Overtime, Sundays and Public Holidays: What You Must Be Paid

The national minimum wage tells you what an ordinary hour is worth. It says nothing about the hours that are not ordinary.

Those are governed by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, and the premiums are specific: one and a half times for overtime, double for a Sunday you do not normally work, and at least double what you would have received for staying home if you work a public holiday.

There is one large qualification, and it changed on 1 May 2026. Above a certain annual figure, most of these sections simply do not apply to you. So start there.

First: do these rules apply to you at all?

Three groups fall outside the working-time chapter altogether:

• senior managerial employees;
• sales staff who travel to customers' premises and regulate their own hours of work; and
• employees who work less than 24 hours a month for that employer.

Then there is the earnings threshold. The Minister of Employment and Labour must, by determination, exclude employees earning above a stated amount. The current determination was published on 17 April 2026 and took effect on 1 May 2026. It excludes everyone earning in excess of R269 600,90 a year from sections 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17(2) and 18(3) — which is to say, from ordinary hours, overtime, the compressed week, averaging, meal intervals, rest periods, Sunday pay, the night-work conditions, and the public holiday rule for days you would not ordinarily work.

The definition of "earnings" for this purpose is worth reading closely, because it is narrower than total cost to company:

Earnings means your regular annual remuneration before deductions — before income tax, retirement and medical contributions — but excluding the employer's own contributions on your behalf. And subsistence and transport allowances, achievement awards and overtime payments are expressly not counted.

So the figure to test against R269 600,90 is your regular remuneration before your own deductions, without the company's contributions on top, and without travel allowances or the overtime you are trying to claim. A great many people who assume they are above the threshold, because their cost-to-company package is, are in fact below it.

Finally, a narrow emergency carve-out: several of these sections do not apply to work that must be done without delay because of circumstances the employer could not reasonably have been expected to provide for, and that cannot be done during ordinary hours.

If you are outside all of those, the rest of this page is your entitlement.

Ordinary hours: 45, 9 and 8

The ceiling on ordinary hours is:

• 45 hours in any week; and
• nine hours in any day if you work five days a week or fewer; or
• eight hours in any day if you work more than five days a week.

Those may be stretched by agreement by up to 15 minutes a day, and not more than 60 minutes a week, and only to let an employee whose duties include serving members of the public finish serving them.

Everything beyond that ceiling is overtime, and overtime has its own rules.

Overtime: 1.5×, capped, and only by agreement

Overtime may not be worked except in accordance with an agreement, and not more than 10 hours of overtime a week. An agreement may not permit you to work more than 12 hours on any day, ordinary and overtime combined.

The pay rule is short: an employer must pay at least one and one-half times your wage for overtime worked.

There are two lawful alternatives, and both require agreement:

• your ordinary wage for the overtime, plus at least 30 minutes' paid time off for every hour of overtime worked; or
• at least 90 minutes' paid time off for each hour of overtime worked, with no extra payment.

Time off owed under either route must be granted within one month, and only a written agreement may extend that to 12 months. Time off that never materialises is not a substitute for payment; it is a debt with a deadline.

Two more provisions are worth knowing because they quietly expire or expand.

An overtime agreement concluded when you started, or during your first three months, lapses after one year. If you signed an overtime clause on day one and are still working overtime under it three years later, that agreement is spent.

And a collective agreement may raise the ceiling to 15 hours a week — but for no more than two months in any 12. A permanent 15-hour overtime week is not what the section allows.

Sundays: double, unless Sunday is a normal day for you

The rule turns on whether you ordinarily work Sundays.

• If you do not ordinarily work on a Sunday: double your wage for each hour worked.
• If you do ordinarily work on a Sunday: one and a half times your wage for each hour worked.

There is a floor beneath both. If you work less than your ordinary shift on a Sunday and the calculation above comes to less than your ordinary daily wage, your employer must pay you your ordinary daily wage. A two-hour Sunday call-out cannot be paid as two hours if that is less than a normal day's pay.

An agreement may substitute paid time off equivalent to the difference in value between what you were actually paid for the Sunday and what the section entitles you to — again to be granted within one month, extendable to 12 by written agreement.

Now the provision almost nobody applies correctly. Sunday time worked by someone who does not ordinarily work Sundays is not counted towards ordinary hours under the 45-hour rule — but it is counted towards the 10-hour weekly overtime limit. So an occasional Sunday does not quietly consume your ordinary-hours allowance, but it does consume your overtime allowance, and an employer cannot treat it as free of both.

And where a shift straddles Sunday and another day, the whole shift counts as worked on the Sunday — unless the greater portion of it fell on the other day, in which case the whole shift counts as the other day.

Public holidays: at least double, and you cannot be made to work

You may not be required to work on a public holiday except in accordance with an agreement.

Where the public holiday falls on a day you would ordinarily work:

• if you do not work, you must be paid at least the wage you would ordinarily have received for that day; and
• if you do work, you must be paid at least double that amount — or, if it is greater, the ordinary day's wage plus what you earned for the time actually worked.

The "if it is greater" limb matters on long shifts. Where the time you actually worked earns more than a second day's pay, the higher figure is the one due.

Where the public holiday falls on a day you would not ordinarily work and you work it, you must be paid your ordinary daily wage plus the amount earned for the work performed that day, however that work is calculated.

Public holiday pay must be paid on your usual pay day — it is not something that arrives later. The split-shift rule applies here too, and a public holiday may be exchanged for another day by agreement between employer and employee.

Night work: an allowance, transport, and a medical examination

Night work means work performed after 18:00 and before 06:00 the next day.

An employer may only require or permit night work if it is agreed and if both of the following are true:

• you are compensated by an allowance — which may be a shift allowance — or by a reduction of working hours; and
• transport is available between your residence and the workplace at the beginning and end of your shift.

The transport condition is a genuine legal requirement, not a courtesy, and it is the one most often ignored.

Where you work regularly after 23:00, more is owed. Your employer must tell you, in writing — or orally, in a language you understand, if you cannot read it — about the health and safety hazards of that work and about your right to a medical examination. That examination must be made available on request at the employer's expense, before or shortly after you start such work, and at appropriate intervals thereafter. And where you develop a health condition associated with night work, your employer must transfer you to suitable day work within a reasonable time if it is practicable to do so.

"Regularly" has a definition: more than one hour after 23:00 and before 06:00, at least five times a month or 50 times a year.

Working out what you are owed

The arithmetic is straightforward once the categories are right.

1. Establish your wage per hour. Everything below is a multiple of it.
2. Separate ordinary hours from overtime. Ordinary stops at 45 a week, and at nine or eight a day depending on how many days you work.
3. Apply 1.5× to overtime hours, unless you agreed in advance to one of the two time-off alternatives — and if you did, check the time off was actually granted within a month.
4. Treat Sundays separately. Double if you do not ordinarily work Sundays, 1.5× if you do, with your ordinary daily wage as the floor. Then add those hours to your overtime count, not your ordinary-hours count.
5. Treat public holidays separately again. At least double for a day you would ordinarily work; ordinary daily wage plus what you earned for a day you would not.
6. Check the night-work allowance and the transport if any of it fell after 18:00.
7. Check the totals against the caps: 10 hours of overtime a week, 12 hours in any day.

Then compare the result with your payslip, which must show your rate, your overtime rate, and your ordinary, overtime, Sunday and public holiday hours where those are relevant to the calculation. Our payslip generator lays out the same fields if you want to reconstruct one.

Two cautions before you act on a shortfall. Sectoral determinations apply to some industries and can set conditions above these — the Act is a floor, not a ceiling, and a sector's own rules may give you more. And if your remuneration sits near R269 600,90, work out the threshold figure carefully on the definition above before assuming either way.

If the numbers do not reconcile, raise it in writing first. Where that fails, the route is the Department of Employment and Labour or the CCMA, and our guide to how the CCMA works explains what that process involves. If the underlying problem is that the job itself pays too little for the hours it demands, our list of the highest-paying jobs in South Africa is a different kind of answer to the same question.

For everything else, start at our money guides.

Frequently asked questions

How much must I be paid for overtime in South Africa? At least one and one-half times your wage for each hour of overtime worked, unless you have agreed instead to your ordinary wage plus 30 minutes' paid time off per overtime hour, or to 90 minutes' paid time off per overtime hour.

How much overtime can I be required to work? Overtime may only be worked in accordance with an agreement, and not more than 10 hours a week. No agreement may permit more than 12 hours of work on any day. A collective agreement may raise the weekly ceiling to 15 hours for no more than two months in any 12.

What are the maximum ordinary working hours? 45 hours a week, and nine hours a day if you work five days a week or fewer, or eight hours a day if you work more than five days a week.

What must I be paid for working a Sunday? Double your wage for each hour if you do not ordinarily work Sundays, or one and a half times if you do. If that comes to less than your ordinary daily wage because you worked a short shift, you must receive your ordinary daily wage.

Do Sunday hours count as overtime? Time worked on a Sunday by an employee who does not ordinarily work Sundays is not counted towards ordinary hours, but it is counted towards the 10-hour weekly overtime limit.

What must I be paid on a public holiday? If the holiday falls on a day you would ordinarily work: your ordinary wage if you do not work, and at least double that if you do — or the ordinary wage plus what you earned for the time worked, if that is greater. If it falls on a day you would not ordinarily work: your ordinary daily wage plus the amount earned for the work performed.

Can my employer make me work on a public holiday? Not except in accordance with an agreement. A public holiday may also be exchanged for another day by agreement between employer and employee.

What counts as night work, and what am I owed for it? Work performed after 18:00 and before 06:00. It requires agreement, plus either an allowance — which may be a shift allowance — or reduced working hours, and transport must be available between your home and the workplace at the start and end of the shift.

What is the earnings threshold, and what does it exclude? R269 600,90 a year, with effect from 1 May 2026. Employees earning above it are excluded from sections 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17(2) and 18(3) — ordinary hours, overtime, compressed weeks, averaging, meal intervals, rest periods, Sunday pay, the night-work conditions and the public holiday rule for days not ordinarily worked.

What counts as "earnings" for the threshold? Regular annual remuneration before your own deductions, excluding the employer's contributions on your behalf, and excluding subsistence and transport allowances, achievement awards and overtime payments.

I signed an overtime agreement when I started. Is it still valid? An overtime agreement concluded when employment commenced, or during the first three months of employment, lapses after one year.