How many overtime hours can you legally work per year?

“How many overtime hours can you legally work per year?” is the question every HR manager asks before leaning on the team during a busy spell. The short answer is 80 hours a year, but that number comes with fine print: some hours don’t count, and one detail changes the maths depending on the type of contract. We look at it from the employer’s side, since that is who answers if the cap is broken.

Quick answer

Item	Rule
General limit	80 overtime hours a year
Compensated with time off (within 4 months)	Do not count
Force majeure	Do not count
Part-time	Cannot work overtime (they work complementary hours)
Contract shorter than a year	The cap is pro-rated
Under 18	Prohibited

The legal limit: 80 hours a year

It is set by article 35.2 of the Workers’ Statute:

“The number of overtime hours may not exceed eighty per year.”

Read it carefully: 80 is not a quota the company can hand out as it pleases, nor a worker’s right to be paid for that excess. It is an annual ceiling per person that cannot be crossed. And because overtime is voluntary unless agreed or forced by emergency, the company will not always be able to reach even that maximum.

The overtime hours that don’t count towards the cap

The 80-hour ceiling has two exits that widen the employer’s margin without breaking the law:

Hours compensated with time off. If overtime is paid back with equivalent rest within the following 4 months, it does not count towards the annual limit. This is the route many companies use to handle peaks without touching the cap: instead of paying the hour, they give it back as rest time.

Force-majeure hours. Those needed to prevent or repair emergencies and other extraordinary, urgent damage (art. 35.3 ET) fall outside the count. Careful: force majeure is an unforeseeable, urgent event, not a big order you saw coming. Misusing it is where many companies get into trouble.

Pro-rating in short contracts

The 80-hour limit assumes a permanent full-time contract for the whole year. When that is not the case, you have to pro-rate:

• A 6-month contract has a ceiling of roughly 40 overtime hours.
• A 3-month contract, about 20 hours.

Applying the full 80 to a short temporary contract is a common mistake. If the contract does not cover the calendar year, the ceiling drops by the same proportion.

Part-time: complementary hours, not overtime

There is no pro-rating here. Part-time contracts cannot work overtime, with the sole exception of force-majeure hours. What they can do is complementary hours, which are a different figure: they must be agreed, and they have their own cap and their own rules. Confusing overtime with complementary hours in a part-time contract is a common source of penalties. We go into it in the analysis on part-time contracts and the presumption of full-time work.

And if the company exceeds the ceiling?

Going over 80 hours a year is a punishable offence by the Labour Inspectorate. But the practical problem comes earlier: to know whether you are nearing the limit you need to count each person’s overtime, and that is only possible with a time record that separates ordinary from overtime hours.

Without that record, two bad things happen at once. The company cannot prove it respects the ceiling, and in an overtime claim the burden of proof turns against it: courts have been accepting the worker’s version when the record is missing or can be altered. We have seen it in the Supreme Court’s approach to the burden of proof for overtime.

How to control the limit without counting by hand

The obligation is not only to record daily working time, but also to total the overtime each month and inform the worker and their legal representatives. Doing that in a spreadsheet is where control of the cap is lost.

A time-tracking software like Cleverfy:

• Records the real clock-in and clock-out time with an unalterable timestamp.
• Separates ordinary from overtime hours and accumulates them per person.
• Warns when someone is nearing their annual ceiling, pro-rating included.
• Distinguishes what is paid from what is compensated with rest, so you know what counts.
• Generates the report ready for the Inspectorate or to answer a claim.

With the new Royal Decree on time tracking on the way, that record will also have to be digital and tamper-proof.

Conclusion

The legal maximum is 80 overtime hours a year, but the real number the company can require depends on three things: which hours are compensated with rest, whether there is force majeure, and whether the contract covers the whole year. In part-time work, they simply don’t fit. The only way to stay within the limit without risking a penalty is to count every overtime hour per person with a reliable record, which is also what protects you if a claim ever comes.

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Legal note: informational article, not legal advice. Based on articles 34 and 35 of the Spanish Workers’ Statute. Collective agreements may set specific conditions; check yours before making decisions.

Sources:

• Workers’ Statute, Art. 35