Unpaid overtime: proof, time limits and how to claim

Staying an extra hour every evening adds up to more than 200 hours a year. Many employees give up on claiming it, unsure how to prove it. Yet the law shares that burden with the employer. A lawyer reviews your file in 20 minutes on Avocat20min.fr.

Unpaid overtime: what the law requires

Beyond 35 hours a week, every hour worked at the employer's request becomes overtime. The count runs by calendar week, from Monday at midnight to Sunday at midnight, unless an agreement says otherwise.

Weekly band	Statutory premium
From the 36th to the 43rd hour	25 %
From the 44th hour	50 %

A company or industry-wide agreement may lower these rates, but never below 10 %. So check your collective agreement before doing any sums.

The employer's agreement does not have to be written, either. Implied consent suffices where the workload made those hours necessary and management knew about them.

The annual quota and compensatory rest

The quota stands at 220 hours a year, unless a collective agreement says otherwise. Beyond it, every hour opens a right to compensatory rest, on top of the premium.

• Companies with more than 20 employees: 100 % of the hour worked, so one hour of rest per overtime hour.
• Companies with 20 employees or fewer: 50 % of the hour worked.

This rest can also be claimed before the employment tribunal. Many unpaid overtime claims forget it, although it adds up quickly.

The three-year limitation period

Article L.3245-1 of the Labour Code sets the rule: three years to claim unpaid overtime, as with any salary arrears. Time runs from the day you knew or should have known the facts, in practice the date of each payslip.

If the contract has ended, the claim covers the three years preceding the termination. An employee dismissed in September 2026 therefore claims hours worked since September 2023.

Careful, this period differs from the twelve months allowed to challenge a dismissal. A signed rupture conventionnelle does not close the door either: the salary claim stays admissible afterwards, unless a settlement was drafted to exclude it.

Proof: a shared burden

This is the decisive point of any unpaid overtime claim, and the case law has moved a great deal. Under article L.3171-4, the employee puts forward evidence precise enough for the employer to answer it. The employer then produces its own monitoring records.

Since a ruling of the Cour de cassation of 18 March 2020, that evidence no longer has to be irrefutable. A summary table written by the employee is enough to open the debate. Build a solid file all the same:

• Your badge records or extracts from the clocking software.
• Emails sent and received outside working hours, with their timestamps.
• Schedules, duty rosters and assignment orders.
• Statements from colleagues, written on form Cerfa no. 11527.
• A week-by-week count, kept as you go rather than reconstructed afterwards.

An employer with no reliable monitoring system finds itself in difficulty. Since the ruling of 14 May 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union requires an objective system for measuring working time.

Day-rate contracts and managers: the common trap

An annual day-rate contract requires a collective agreement allowing it, an individual written agreement and genuine monitoring of the workload, including an annual review. Without that monitoring, the day-rate agreement loses its effect.

The manager then falls back under hourly counting, and claims unpaid overtime over three years. Only senior executives, who enjoy wide autonomy and one of the highest pay levels, fall outside working time rules.

Part-time work: additional hours

Under a part-time contract, the law speaks of additional hours. They carry a 10 % premium up to one tenth of the contractual hours, then 25 % beyond that.

Two sanctions also exist. Regularly exceeding the agreed schedule leads to reclassification of the contract, and crossing the statutory weekly hours turns it into a full-time contract.

Going to the employment tribunal

A claim for unpaid overtime is filed by application, without a compulsory lawyer, before the tribunal for the place of work. A conciliation stage precedes judgment. Interim proceedings also allow an advance payment where the debt cannot seriously be disputed.

Employees often add a claim for concealed work. It represents six months' salary, but requires deliberate concealment, which judges do not accept systematically. A dismissal notified in the meantime can be challenged alongside it, in the same proceedings.

When to consult a lawyer

A lawyer quantifies the arrears, checks the validity of the day-rate agreement and chooses between interim relief, conciliation and a full hearing. They also calculate the effect on tribunal awards, which rest on the rebuilt salary. An employment lawyer answers within 20 minutes. The counting rules sit on the digital Labour Code.