HR-Glossar
Vertrauensarbeitszeit (trust-based working time)
What trust-based working time means in Germany, why it does not exempt anyone from recording and what to settle before introducing it.
1. What is Vertrauensarbeitszeit (trust-based working time)?
Vertrauensarbeitszeit means the employer gives up control over the placement and in part the distribution of working time. What counts is the result, not attendance. Employees largely decide for themselves when they work.
What trust-based working time does not mean – and this is the most persistent misunderstanding:
- It does not release anyone from the duty to record working time. - It does not disapply the limits of the Working Time Act. Maximum working time (Section 3), rest breaks (Section 4) and the rest period (Section 5 ArbZG) apply unchanged. - It is not a waiver of pay for extra work, unless something else has been validly agreed.
Understood correctly it is a decision about management: away from attendance control and towards agreed objectives and responsibility for results. The recording stays – it then serves occupational safety and evidence, not control.
For groups used to an exempt salaried category, that last point is the one to take away: this is not a German equivalent of exempt status, and no German working time model produces one.
2. Origin and development
Trust-based working time emerged in the 1990s in knowledge-intensive industries, where attendance was a poor measure of performance in any case. It promised both sides something: autonomy for employees, relief from time administration for the business.
Practice revealed two downsides. The first was work without boundaries – with no visible limit, people work longer, not shorter. The second was invisible extra work, which nobody recorded and which therefore nobody balanced out.
With the case law on the duty to record, the discussion has shifted. The question is no longer whether time is recorded but what for – and to that trust-based working time still gives a good answer: recording for occupational safety and evidence, management through results.
3. Core principles and how it works
Results rather than attendance
Management runs through agreed objectives and results. That presupposes that both sides know what success is measured against.
The recording stays
The duty to record working time exists independently of the working time model. It can be delegated, not abolished.
The Working Time Act applies unchanged
Maximum working time, breaks and the rest period are not at the parties' disposal – not even with the employee's consent.
Extra work needs a rule
Whether and how extra work is compensated belongs agreed. A blanket settlement clause is not effective in every form.
Settle availability
Without an understanding, an impression of constant availability arises. Core hours or a response window take the pressure out.
4. Who is Vertrauensarbeitszeit (trust-based working time) relevant for?
- Knowledge work and project organisations – there attendance is the weakest measure of performance. - Managers – they have to lead through results, which is harder than leading through presence. - Employees balancing work and family – for them the freedom over placement of working time is the real gain. - Works council – introduction and design are subject to co-determination. - HR – it has to bring the model, the recording and the extra-work rule together.
5. How it differs from related terms
- Trust-based working time and flexitime – flexitime gives room within a fixed frame and keeps an account; trust-based working time gives up managing through time at all. - Trust-based working time and recording – not opposites. Recording happens for occupational safety and evidence; management happens through results. - Trust-based working time and working from home – one concerns time, the other place. They often appear together but are two decisions. - Trust-based working time and non-tariff employment – employees outside collective agreements are subject to the Working Time Act as well.
6. Variants and adaptations
- Full trust-based working time – no requirements as to placement, only as to results. - With core or service hours – a window in which availability is expected. - With a working time account – balances are kept but not used for control. - For particular roles – often for specialist and management functions rather than company-wide.
7. Advantages and challenges
Advantages
- High autonomy and a better balance between work and private life
- Management through results rather than through attendance
- Relief from approval and control procedures
- Attractive in competition for skilled staff
- Fits distributed and project-based work
Challenges
- A tendency towards boundlessness – without a limit, people work more rather than less
- Extra work stays invisible where it is not recorded and discussed
- Leading through results is more demanding than leading through presence
- Unsuitable for activities with fixed attendance — shift work, counters, production
- The belief that no time recording is needed leads to breaches of the law
- Without clarity about objectives, trust turns into arbitrariness
8. Best practices for implementation
Record and trust all the same
The record serves occupational safety and evidence. That belongs said out loud, otherwise it is experienced as a relapse into control.
Agree objectives rather than distributing tasks
Without a clear expectation about results, the yardstick that is meant to replace time management is missing.
Set limits on availability
An agreed window protects against the quiet extension of the working day.
Look at the balances regularly
Persistently high time balances indicate overload, not commitment.
Prepare the managers
Anyone expected to lead through results needs tools and practice for it. Without that, management falls back on informal attendance control.
9. Tips for employers and employees
For employers
- **Trust-based working time does not exempt anyone from recording** – the most frequent and most expensive misunderstanding
- **Keep an eye on rest periods** – with free placement of working time they are the first to be breached
- **Regulate extra work** – a blanket settlement is not effective in every form
- **Involve the works council** – the design is subject to co-determination
For employees
- **Record your time all the same** – it protects you, not the business
- **Keep the rest periods** – eleven hours between two working days is not a guideline figure
- **Clarify expectations** – what is to be finished by when is the yardstick that replaces your hours
- **Raise persistent extra work** – it is a capacity problem, not a question of personal performance
10. Conclusion
Trust-based working time is a decision about management, not about recording. Treating it as an exemption from time recording breaches the law in force and at the same time gives away the instrument that makes overload visible. Used properly it combines both: freedom over the placement of working time and a record that serves occupational safety rather than control. The precondition is leading through agreed results – and that is more demanding than an attendance list.
For an international group the point to carry over is a negative one. German law has no working time model that disapplies the Working Time Act. Trust-based working time is not an exempt category, not an opt-out and not a waiver of recording; it changes what is managed, not what is owed.
A note on the legal position: the statutory detail of the recording duty was still in movement at the editorial date of the German version (17 September 2026). Nothing here asserts a concluded position.
A note on sources: there is no official English version of the Working Time Act (checked on 2026-09-26); the German text is cited below.
Sources
- Section 3 ArbZG – Working time of employees (German original; no official English version) (opens in a new tab)
- Section 5 ArbZG – Rest period (German original) (opens in a new tab)
- Section 16 ArbZG – Notices and working time records (German original) (opens in a new tab)
- CJEU, judgment of 14 May 2019, C-55/18 (CCOO) – obligation to record working time (opens in a new tab)
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