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South Africa Overtime Rules: The BCEA 45-Hour Week, 1.5x Overtime, and the Earnings Threshold (2026)

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South Africa Overtime Rules: The BCEA 45-Hour Week, 1.5x Overtime, and the Earnings Threshold (2026)

The short answer: In South Africa, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act sets ordinary hours at 45 a week and 9 a day for a five-day crew, or 8 a day for a crew that works six days. Hours past either line are overtime, paid at 1.5 times the wage, and capped at 10 overtime hours a week unless a collective agreement says otherwise. Sunday work pays double, public holiday work pays double, and every employer must keep a record of each person's time worked for three years. Employees earning above R269,600.90 a year are outside the overtime rules entirely. Every one of those lines is checked against the same thing: the hours each person worked, with the meal interval taken out. Punch records that the moment someone punches in.

Owners who have read our guides to the UK's contract-based approach or Australia's award system will find South Africa closer to the American model: one statute, one rate, one weekly line, and a real daily line on top of it. Here is how it works for a small crew.

Who the Overtime Rules Cover

The BCEA applies to almost every employee in South Africa. The sections that matter here, sections 9 through 18 of Chapter Two, cover ordinary hours, overtime, meal intervals, rest periods, Sunday pay, night work, and public holidays. They do not apply to two groups:

  • Senior managers, meaning people who can hire, discipline, and dismiss, and who set policy for the business.
  • Employees earning above the earnings threshold. The Department of Employment and Labour raised the threshold to R269,600.90 a year (R22,466.74 a month) on 1 May 2026, up from R261,748.45. Anyone above that line is excluded from sections 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 16, plus the transport and night-shift allowance rule in 17(2) and the non-working-day holiday rule in 18(3).

Earnings means regular annual remuneration before deductions like income tax and pension. Overtime pay is left out of the count, so a worker on R20,000 a month who regularly earns overtime on top is still inside the threshold. For a landscaping company, a cleaning contractor, a small construction crew, or a workshop, that describes almost the whole payroll.

The national minimum wage is a separate statute. It rose to R30.23 per ordinary hour on 1 March 2026, and it is the floor under every rate in this guide.

The 45-Hour Week and the 9-Hour Day

Section 9 sets ordinary hours in two directions at once:

  • 45 hours in any week.
  • 9 hours in any day for an employee who works five days or fewer a week.
  • 8 hours in any day for an employee who works more than five days a week.

Both lines bind. A five-day crew that runs a 10-hour Tuesday owes one overtime hour that day even if the week finishes at 44, and any crew that reaches 46 hours in a week owes overtime on the 46th hour regardless of how the days fell.

Overtime: 1.5x, by Agreement, Capped at 10 Hours a Week

Section 10 is short and strict.

Overtime needs an agreement. An employer may not require or permit overtime without one. An overtime agreement signed at the start of employment, or within the first three months, lapses after one year and has to be renewed.

10 hours a week, 12 hours a day. The agreement may not require or permit more than 10 hours of overtime in a week, and may not require or permit an employee to work more than 12 hours on any day. A collective agreement can raise the weekly cap to 15 hours, but only for two months in any 12-month period.

The rate is 1.5 times the wage. The statute allows two alternatives if the agreement provides for them: the ordinary wage for the hour plus 30 minutes of paid time off, or 90 minutes of paid time off for each overtime hour, granted within one month.

Run the arithmetic for a five-day crew member on R35 an hour. A week of five 10-hour days is 50 hours: 45 ordinary at R35 (R1,575) plus 5 overtime at R52.50 (R262.50). Make it six 10-hour days and the crew member is at 15 overtime hours, five past the legal cap for that week. The time to see that number is Thursday, not at month end.

The Meal Interval

Section 14 requires a meal interval of at least one continuous hour after five hours of continuous work. A written agreement can shorten it to no less than 30 minutes, or remove it for employees who work fewer than six hours a day. Work is treated as continuous unless it is interrupted by a break of at least 60 minutes.

The pay rule inside that section is the one small owners miss. The meal interval is unpaid, but any time the employee is required to work, or to be available for work, during the interval must be paid. So must any portion of the interval beyond 75 minutes, unless the employee lives on the premises. A crew member told to stay with the truck during lunch is on the clock.

Read sections 9, 10, and 14 together and the shape is clear: whether a day carries overtime depends on the hours worked, and the hours worked depend on when lunch started and ended. A start and finish time alone cannot settle it.

Sunday Pay and Public Holiday Pay

Section 16 pays Sunday work at double the wage for each hour, for an employee who does not ordinarily work on Sundays. An employee who ordinarily works Sundays is paid 1.5 times the wage. If a short Sunday shift earns less than the ordinary daily wage, the employer owes the full daily wage.

Section 18 covers public holidays. An employer may not require work on one without an agreement. When the holiday falls on a working day and the employee does not work, the ordinary day's pay is still owed. When the employee works, the pay is double the ordinary daily wage, or the ordinary wage plus the pay for the hours worked, whichever is greater.

Both sections carry the same rule for a shift that straddles midnight: the whole shift counts as the Sunday or the holiday only if the greater part of it fell on that day. Otherwise the whole shift counts as the other day. For a security company or a bakery that starts at 2 a.m., that rule turns on exact punch times.

Punch does not track the public holiday calendar or apply a Sunday rate on its own. Those premiums are set by the owner at payroll, from the per-day hours Punch records. What Punch guarantees is that the hours for that Sunday, that holiday, and that straddling shift are on the record, split from the ordinary week, with the meal interval taken out.

The Three-Year Record Section 31 Requires

Section 31 requires every employer to keep a record for each employee containing at least their name and occupation, the time worked, the remuneration paid, and the date of birth of anyone under 18. The record must be kept for three years from the date of the last entry, and no person may make a false entry in it.

A Department of Employment and Labour inspector who walks onto a site can ask for it. So can a CCMA referral over unpaid overtime. A whiteboard, a group chat, and a foreman's memory do not meet the standard. A record of when each person punched in, punched out, and took lunch, kept for three years and tied to what they were paid, does.

How Punch Handles South African Hours

Punch is built for the record each of these rules depends on.

A South Africa preset. Choose South Africa at signup and Punch applies its South Africa BCEA preset with rand throughout: 45 hours a week and 9 hours a day, both at 1.5x. Every hour past either line is split out automatically for the pay period you run. A six-day crew switches to Custom in Org Settings and sets the daily line to 8 hours.

The meal interval on the record. Your team punches in, punches out for lunch, punches back in, and punches out from their phone. The hour section 14 requires, and the continuous-work test behind it, are on the record for every day without anyone writing it down.

The weekly overtime count, before the cap. Reports roll up per person by week and by pay period. The owner checking on Thursday sees that a crew member is at 8 overtime hours with two days to go, not after the week has broken the 10-hour cap.

A job-site geofence, not a camera. Punch-in can be limited to a geofence around the site, so a punch from the taxi rank down the road does not count. There is no photo at punch and no facial recognition. Your crew's privacy stays intact.

Approvals before pay day. Managers approve hours one by one or bulk approve a whole pay period, then export to QuickBooks Online, Square, or a QuickBooks or Excel CSV for your payroll provider. The overtime line on the payslip comes from hours that were settled first.

Three years, kept. Approved pay periods stay in Punch, per person, with every punch behind them. When an inspector or the CCMA asks for the section 31 record, it is a report, not a reconstruction.

No signal, no gap. Punches made on a farm, in a basement, or on a site with no coverage sync when the phone reconnects. A shared iPad in kiosk mode, with a PIN for each worker, covers a workshop or a yard gate.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are ordinary hours of work in South Africa?

Under section 9 of the BCEA, a maximum of 45 hours a week, and 9 hours a day for an employee who works five days or fewer a week, or 8 hours a day for one who works more than five days a week.

How is overtime paid in South Africa?

At 1.5 times the employee's wage, under section 10. By agreement, the employer may instead pay the ordinary wage plus 30 minutes of paid time off per overtime hour, or give 90 minutes of paid time off per overtime hour.

What is the maximum overtime in South Africa?

10 hours a week, and no more than 12 hours of work in any day. A collective agreement can raise the weekly cap to 15 hours for up to two months in any 12-month period.

What is the BCEA earnings threshold in 2026?

R269,600.90 a year, or R22,466.74 a month, effective 1 May 2026. Employees earning more than that are excluded from the ordinary hours, overtime, meal interval, rest period, and Sunday pay sections of the Act.

How long must South African employers keep time records?

Three years from the date of the last entry, under section 31. The record must include each employee's time worked and remuneration paid.

Keep a South African Record That Holds Up

South African overtime is a set of lines: 45 hours a week, 9 or 8 hours a day, 1.5x past either, 10 overtime hours a week, a 12-hour day, double pay on Sundays and public holidays, and an earnings threshold that moves every year. Each line is checked against the same punches, and section 31 expects those punches to be kept for three years with the meal interval inside them.

Punch records every punch in, punch out, and lunch, applies the South Africa preset, rolls up the week, and exports approved hours straight to payroll. Pricing is flat per workspace, with no per-user line item, and every plan includes every feature. The 14-day free trial starts on signup, no credit card required.

Start tracking South African hours correctly with Punch →

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