The clocks go back: what you get for night work in Greece

Night hours are the hours from 22:00 to 06:00 the next day1. The rule does not look at the name of your shift or what the rota says. It looks only at the clock. Every hour that falls inside that window earns the premium, and every hour outside it does not.

This means many shifts have night hours without being called night shifts. Here are some common ones:

A waiter who closes up at 01:00 has three night hours every evening. A cleaner who starts at 05:00 has one. These are small amounts each day, but in a month with 22 such shifts they become dozens of hours with a premium.

Do the sum for the waiter. On a salary of €1,000 and 22 evenings that close at 01:00, he has 66 night hours a month. Their premium is €99.00. It is money many people never claim, because they never think of their job as night work.

In factories, hospitals and warehouses, work often rotates over three shifts: 06:00 to 14:00, 14:00 to 22:00 and 22:00 to 06:00. Here the sum is cleaner than it looks. The morning and the afternoon shift have no night hours at all. The night shift has all 8.

So the premium changes from month to month with the rota. Take a salary of €1,200 and a month with 7 night shifts. The 56 night hours bring €100.80. Next month, if there are fewer nights, the amount falls. Each night is worth €14.40.

Because the amount is not fixed, it is also the easiest to slip. Keep the rota every month, or a photo of it from the notice board. It is the simplest way to know how many nights you should see on your payslip.

The premium is 25% of your hourly pay for each night hour1. Hourly pay comes from your gross monthly salary: divided by 25, times 6, divided by 403. On a salary of €1,000, the hour is €6.00, and 25% of it is €1.50.

Here is what night work brings on four salaries:

The amounts in the table are the premium alone. The hour itself, if it is inside your normal hours, is already paid by your salary. That is why the calculator shows the total as “gross on top of your salary”.

One thing you should know from the start. The premium is paid separately, even if your salary is above the minimum. An employer who pays well cannot say that night work is “included”. If your payslip has no line for night hours, something is missing.

Now to the night from Saturday 24 to Sunday 25 October 2026. If your shift starts at 22:00 and ends at 06:00 by the clock, you work 9 hours, not 8. The hour from 03:00 to 04:00 passes twice.

All 9 hours fall inside the window from 22:00 to 06:00, so all 9 are night hours. On a salary of €1,000, the night premium for the whole shift is €13.50. The ninth hour is an extra hour of work, and it is paid in itself as well, at the hourly pay of €6.00.

The ninth hour can be more than a plain hour. If your week already had 40 hours, this one takes you to 41, and the 41st hour in a 5-day week is an extra hour, with 20%4. On a salary of €1,000 that adds €1.20 on top of the hour. If you have not reached 40, the hour is paid plain, with its night premium.

Your employer has another option. If they want the shift to stay at 8 hours, they end it one hour earlier by the clock, at 05:00. What they cannot do is keep you until 06:00 and record 8 hours. Note that night when you started and when you left, so you can compare it with your November payslip.

In spring, when the clocks go forward one hour, the opposite happens. A shift from 22:00 to 06:00 lasts 7 hours. The night premium counts the hours you actually worked, so that night it will be one hour smaller.

This is where most of the lost money is. The hours after midnight on Saturday fall on Sunday. So they are both night hours and Sunday hours, and the two premiums add up: 25% for the night and 75% for the Sunday, which is 100% on top of your hourly pay1.

On a salary of €1,000, such an hour brings €1.50 for the night and €4.50 for the Sunday. Together they come to a whole hour of pay, €6.00, on top of your salary.

The table shows why a shift from Saturday to Sunday is worth much more than a shift from Tuesday to Wednesday, with the same hours and the same salary.

In the shift of 25 October, from 22:00 to 06:00, the first 2 hours are Saturday and the next 7 are Sunday. The 7 Sunday hours bring €31.50, on top of the night premium for the shift. The same holds, the other way round, for the Sunday evening shift: the hours from 22:00 to midnight are Sunday, and the rest are Monday.

Public holidays count in the same way. This year 28 October falls on a Wednesday. In the shift from Tuesday to Wednesday, the hours after midnight are holiday hours, and they earn 25% and 75%. For how the holiday itself is paid, see the article Working on 28 October?.

The same will matter in December. In the shift from 24 to 25 December, the hours after midnight are holiday hours. In the New Year’s Eve shift, the hours after midnight fall on 1 January, which is also one of the 9 compulsory public holidays. 24 and 31 December are not on the list of holidays, so their hours up to midnight earn only the 25% night premium. Christmas has its own article: Working at Christmas?.

An hour can be a night hour and an hour above your normal hours at the same time. Then each premium counts on the plain hourly pay, and the two add up. One does not count on top of the other.

Take a salary of €1,000 and an extra hour at 23:00. The hour with the extra-hours premium is paid €7.204. On top of that comes the night premium, €1.50. If the same hour is legal overtime, its base becomes €8.40, and the night adds the same amount again.

In practice this mostly concerns shifts that run late. A shift that should have closed at 22:00 and closes at 24:00 has two hours that are both extra and night hours. If your payslip shows them only as extra hours, the night is missing. For the difference between extra hours and overtime, see Extra hours and overtime.

If you are paid a daily wage, your hour is the daily wage times 6, divided by 40. Many bakers and warehouse workers are paid this way, and they often work the first hours of the day. On a daily wage of €45, the night premium is €1.69 an hour and €13.50 for 8 hours.

A baker who starts at 03:00 has three night hours every day, until 06:00. Over 22 days a month that makes 66 hours, and on the same €45 daily wage the premium comes to €111.38. The calculator asks for a monthly salary, so on a daily wage you do the sum by hand: the daily wage times 6, divided by 40, times 0.25, times the hours.

In part-time work, your hourly pay comes from the hours in your contract. On €460 for 20 hours a week, your hour is the same as on €920 for 40 hours. So the night premium is the same as well: €1.38 an hour.

This is where the calculator needs care. Night work counts the hour with 40 hours a week. If you work fewer, enter the salary you would earn for 40 hours, not your own. On €460 for 20 hours, enter €920. Otherwise you will get half the premium.

Since 2025, the night premium carries no contributions for people who work full time. It is still taxed, like your salary. So from each euro of the premium you keep a little more than you keep from a euro of your salary.

The tax is not taken separately for the night. The premium goes into the earnings of the month, and your employer withholds tax on the whole amount. If a month has many nights, its net pay will be higher than usual, but not by the whole premium.

The exemption from contributions is written for people who work full time. If you work part time, the premium is still yours, but ask the payroll office whether they take contributions on it, so you know what to expect in your net pay.

For anyone on permanent night shifts, the premium stops being small change. A month with 20 shifts of 8 hours has 160 night hours. On a salary of €1,000, their premium is €240.00 a month, almost a quarter of the salary.

So when you are offered a job on night shifts, ask whether the salary you hear includes the premium or comes before it. The right answer is that the premium comes on top. If you are told the salary is “all-in”, ask to see the basic salary and the night line separately.

The premium changes the comparison of two offers too. A day job on €1,150 and a night job on €1,000 are not €150 a month apart. With 160 night hours, the second brings €240.00 on top of its salary, so it pays more in total. Whether nights are worth it for your sleep and your life is another conversation. But you should see the money in full.

The night premium goes into the gross earnings of the month, together with your salary. Keep a note of your shifts every month. When you one day need to check what you were paid, you will have the facts in hand.

The check starts from your own notes. Count how many hours of the month fell between 22:00 and 06:00, and set apart those that were on a Sunday or a public holiday. Then open your payslip and look among the earnings for a line for night work.

The line usually shows the hours and the amount. Divide the amount by the hours, and then by your hourly pay. If you get 0.25, the premium is right. If the hours on the line are fewer than yours, some hours are missing, and they are usually the ones at the edges of a shift.

If there is also a line for Sundays, do the same check. For Sunday hours, the ratio to your hourly pay should come to 0.75, on top of the 0.25 for the night.

Some employers pay night work as a fixed amount each month, under another name. If that happens to you, compare the amount with what your hours would bring at 25%. If it is less, the difference is yours, and it is worth claiming.