)
• CNIL, Monitoring the activity of employees (9 July 2026, in French)
• CNIL, Biometric access control in the workplace (in French)
• CNIL, Geolocation of employees' vehicles (in French)

This guide sets out the general rules in force on 5 October 2026. It is not legal advice for your situation (collective agreement, sector, employee status).