Time-Tracking Under the Romanian Labor Code in 2026: Employer Obligations, What You Must Record, and How to Avoid ITM Fines

What the Labor Code says about the time-tracking obligation

The Romanian Labor Code (Law no. 53/2003, republished, as amended) establishes that the employer must keep a record of the hours worked each day by each employee, showing the start and end time of the working schedule. This record must be available and capable of being presented to labor inspectors whenever they request it.

The obligation applies to all employers, regardless of sector or number of employees. It does not matter whether you run a three-person café, a restaurant with night shifts, or a services firm with flexible hours: the working-hours record is mandatory. For part-time contracts, uneven schedules, or shift work, time-tracking becomes even more important, because it proves compliance with the legal limits on working and rest time.

The law also sets the limits the record must reflect: the normal duration of working time (generally 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week), the maximum legal duration of working time (which, including overtime, may not exceed the average provided by law calculated over a reference period), the minimum daily rest, and the weekly rest. A well-kept record is the proof that these thresholds are respected.

What a legal working-hours record must contain

A compliant record is not just an attendance table. To hold up during an inspection, it must contain concrete, verifiable information for each day worked:

• The employee's identity (first and last name, badge or internal ID) and job position;
• The start and end time of the working schedule, not just the number of hours;
• The number of hours actually worked that day;
• Overtime worked, recorded separately from the normal schedule;
• Work performed during the night (the night interval defined by law);
• Work on weekly rest days and public holidays;
• Absences and their type: annual leave, medical leave, authorized time off, unjustified absence, etc.

Overtime, night work, and public holidays: what the record must reflect

This is where time-tracking moves from administrative record to payroll-compliance instrument. The Labor Code treats separately three categories of working time that generate additional monetary rights, and the record is the source document from which those rights derive.

Overtime (work performed beyond the normal duration of working time) is compensated, as a rule, with paid time off within the period provided by law. Where compensation with time off is not possible, overtime is paid with an increment (spor) on the base salary, whose minimum percentage is set by the Labor Code and negotiated through the collective or individual employment contract.

Night work benefits, according to the law, either from a reduced schedule or from an increment on the base salary for hours worked in the night interval. Work performed on public holidays or on weekly rest days, when compensatory days off are not granted, is likewise paid with an increment, under the conditions of the law.

To avoid mistakes, remember a simple principle: the exact percentages of the increments and how they are granted must be checked in the Labor Code in force and in the applicable collective/individual employment contract, since they can be improved through negotiation. What cannot be missing is traceability: if the record does not clearly show how many night, overtime, or holiday hours each employee worked, the calculation of the increments becomes contestable — both before the ITM and before employees.

How long to keep the record and how an ITM inspection works

The working-time record is part of the personnel documents the employer is obliged to keep and present during an inspection. Alongside individual employment contracts, payroll records, and the general register of employees (REGES/Revisal), the time record falls into the category of documents that must be archived and kept available for the periods provided by labor and archiving legislation in force.

An inspection by the Territorial Labor Inspectorate (ITM) can be scheduled or unannounced. In practice, inspectors frequently request: the working-hours record for a given period, individual employment contracts, payroll records, proof of payment of salaries and increments, and proof of compliance with rest time. Cross-checking is essential: the inspector compares the posted schedule, the time record, the payroll, and the actual situation observed on site.

The most common problems found during inspections relate to inconsistencies: employees present at the workplace but not recorded, hours worked that do not appear in the record, overtime that is unpaid or uncompensated, or records filled in formally, identically, month after month, with no connection to reality. A record that cannot be corroborated with the other documents is, in an inspector's eyes, a weak record.

Penalties: from non-compliance to undeclared work

The Labor Code sanctions as contraventions both the failure to keep a record of working hours and the more serious breaches related to working time and payment of salary rights. The fines provided by law for such acts can be substantial and are, in many cases, applied per employee, which means a repeated non-compliance across the whole team can add up quickly.

The most serious category is undeclared work (colloquially, working "off the books"): allowing a person to work without a concluded individual employment contract, without transmitting the details to the general register of employees, outside the declared schedule, or during periods when the contract is suspended. Here the law provides severe sanctions, which can include large per-person fines and, in serious or repeated cases, additional measures such as suspension of activity.

Because fine amounts are periodically updated by law, we will not rely on fixed figures in this guide. Remember instead the principle: the cost of a non-compliance discovered during an inspection is almost always far greater than the cost of keeping an accurate record from the start. On top of the direct financial risk come reputational risk and the risk of employment litigation brought by employees claiming unpaid hours.

Digital vs paper time-tracking: why the standard is shifting in 2026

The paper attendance book and the manually filled Excel sheet remain, in theory, acceptable as long as they contain the information required by law. In practice, though, they have three major weaknesses: they are easy to fill in retroactively (so easy to challenge as evidence), they are prone to errors in calculating hours and increments, and they offer no audit trail — you cannot prove WHEN a punch was recorded.

Digital time-tracking solves exactly these points. An electronic punch automatically stamps the real date and time of the event, calculates normal, overtime, night, and holiday hours separately, and generates the monthly timesheet ready to present to the ITM. In addition, technologies such as PIN plus confirmation selfie, GPS geofencing, or QR-code punching at the location combat "buddy punching" (one colleague clocking in for another), a real problem especially on night shifts and in large teams.

A key aspect in 2026 is GDPR compliance. Attendance data is personal data, and true biometric identification (fingerprint, facial recognition as a biometric system) triggers strict obligations and is often disproportionate for the purpose of time-tracking. That is why responsible solutions prefer non-biometric methods — for example an individual PIN accompanied by a confirmation photo that serves only for a visual check of presence, without building a biometric template — reducing the compliance burden without losing anti-fraud protection.

How an electronic time-tracker like Appy's helps

Appy includes a standalone time-tracking (pontaj) module, built for the reality of Romanian legislation and usable by any type of company, not just hospitality. Employees clock in quickly with an individual 6-digit PIN, with a non-biometric confirmation photo, GDPR-safe and configurable per location — a simple method that discourages clocking in for someone else, without the complications of biometric identification.

The hours engine applies the logic required by the Labor Code: it automatically separates normal hours from overtime, night, and public-holiday hours, so increments can be calculated correctly. At month-end you get the timesheet (working-hours record) ready to present at an ITM inspection. You also have shift planning, mobile punching, GPS geofencing, and QR-code punching at the location, especially useful for teams with multiple sites or field schedules.

As part of Appy's all-in-one platform for businesses in Romania, time-tracking sits alongside ANAF e-Factura, the fiscal cash register, and the rest of the operating tools, with an accessible entry point: a Starter plan from 0 € and plans from 49 €. The practical result is simple — less time lost on manual tables and a working-hours record you can defend, without stress, before any inspection.