Working Hours and Overtime in Angola

What Are The Standard Working Hours In Angola?

An employee whose age is 16 or younger has a maximum of 7 hours per day and 35 hours per week. An employee whose age is 17 or older is allowed to work 44 hours per week. A minimum meal interval of 60 minutes must be observed by employees who work more than 5 hours in a day. In typical working hours, Monday through Friday, the hours are 8:00 to 17:00.

Maximum Working Hours In Angola

Under Angolan law, the normal working time for adult employees is generally limited to 8 hours per day and 44 hours per week. You may distribute these hours over 5 or 6 days, but you must not exceed 9 hours in any single day unless a specific legal or collectively agreed regime allows it. Any arrangement that changes the distribution of hours must still respect the 44-hour weekly ceiling on average.

Collective bargaining agreements and internal regulations can introduce flexible schedules or reference periods, but they cannot waive statutory protections. As an employer, you must keep accurate time records to demonstrate compliance with daily and weekly limits and to distinguish normal hours from overtime. Failure to document working time properly increases the risk of disputes, back-pay claims, and administrative fines.

Industry-Specific Exceptions

Companies hiring in sectors like healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, or hospitality may be subject to special scheduling rules. In continuous-process operations or services that must run 24/7, the law allows for different daily distributions of work as long as the average weekly limit is respected over the applicable reference period. You should always verify whether a sectoral collective agreement or special statute modifies the general rules for your activity.

In healthcare, 12-hour shifts are common, but they must be offset by longer rest periods so that average weekly hours do not exceed 44. Transport and logistics employers must align driving and rest times with road safety rules, which can be stricter than the general Labour Law. Hospitality, retail, manufacturing, and security services often rely on rotating schedules that include nights and weekends, requiring careful planning to avoid excessive consecutive days of work.

• Healthcare professionals may work 12-hour shifts with extended rest periods.
• Transport workers must comply with EU-aligned rest and driving limits.
• Manufacturing and security staff often rotate through night or weekend shifts.

Even in these sectors, you must ensure the average weekly limit is respected over a reference period. You should also ensure that any compressed or rotating schedule is clearly documented in employment contracts or written shift rosters. This documentation helps demonstrate that employees receive the legally required daily and weekly rest.

Managerial And Exempt Employees

Senior managerial staff and employees in positions of trust may be partially exempt from strict control of working hours, but they are not completely outside the scope of labour protection. In practice, this means you may not need to track every hour they work, yet you must still ensure that their workload is reasonable and does not systematically exceed what would be acceptable for other employees. Their contracts should clearly describe their status, responsibilities, and how their remuneration covers extended availability.

Where managers are paid a global salary that is intended to include compensation for additional hours, this must be transparent and proportionate to the expected workload. If a person is labelled as “exempt” but in reality works under close supervision and fixed schedules, labour inspectors and courts may reclassify them and award overtime. You should therefore reserve exempt status for genuinely autonomous roles and periodically review whether their working patterns remain compatible with the law.

Statutory Full-Time Working Hours In Angola

In Angola, full-time work is generally understood as 44 hours per week for adult employees, usually spread over 5 or 6 days. Many employers adopt a 40-hour week as a matter of policy or collective agreement, but this is more protective than the statutory baseline. Any reduction below 44 hours without a pay cut effectively improves working conditions and should be reflected in contracts and internal rules.

Part-time arrangements involve a lower number of weekly hours, often 20 to 30 hours, and must be clearly defined in writing to avoid disputes about overtime. Flexible or variable schedules are permitted if they respect the maximum daily and weekly limits and guarantee the required rest periods. When you introduce alternative patterns such as shift work or compressed weeks, you must ensure that employees are not disadvantaged in terms of pay, benefits, or access to rest compared with standard full-time staff.

Overtime Regulations In Angola

Overtime in Angola is tightly regulated, and employers must justify its use, keep detailed records, and pay statutory premiums on top of base salary. You are required to record the start and end times of work each day so that normal hours, overtime, night work, and work on rest days or holidays can be clearly identified. Non-compliance with overtime rules can lead to back-pay liabilities, fines from labour inspectors, and potential litigation from employees or unions.

What Counts As Overtime In Angola?

Overtime in Angola is any time worked beyond the normal daily limit, typically 8 hours, or beyond 44 hours in a week for adult employees. Work performed beyond the reduced limits for minors, such as more than 7 hours per day or 35 hours per week, is also treated as overtime and is generally prohibited except in very limited circumstances. You must obtain the employee’s agreement to perform overtime, except in emergency situations expressly allowed by law.

Work performed on the employee’s weekly rest day, usually Sunday, or on a public holiday is treated as overtime even if the weekly total does not exceed 44 hours. Such hours attract higher premium rates than ordinary overtime on a normal working day. You should therefore distinguish between weekday overtime, rest-day overtime, and public-holiday overtime in your payroll system.

Maximum Overtime In Angola

Angolan law generally limits overtime to 2 hours per day and 40 hours per month for each employee. In addition, the annual cap is typically 200 hours of overtime per worker per year, although certain sectors or exceptional circumstances may allow an increase up to 300 hours per year with prior authorization from the competent authority. These limits are designed to protect employee health and to prevent systematic reliance on overtime instead of proper staffing.

Where you need to exceed the standard caps, you must obtain written authorization from the labour inspectorate or other competent body and consult with employee representatives where they exist. Even with authorization, you must never schedule overtime in a way that undermines the minimum daily rest of 11 consecutive hours or the weekly rest of at least 24 consecutive hours. Careful planning and monitoring of monthly and annual totals are essential to avoid breaching the numerical limits.

Overtime Payout Rates In Angola

In Angola, overtime worked on a normal working day is typically paid at a minimum premium of 50% above the employee’s regular hourly rate, meaning at least 150% (1.5x) of base pay. When overtime is performed on the employee’s weekly rest day, such as Sunday, the premium usually rises to at least 75% above the normal rate, equivalent to 175% (1.75x) of base pay. These premiums apply to each overtime hour and must be calculated using the employee’s normal remuneration as the basis.

Overtime worked on public holidays is generally compensated at a minimum of 100% above the normal hourly rate, meaning 200% (2.0x) of base pay for each hour. Collective agreements or company policies may grant even higher percentages, but you cannot go below these statutory minima. You must itemize overtime hours and corresponding premiums on payslips so employees can verify that weekday, rest-day, and holiday overtime have been correctly remunerated.

Rest Periods And Breaks In Angola

In Angola, employees typically work up to 8 hours per day and 44 hours per week, and rest periods are structured around these limits to protect health and safety. During the working day, employees who work more than 5 hours must receive a meal break, and between working days they are entitled to a continuous daily rest period. Over each week, employees must also benefit from a weekly rest day, usually Sunday, which may only be worked under specific conditions and with appropriate compensation.

• Meal Break: Employees who work more than 5 consecutive hours must receive a meal break of at least 60 minutes, and this interval should be scheduled roughly in the middle of the working period whenever possible.
• Daily Rest: Employees are entitled to a minimum daily rest of 11 consecutive hours between the end of one workday and the start of the next, and schedules must be organized so this rest is not routinely reduced.
• Weekly Rest: Workers must receive at least 24 consecutive hours of weekly rest, normally on Sunday, and if work on the rest day is unavoidable you must grant a substitute rest day and pay the applicable overtime premium.
• Minors: Employees under 18 benefit from stricter limits on daily and weekly hours, and you must ensure they receive longer or more frequent rest breaks and are not assigned to night or hazardous work.
• Employer Duty: Employers must design rosters that respect daily and weekly rest, keep records of hours and breaks, and adjust staffing levels rather than systematically cutting into legally required rest periods.

Night Shifts And Weekend Regulations In Angola

Night and weekend work are legal in Angola but subject to additional employer responsibilities and employee protections. You must ensure that such work is justified by operational needs, properly recorded, and compensated with the statutory premiums or higher rates agreed in collective agreements. Particular care is required to protect vulnerable groups such as minors, pregnant workers, and employees with health conditions.

Night work in Angola is generally defined as work performed between 20:00 and 7:00, with specific emphasis on continuous work of at least 7 consecutive hours that includes the period from 22:00 to 6:00. This definition applies across most roles and sectors, although some collective agreements may refine the exact window while maintaining or improving legal protections. Any employee who regularly performs a significant portion of their hours within this night period is considered a night worker and is entitled to the applicable premiums and safeguards.

• Premium Pay: Night work is typically paid with a minimum premium of 25% above the normal hourly rate, meaning at least 125% (1.25x) of base pay for each night hour, and collective agreements may grant higher percentages for particularly demanding shifts.
• Health Monitoring: Regular night workers should be offered periodic health assessments, especially where work involves continuous night shifts, so that any adverse effects of disrupted sleep patterns can be identified and managed early.
• Workplace Restrictions: Minors are generally prohibited from performing night work, and pregnant or breastfeeding workers should be reassigned away from night shifts or hazardous tasks whenever medical advice indicates a risk.

Weekend work, particularly on Sunday, is normally treated as work on the weekly rest day and is only allowed under specific operational needs such as continuous production, hospitality, or essential services. When employees work on Sunday or another designated weekly rest day, you must grant a substitute rest day and pay at least a 75% premium, equivalent to 175% (1.75x) of the normal hourly rate, or higher if required by a collective agreement.