Time tracking for restaurants and hospitality: the 2026 guide

Published on 12 April 2026

Hospitality is one of the sectors most closely watched by the Labour Inspectorate, and with good reason: split shifts, overtime and a lot of turnover complicate time tracking. This guide explains how to keep working time records in a bar or restaurant without it taking time away from the business.

Why hospitality is watched so closely

The Inspectorate runs specific campaigns in hospitality because it is where the most irregularities are found: hours worked beyond what is recorded, unpaid overtime and part-time contracts that are really full-time. Keeping time records properly protects you from penalties that can reach €7,500 (we look at them in fines for not clocking in).

Part-time work: the sector's trap

This is where the real risk lies, and it is not the fine for the record. Part-time contracts have a regime of their own in article 12.4.c) of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores, stricter than the general record:

• Hours are recorded day by day and totalled monthly.
• You have to give the worker a copy of the monthly summary together with their payslip, with all the hours worked, ordinary and complementary.
• The monthly summaries are kept for a minimum of four years.
• And the clincher: «en caso de incumplimiento de las referidas obligaciones de registro, el contrato se presumirá celebrado a jornada completa, salvo prueba en contrario» — where those record-keeping obligations are breached, the contract will be presumed to have been made full-time, unless proved otherwise. In other words, the bill is not €751: it is the differences in wages and contributions for a full-time job.

Two more rules that are broken daily in the sector: anyone on a part-time contract may not work overtime (only complementary hours, with their own rules), and if their daily shift is split only one interruption is allowed, unless the collective agreement says otherwise.

The challenges of time tracking in a restaurant

• Split shifts: morning and evening, with a break in between.
• Peaks: weekends and public holidays with extra staff.
• High turnover: employees come and go, one-day extras.
• Hands full: in a kitchen or behind a bar a phone gets in the way.

How to keep it properly without complicating things

The answer is a quick, flexible system. For the kitchen and the bar, the convenient thing is a terminal or key fob at the staff entrance; for managers and waiting staff, the mobile app. Look at the guide to clocking-in methods to decide.

Split shifts and overtime: what goes wrong most

A good system has to record every clock-in and clock-out, including those of a split shift, and let you total the overtime in the pay period, which is what article 35.5 of the Workers' Statute requires. Remember that a copy of the summary of those hours has to be given to the worker with their payslip, and the legal representatives informed monthly if there are any. We explain the calculation in how to work out overtime.

And a rule in article 36.1 that matters in a bar with a late closing time: night workers — those who habitually work three hours or more between ten at night and six in the morning — may not work overtime, and their working day may not exceed eight hours a day on average over a reference period of fifteen days.

Practical tips for hospitality

Before the list, a warning about the collective agreement: in hospitality it is above all the provincial agreements that govern, and they vary a great deal between provinces on annual hours, split shifts, night work and the overtime premium. Nothing you read as a «rule of the sector» replaces looking at your own, which is also the one that can organise the working time record through collective bargaining.

• Put the clocking-in point before the work area (so that they clock in on arrival).
• Use key fobs for the kitchen: they stand up to damp and grease.
• Turn on clocking-in reminders to cut down on forgetting during the peaks.
• Review the report every week, not at the end of the month.