Many trades businesses think time registration is optional — or that rough weekly summaries are enough. They aren't. The Working Environment Act (arbeidsmiljøloven) §10-7 requires a running, written record of actual working hours per employee, available to the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet) whenever they ask for it. And the penalties for breaches are real.

In short

  • The Working Environment Act §10-7 obliges every employer to keep a written, running record of actual working hours per employee.
  • The requirement applies whether the employee is on hourly pay, a fixed salary or piece rates.
  • Managerial and particularly independent positions are exempt, but the employer must still document that the working hours are reasonable.
  • One business was fined NOK 450,000 for breaching the working time rules — unsystematic note-keeping is not accepted (Arbeidstilsynet, 2025).

What does the law say?

The Working Environment Act §10-7 sets one concrete requirement: at all times, the employer must hold a written, up-to-date record of how much each individual employee works (Lovdata, 2005). The record must show the real working time on any given day — not weekly estimates, not piece-rate output, but actual time.

The text of the law also says the record must be available to the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet) and to employees' union representatives. It isn't enough to be able to reconstruct the hours after the fact — they must exist on a running basis.

Who's responsible? The employer. The employee can register their own hours and report them, but the duty to make the system work and keep the record accurate always sits with the employer.

What counts as sufficient documentation?

The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet) has been clear that unsystematic note-keeping won't do. One case ended in a NOK 450,000 fine even though the business had kept a record of sorts — but the routines were too loose and the record too imprecise to document that the limits on working time and overtime had been observed.

Approved documentation must, at a minimum, show:

  • Who worked
  • Which day
  • Actual start and finish times (or total working time that day)
  • Overtime, where relevant

Paper timesheets filled in weekly in bulk are risky. A digital system that records start and stop in real time is safer — and easier to produce during an inspection.

Overtime — the most expensive invisible problem

Time registration isn't just a formality. It's the only basis for calculating overtime correctly.

Chapter 10 of the Working Environment Act sets limits on daily and weekly working time and on the use of overtime. Without timesheets, the employer can't document that the limits are being observed. The employee has no duty to flag overtime breaches — the responsibility is the employer's.

For a trades business with ten employees where two work 10 hours of overtime per week without registration, this isn't only an HSE problem: it's a potential back-pay claim, an employment dispute and a fine from the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet) that can become very costly.

Time registration and invoicing are two sides of the same coin

The statutory and the commercial converge here. Time registration that happens in real time — the technician logging from their phone where the job is — gives you two things at once:

  1. Statutory working-time documentation under §10-7
  2. The basis for invoicing per job

The technician who registers 3.5 hours on the customer job satisfies both requirements in a single action. The system totals it for the employer (§10-7 documentation) and sends the hours to the draft invoice (payroll basis for invoicing).

That means poor time registration isn't just a compliance problem — it's revenue you aren't billing.

Exception: managerial and particularly independent positions

The Working Environment Act §10-12 exempts managerial and particularly independent positions from the working time rules, including the §10-7 registration requirement. But the employer must document that the position actually meets those criteria — it isn't enough to call someone a "manager" to escape the requirements.

For ordinary tradespeople, skilled workers and service staff, §10-7 applies in full.

How to set up good time registration

Choose a solution the technician uses where the job is. The system has to work from a phone, ideally with little friction: check in, check out, done. The more manual it is, the more incomplete the registration becomes.

Sync to payroll and invoicing automatically. Time registration that only lives in one system and requires manual transfer to payroll is a source of error. Integration with your accounting system means you document and invoice in one flow.

Monitor anomalies weekly. Look for technicians who consistently register fewer or more hours than expected — that's either incorrect registration or a sign of problems worth addressing.

In Field Ops the technician registers start and stop per job from the mobile app. Time data is totalled per employee, available for export to payroll and the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet) during an inspection, and linked automatically to the invoice. Start for free and test the flow with your next job.

Frequently asked questions

Do we have to use a digital time registration system?

The law doesn't require digital — it requires written and running. Paper timesheets are legal. But in practice, paper timesheets are harder to use in real time out on the job, harder to integrate with payroll and invoicing, and harder to produce at short notice during an inspection.

How long must timesheets be kept?

The Working Environment Act doesn't specify a particular retention period for timesheets, but the Tax Act (skatteloven) and the Bookkeeping Act (bokføringsloven) require accounting records to be kept for at least 5 years. Timesheets that form the basis for pay count as such records. 5 years is a safe norm.

Can employees register hours after the working day has ended?

Yes — but after-the-fact registration increases the risk of inaccuracy and makes it harder to enforce working-time limits. Running registration in real time is what the law really assumes.

Summary

Time registration is mandatory under the Working Environment Act §10-7, applies to all employees regardless of pay form, and requires a running written record. Unsystematic note-keeping isn't accepted during an inspection — and the fines are real. Digital time registration from a phone is the simplest answer: the technician meets the legal requirement and provides the basis for invoicing in the same action.

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