Rest time and days off

The rules on rest time and days off come from the Danish Act on Working Environment. Thus they are not a direct part of the working hours agreement. However, they are of great importance to the planning of your working hours, as this planning must never be in conflict with the law.

According to the law, your daily working hours must be planned so that you have a daily period of rest of at least 11 hours within a period of 24 hours. If you look back at the past 24 hours, you must have had 11 hours of rest. Note, however, that the working hours agreement introduces exceptions for efterskole and grundskole employees.

In addition, within every period of seven days, you must have at least one full, 24-hour day off in extension of a rest period. Thus, if you look back at the past 7 days, you must have had at least one period with 35 consecutive hours of time off.  There are also exceptions to this rule in the working hours agreement, which allow for special cases where you may need to work for more than 7 days before you are entitled to a full day off.

The school’s administrator may not plan or allow anyone to perform work in violation of the rest time regulations. As an employee, you must also take measures to ensure compliance with the rest time regulations.

Teachers at efterskoler and grundskoler with kostskoletilsyn (boarding school supervision) must also have a number of days off.