A free Excel time tracking template (and why you should drop it)

Published on 10 June 2026

You are looking for a free Excel time tracking template. We explain what it has to include and how to use it. And we will say it up front, because there is a lot of snake oil around this: Excel is legal. The law imposes no format. What it does have is a serious problem as evidence, and we talk about that too.

What a time tracking template has to include

Article 34.9 of the Workers' Statute only requires the start and the end of the working day, every day, for every person. Everything else you put in because it suits you. A useful template carries, per employee and per day: the date, the time in, the time out, breaks, total hours and space for a signature. It is worth having a tab per worker and a monthly summary with formulas that add the hours up.

Breaks are not a whim: if they are not recorded, all the time between the recorded start and end is presumed to be actual work. And if you have people on part-time contracts, your template also needs to total the month and produce a printable summary, because article 12.4.c) requires you to give them a copy with their payslip.

How to use it

• One sheet per month and per employee.
• The formula =out-in-break for the daily total.
• A monthly total and a comparison with the agreed working hours.
• Print and sign every week or every month, or save it with a date. The signature is what turns an editable sheet into evidence.
• Filing the 4 years the law requires and keeping it accessible from the workplace.

The real problems with Excel

Let us be clear about what has not happened: the law has not changed and there is no rule in force requiring a digital record. What is going on is something else: the Ministry of Labour's guide requires the system to provide «información fiable, inmodificable y no manipulable a posteriori» — reliable information, unalterable and impossible to manipulate after the fact — and there a loose Excel file in a folder starts at a disadvantage.

Translated: Excel complies with the law, but it forces you to be disciplined. If you fill it in daily and sign it, it is a valid record. If you complete it on the 30th while staring at the ceiling, it is not, and that is the problem that shows up in an inspection.

The alternative: an app

With an app for clocking in, the employee marks it with a button in real time, the time is recorded at that moment and the summaries generate themselves. You do not comply «more» with the law than you would on paper, but it is much easier for you to prove that you comply, and you save yourself the squaring. We go over the free options in free time tracking.

How to make the jump without drama

You do not need to migrate any history: you start clocking in with the new tool from tomorrow and you keep the old Excel file — the 4 years' retention still applies to those records. We go into it in how to roll out time tracking.