Do Swiss employers have to pay out overtime?

Two kinds of extra hours, and they are not the same

The distinction decides almost everything and is barely known: overtime is above your CONTRACTUAL hours, excess hours above the STATUTORY maximum. As of 7 September 2026.

Two Swiss concepts, one English word

The official English text of the Code of Obligations translates the marginal note of Art. 321c as «Overtime», and the article itself as an obligation to perform «such overtime» where more hours are required «than envisaged under the employment contract or provided for by custom, standard employment contract or collective employment contract». That is the contractual tier. The Labour Act tier — Überzeitarbeit, the hours above the statutory ceiling — would also be called overtime in English, and nothing in the word signals that a different act, a different threshold and a different rule on waiver apply.

Keep the German words. Überstunden are measured against your contract; Überzeit is measured against Art. 9 ArG, which sets the weekly maximum at 45 hours for employees in industrial undertakings and for office staff, technical and other employees including sales staff in large retail undertakings, and at 50 hours for everyone else. A large retail undertaking is defined in Art. 2 of Ordinance 1 to the Labour Act as one employing more than 50 people in retail sale in the same or adjoining buildings, checkout staff included.

Where the English text runs out

This is a topic on which English-language sources are structurally thinner than German ones, and it is worth knowing why. The Code of Obligations has an official English translation on Fedlex, kept current — the file for the version in force is marked «Last amended on 1 January 2026», with the standard federal note that «English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.» The Labour Act does not have one at all: the Fedlex file store holds German, French and Italian texts of its consolidated versions and no English file in any format.

The same gap runs through the administration. SECO publishes its overtime FAQ in German, French and Italian — as Überstunden, heures supplémentaires and ore supplementari — and its English site carries no equivalent page. So the tier whose pay you can sign away is the one you can read in English, and the tier you cannot sign away is the one you cannot. When an English-language summary of «Swiss overtime law» reads simple, that is usually because it has quietly described only the first tier.

Why the pay, of all things, can be contracted away

The Code of Obligations does not make Art. 321c mandatory as a whole. Art. 361 CO lists the provisions from which no agreement may depart «either to the detriment of the employer or of the employee», and there it names Art. 321c paragraph 1 — the duty to work overtime — and nothing else from that article. Art. 362 CO, the list of provisions that cannot be varied to the employee’s detriment, does not mention Art. 321c at all.

Paragraphs 2 and 3, the time off in lieu and the quarter supplement, therefore sit in neither list, and paragraph 3 says as much on its face with the words «unless otherwise agreed in writing or under a standard employment contract or collective employment contract». SECO draws the conclusion explicitly: the parties may agree in writing that overtime is compensated without a supplement, or with one lower than 25 per cent, and full compensation may be excluded as well. For Überzeit, the same FAQ says compensation cannot be excluded by contract.

The first 60 hours, and the ceiling above them

The Labour Act tier is not waivable, but for a large share of employees it does not begin at the first hour. Art. 13 para. 1 ArG requires a wage supplement of at least 25 per cent, owed to office staff, technical and other employees and sales staff in large retail undertakings only for Überzeit exceeding 60 hours in a calendar year. If you work in an office in Switzerland, the first 60 hours above the 45-hour ceiling in any year carry no statutory supplement.

There are limits above that. Art. 12 para. 2 ArG caps Überzeit at two hours a day, except on non-working days or in emergencies, and at 170 hours a year for the 45-hour group and 140 for the 50-hour group. And Art. 12 para. 1 allows it only exceptionally in the first place: urgency or an extraordinary volume of work, stocktaking, closing accounts and liquidation work, or preventing and clearing operational disruptions.

Time off in lieu, and what cannot be bought out

Both acts allow hours to be settled in time rather than money, and both tie it to the individual’s agreement. Art. 321c para. 2 CO lets the employer compensate overtime within an appropriate period by granting time off in lieu of at least equal length, in consultation with the employee. Art. 13 para. 2 ArG says that where Überzeit is compensated with the individual employee’s agreement, within an appropriate period, by time off of the same duration, no supplement is due.

Neither act attaches a supplement to the time-off route: an hour is settled by an hour, not by an hour and a quarter. What money cannot settle is rest. Art. 22 ArG provides that rest periods prescribed by the Act may not be compensated by payments or other benefits, except on termination of the employment relationship.

What the advert will not tell you

Because Überstunden are measured against a contractual number, that number is the one to look for — and Swiss adverts are remarkably quiet about it. Of the active adverts in our own index that carry a description text, 22.5 per cent state a Pensum as a percentage and 0.3 per cent state a weekly working time in hours. English-language adverts in the index state a Pensum in 8.4 per cent of cases and an hours figure in 0.3 per cent, so the advert names a share without naming what it is a share of.

The word overtime itself, in any of its four languages, appears in 0.1 per cent of those description texts. The practical consequence is narrow and useful: the threshold at which your extra hours start counting is set in the employment contract, not in the posting, and a candidate who wants to know it has to ask before signing rather than read it off the advert.

Part-time, cross-border commuters and senior management

For part-time work the starting point is the same — the contractually agreed hours are decisive and anything beyond them is Überstunden — but SECO adds a qualification that decides most real cases: contracts often provide that only working time exceeding the hours usual in the undertaking gives rise to overtime compensation, and «such an agreement is permissible». On a 60 per cent Pensum in a company with a 42-hour week, that clause puts roughly seventeen hours a week into a zone that is worked but not compensated as overtime. Of the adverts that state a Pensum at all, close to a quarter cap it below 100 per cent.

Residence does not change which act applies. Art. 1 ArG attaches the Labour Act to the undertaking, and para. 3 extends it to employees occupied in Switzerland by an undertaking established abroad, as far as circumstances permit — so a cross-border commuter working in Switzerland is inside the same system as a resident. What does change the picture is seniority: Art. 3 lit. d ArG excludes employees exercising a «höhere leitende Tätigkeit» from the Act entirely, and Art. 9 of Ordinance 1 defines that as having far-reaching decision-making powers, or being able to influence decisions of great significance, and thereby to have a lasting effect on the structure, the course of business and the development of the undertaking. Where there is doubt about whether the Act applies to an individual employee, Art. 41 para. 3 ArG gives the decision to the cantonal authority.

Records, time limits, and where the question is actually decided

Evidence is a matter of the time records. Art. 73 para. 1 of Ordinance 1 to the Labour Act requires the registers to show, under letter c, the working time performed, daily and weekly, including compensatory and Überzeit work and when it fell, and under letter h the wage or time supplements owed under the Act. Para. 2 requires those records to be kept for at least five years after they cease to be current.

On when compensation is owed at all, SECO names two cases: overtime expressly ordered by the employer, whether or not it was necessary, and overtime not expressly ordered where it was necessary or the employee could in good faith consider it necessary — with a duty to inform the employer — which also covers the situation where the employer accepts the hours without objection. Claims arising from an employment relationship become time-barred after five years under Art. 128 no. 3 CO. Art. 341 para. 1 CO bars waiver of claims arising from mandatory provisions during the employment relationship and for one month afterwards, which presupposes that the provision is mandatory — and Art. 321c para. 3 is not. What follows in a particular case is for a civil court, with conciliation authorities organised cantonally; for questions about whether the Labour Act applies at all, it is the cantonal enforcement authority under Art. 41 ArG.