A. Daily rest
The requirement to grant every worker 11 consecutive hours of rest is a minimum standard and more protective provisions are often provided by national law transposing the Directive, for example granting workers a longer period of daily rest or establishing a maximum daily working time. The Commission considered it as a ‘safety net’ for the health and safety of the workers concerned, which also took into account economic requirements and shift work cycles (181). The 11 hours of daily rest must be consecutive. This means that workers should not be interrupted in their rest period unless the Member State has provided otherwise under the permitted derogations (see Chapter IX). Workers must receive one period of daily rest for each 24-hour period. However, the Directive does not define this period as being a calendar day. Such an approach would de facto amount to imposing a work schedule which would not fit with the usual periods of work (182). However, by establishing a framework of 24-hour periods, the Directive imposes a certain regularity in daily rest periods. In this respect, the Court has ruled that ‘in order to ensure the effective protection of the safety and health of the worker provision must as a general rule be made for a period of work regularly to alternate with a rest period’ (183). The purpose of daily rest is to allow workers to remove themselves from their working environment for a number of hours. These must be consecutive and ‘directly follow a period of work in order to enable him to relax and dispel the fatigue caused by the performance of his duties’ (184). This means that where there is no derogation, the consecutive working time is limited to 13 hours (from which the break presented below must be deducted) and must be followed by at least 11 consecutive hours of rest. Under the ‘normal’ provisions of the Directive, workers cannot carry out work for more than 13 consecutive hours as this would be contrary to the purpose of this provision. Such regimes are therefore only permitted under the conditions detailed in Chapter IX.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.