Driver time tracking: duty, practice, pitfalls

Since the decision of the German Federal Labour Court of 13 September 2022 (1 ABR 22/21), one thing is clear: employers in Germany are obliged to record their employees' working time. The court derived this duty from § 3 (2) no. 1 of the Occupational Safety Act, implementing the European Court of Justice's so-called time-clock ruling of 2019. It is a decision of the court, not a judgment after a trial. For transport operations, where the timesheet is often still filled in by hand at the end of a shift, this has concrete consequences.

What exactly is required

The Federal Labour Court established the duty but prescribed no particular method. What must be recorded:

• Start and end of daily working time
• The duration, so overtime and rest periods are traceable
• The record must be objective and reliable — not based on the driver's memory or goodwill alone

The handwritten timesheet meets the requirement in principle, but in practice it's the weakest link: it's filled in afterwards, rounded, estimated, and thus contestable.

The Working Time Act itself still only requires recording the working time that exceeds eight hours per working day, and keeping those records for two years (§ 16 (2) ArbZG, as of October 2026). A draft bill from the Federal Ministry of Labour on time recording exists; it has not been passed. Supervision lies with the states' occupational safety authorities (§ 17 ArbZG).

Why transport operators are particularly affected

An office job has fixed rooms and fixed hours. A transport operation doesn't. The driver starts at changing locations, has waiting times, breaks between routes and an end that depends on the last patient. This very irregularity makes manual recording error-prone:

• Waiting time at the patient: working time or break?
• The drive to the first location: does it already count?
• The ten minutes of handover at shift end that nobody notes down?

Over the month these add up to considerable inaccuracies — sometimes to the driver's disadvantage, sometimes the operation's. Both are a problem.

Clocking in on the phone as a workable solution

The most workable answer to this irregularity is recording that starts where the work happens: in the vehicle. When the driver starts their shift in the app, stamps the break and ends the shift, the working time is there with a timestamp and a location, without paper.

The decisive advantage: recording happens at the moment things occur, not from memory after hours.

A clean handling of the movement data is essential here. GPS tracking touches on data protection — it may serve working-time recording, not gapless surveillance. A good system records the time without turning the driver into a transparent person.

The three most common pitfalls

1. Not separating breaks cleanly

Anyone who fails to document the statutory rest break risks double trouble: with the supervisory authority during an audit and with the driver during payroll. The break (at least 30 minutes after more than six hours, 45 minutes after more than nine, § 4 ArbZG) must be distinguishable from working time.

2. The drive to the first location

Whether the travel time to the first patient counts as working time depends on the individual case and the contractual arrangement. What matters is that you have a clear, consistent and documented practice — not three different ones depending on the driver.

3. Retroactive changes without a log

Corrections to recorded times are permitted but must be traceable. A system that logs every change protects both sides.

Conclusion

The obligation to record working time isn't harassment but a chance to get rid of one of the last paper processes in transport work. Recording the time where it arises saves the timesheet and, incidentally, provides solid figures for your own costing. In MitaBase the driver clocks in, stamps the break and clocks out in the driver app, with location. Whether your recording meets the legal requirements is a question for your legal adviser; this text does not replace one.

The transition works best step by step: run digital recording in parallel with the old paper sheet, compare for a month — and you'll quickly see where the old method was inaccurate.

Read on: the ArbZG in one sentence and the duty to record working time (Zeiterfassungspflicht).