Working hours in temporary agency work: what agencies and hirers have to record

Two businesses, one working time

In temporary agency work the employer and the place of work come apart. The agency is the employer, pays and runs payroll. The hirer deploys the person and sets the working time. The law therefore splits the duties between both, and anyone who does not know them looks for the hours at the end of the month with the wrong partner.

The hirer records, the agency keeps available

Where an ordinance on a minimum pay rate under section 3a AÜG applies, the hirer has to record the start, end and duration of each temporary worker's daily working time by the end of the seventh calendar day after the working day and keep it for at least two years (section 17c(1) AÜG). The agency has to keep the documents needed to check the minimum pay rate available in Germany and in German, at the place of work too if asked (section 17c(2) AÜG).

The condition is met: the seventh ordinance on a minimum pay rate in temporary agency work has applied since 1 July 2026, at 15.33 euros per hour since 1 September 2026 and 15.87 euros from 1 April 2027, until 30 September 2027. In practice this means: the agency needs the hirer's records to complete its own documents. Anyone who does not settle this in the contract with the client has payroll without evidence at the end of the month.

A second duty applies in certain industries. If a hirer deploys temporary workers in one of the sectors in section 2a SchwarzArbG, such as construction, hospitality or building cleaning, the recording duty in section 17(1) MiLoG also applies to the hirer.

Who ensures the working time limits during the assignment

The work at the hirer is subject to the occupational safety law that applies to the hirer's business, and the duties arising from it fall on the hirer, without prejudice to the agency's duties (section 11(6) AÜG). The Working Hours Act belongs to occupational safety law. During the assignment, the hirer therefore has to observe eight, at most ten hours a day, the breaks and the eleven hours of rest, under the rules of its own industry. A restaurant may shorten the rest period by up to one hour for temporary workers too, if each shortening is compensated within a calendar month or four weeks by a rest period of at least twelve hours (section 5(2) ArbZG). An office or a factory may not.

The agency nevertheless remains under obligation. If a person works for two hirers on the same day or changes assignment at the weekend, only the agency sees both times. The daily limit and the rest period apply to the total.

18 months and equal treatment

The same person may be assigned to the same hirer for at most 18 consecutive months (section 1(1b) sentence 1 AÜG). Earlier assignments to the same hirer, even through another agency, are counted in full if no more than three months lie between the assignments (sentence 2). A collective agreement concluded by the parties of the hirer's industry can set a different maximum (sentence 3). For the period of the assignment, the principle of equal treatment applies in principle: the same essential working conditions as for comparable permanent staff, from which a collective agreement may deviate (section 8 AÜG).

Both can only be proven if the times are available separately per hirer: when the assignment began, which hours fell in which month and which with which client.

Temporary agency work in the customs inspection statistics

In 2025 the Financial Monitoring Unit for Illicit Employment checked 526 employers in temporary agency work and 4,925 persons. The agency has to keep the documents for this available in Germany, and at the place of work too if the inspecting authority asks (section 17c(2) AÜG).

Assignment times per client

In MetronHR temporary workers clock in via the app at the place of work, even without reception, or at the terminal with an NFC card. Every time can be booked to the client where it arose, to the minute and without rounding. In the office you filter by client, person and month and download the hours as Excel or CSV, for the invoice to the client and for payroll.

The time account runs across all assignments of a person, so all hours are in one account, even with two clients on the same day. In the roster of the Professional plan, MetronHR reports before publication when the configured rest period, the daily or weekly limit or the maximum number of consecutive working days is exceeded. For the tax adviser there is the payroll file for DATEV.