Basic Conditions of Employment Act: Hours, Overtime and Who Is Covered

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, usually shortened to the BCEA, is the law that sets the floor for working hours, overtime, rest, leave, pay records and notice in South Africa. This guide explains who it covers, the 2026 earnings threshold that switches part of it off, and the working-time rules in Chapter 2, then points to the dedicated pages in this series for leave, notice and severance.

All figures are current as of October 2026. Section references follow the SAFLII consolidation of the Act updated to 1 May 2026.

Who the BCEA covers and who it excludes

Section 3(1) applies the Act to "all employees and employers" with two exceptions: members of the State Security Agency, and unpaid volunteers working for an organisation serving a charitable purpose. An amendment that will rename the first exclusion to the Civilian Intelligence Service has been passed but not yet brought into force.

The Act also applies to people in vocational training, except where another law regulates their conditions (s3(2)). Most of it does not apply to seafarers on vessels covered by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1951, although the severance, leave, pay, termination and child-labour chapters do (s3(3)).

The Act protects employees, not independent contractors. The definition of "employee" in section 1 expressly leaves out an independent contractor, so the label on a contract matters less than how the working relationship actually operates.

Some chapters carve out further groups:

• Working time (Chapter 2): does not apply, apart from section 7, to senior managerial employees, sales staff who travel to customers and regulate their own hours, or employees working fewer than 24 hours a month for the employer (s6(1)).
• Leave (Chapter 3): does not apply to employees working fewer than 24 hours a month for the employer (s19(1)).
• Particulars and pay information (Chapter 4): does not apply to employees working fewer than 24 hours a month (s28(1)), and some of its duties fall away for employers with fewer than five employees (s28(2)).

Section 4 makes each basic condition a term of every employment contract, unless another law or the contract itself gives the employee something better, or the condition has been lawfully varied. Section 5 adds that the Act takes precedence over any agreement.

The 2026 earnings threshold: R269,600.90 a year

From 1 May 2026, employees earning more than R269,600.90 a year fall outside a specific list of working-time protections. The figure comes from Notice 7384 in Government Gazette No. 54544 (17 April 2026), made under section 6(3). Divided by twelve, it works out to about R22,466.74 a month.

"Earnings" for this purpose means regular annual remuneration before deductions such as income tax, pension and medical aid. Employer contributions are excluded, and the notice says that subsistence and transport allowances, achievement awards and overtime pay do not count as remuneration. Overtime earnings therefore cannot push someone over the line.

The notice excludes high earners from exactly these sections:

Apart from the enforcement and short-day pay rules explained below, everything else still applies to a high earner. That includes all of Chapter 3 (annual, sick, family responsibility and parental leave), the night-work health duties in s17(3) and (4), the rule that nobody can be required to work a public holiday without agreement (s18(1)) and the pay rule for a holiday on a normal working day (s18(2)), as well as notice and severance.

The threshold also matters for enforcement. A labour inspector cannot issue a compliance order for money owed to an employee who earns above it (s70(b)), and the CCMA route for unpaid amounts in section 73A is closed to them. Section 9A, which deals with pay for a day on which someone works fewer than four hours, likewise applies only to employees earning below the threshold.

The Department of Employment and Labour's own media statement on the 2026 threshold printed a different figure. The Gazette is the legal text, and it says R269,600.90.

Working hours (section 9)

Section 9(1) says an employer may not require or permit an employee to work more than:

• 45 hours in any week, and
• nine hours in any day if the employee works five days a week or fewer, or
• eight hours in any day if the employee works more than five days a week.

By agreement, ordinary hours may be stretched by up to 15 minutes a day, but not more than 60 minutes a week, so that someone serving the public can finish attending to customers (s9(2)). Schedule 1 sets out a procedure for reducing the maximum towards 40 hours a week through collective bargaining and sectoral determinations. That is a process, not a right to a 40-hour week.

Section 7 sits above all of this. Every employer must regulate working time with due regard to health and safety, the Code of Good Practice on the Regulation of Working Time, and employees' family responsibilities. It applies even to the groups excluded from the rest of Chapter 2.

Two other arrangements change how the 45 hours work. A written agreement can create a compressed working week of up to 12 hours a day without overtime pay, as long as the week stays within 45 ordinary hours, 10 hours of overtime and five days (s11). A collective agreement can average hours over up to four months, at no more than an average of 45 ordinary hours and five hours of overtime a week (s12).

Section 6(2) relaxes the hours, overtime, meal, rest, night-work and public-holiday rules for genuinely urgent work that the employer could not reasonably have planned for and that cannot be done during ordinary hours.

Overtime limits and overtime pay (section 10)

Overtime is lawful only "in accordance with an agreement" and is capped at 10 hours a week (s10(1)). The agreement may not require or permit more than 12 hours of work on any day (s10(1A)), counting ordinary hours and overtime together.

The pay rule is at least one and a half times the employee's wage for each overtime hour (s10(2)). An agreement can swap some or all of that premium for time off:

• the ordinary wage for the overtime plus at least 30 minutes' paid time off for every overtime hour, or
• at least 90 minutes' paid time off for each overtime hour.

Paid time off must be granted within one month, or within 12 months if a written agreement says so (s10(4)).

Two details are easy to miss. An overtime agreement concluded when the employee starts, or during the first three months, lapses after one year (s10(5)). And a collective agreement may raise overtime to 15 hours a week, but only for up to two months in any 12-month period (s10(6)).

Meal intervals and rest periods (sections 14 and 15)

An employee who works continuously for more than five hours must get a meal interval of at least one continuous hour (s14(1)). Work counts as continuous unless broken by an interval of at least 60 minutes.

A written agreement can cut the interval to 30 minutes, or do away with it for someone who works fewer than six hours that day (s14(5)). The interval is unpaid unless the employee must work or stay available during it, or the interval runs longer than 75 minutes (in which case the excess is paid), unless the employee lives on the premises (s14(3)).

Section 15(1) adds two rest periods:

• a daily rest period of at least 12 consecutive hours between finishing work and starting again, and
• a weekly rest period of at least 36 consecutive hours, which must include Sunday unless otherwise agreed.

By written agreement, the daily rest can drop to 10 hours for someone who lives on the premises and has a meal interval of at least three hours (s15(2)). The weekly rest can be replaced by at least 60 consecutive hours every two weeks, or shortened by up to eight hours in one week if the next week's rest is extended by the same amount (s15(3)).

Sunday work and night work (sections 16 and 17)

Work on a Sunday is paid at double the employee's wage for each hour worked. For someone who ordinarily works on Sundays, the rate is one and a half times (s16(1)). If the Sunday shift is short and that calculation comes to less than a normal day's pay, the employer must pay the ordinary daily wage (s16(2)). An agreement may substitute paid time off for the difference.

Night work means work after 18:00 and before 06:00 the next day (s17(1)). An employer may require or permit it only by agreement, and only if the employee gets an allowance (such as a shift allowance) or reduced working hours, and transport is available between home and work at the start and end of the shift (s17(2)).

Extra duties apply when someone works regularly after 23:00 and before 06:00, defined as more than one hour in that window at least five times a month or 50 times a year. The employer must explain the health and safety hazards, arrange a medical examination at its own cost on request, and transfer the employee to suitable day work within a reasonable time if night work is causing a related health condition and a transfer is practicable (s17(3) and (4)). These night-work health duties are not switched off by the earnings threshold.

Public holidays have their own rules in section 18, including when double pay applies and when it does not. Those are covered in public holidays in South Africa.

Leave under the BCEA at a glance

The BCEA sets these leave and time-off entitlements. Each one has its own page in this series. The table below gives the headline entitlement only.

Leave rights do not depend on earnings. The R269,600.90 threshold does not affect any of them. Chapter 3 does exclude anyone working fewer than 24 hours a month for an employer.

The parental leave row reflects the Constitutional Court's judgment in Van Wyk and Others v Minister of Employment and Labour [2025] ZACC 20 (3 October 2025). The published text of sections 25 to 25C still shows the older maternity and ten-day parental leave wording, but the Court's interim reading-in applies now. Beyond the UIF Act's existing ten-day parental benefit (section 26A), how the UIF will pay a second parent's share is not settled, so check the parental leave guide before planning around UIF money.

A Labour Law Amendment Draft Bill was published for comment in Government Gazette No. 54220 on 26 February 2026. It would put parental leave and matching UIF benefits into the statute. As of October 2026 it is a draft and not law.

Written particulars of employment and payslips

When an employee starts work, section 29(1) requires the employer to supply written particulars, including:

• the employer's full name and address, and the employee's name and job,
• the place of work and the start date,
• ordinary hours and days of work,
• the wage or how it is calculated, the overtime rate, other cash payments and any payment in kind with its value,
• how often pay is made and any deductions,
• the leave entitlement and the notice period (or the end date of a fixed-term contract),
• any bargaining council or sectoral determination covering the business, any earlier service that counts, and a list of other documents forming part of the contract.

If anything on the list changes, the particulars must be revised and a copy given to the employee (s29(2)). An employee who cannot understand them must have them explained in a language and manner they understand (s29(3)). The employer must keep them for three years after the employment ends.

On each pay day, section 33 requires written information showing the employer and employee, the pay period, the remuneration in money, each deduction and its purpose, and the amount actually paid. Where relevant, it must also show the rate and overtime rate, the ordinary and overtime hours worked, and hours worked on Sundays and public holidays.

Section 28(2) excuses employers with fewer than five employees from the pay-information duty in section 33, the record-keeping duty in section 31, the duty to display a statement of rights in section 30, and three items of the section 29 particulars (the bargaining council or sectoral determination, prior service, and the list of other contract documents). A sectoral determination, bargaining council agreement or the contract itself may still require more.

Pay must be made in rand, at least monthly, and no later than seven days after the end of the pay period or the end of the contract (s32). Deductions are allowed only with the employee's written agreement for a specified debt, or where a law, collective agreement, court order or arbitration award requires or permits them (s34). When employment ends, the employee is entitled to a certificate of service (s42).

Sectoral determinations and bargaining councils

The BCEA is a floor that other instruments can build on. A collective agreement concluded in a bargaining council may alter, replace or exclude a basic condition, provided it is consistent with the Act's purpose (s49(1)). Even so, it may not:

• reduce the protection in sections 7 and 9, or any regulation on hours made under section 13,
• reduce the night-work protection in section 17(3) and (4),
• cut annual leave to less than two weeks,
• reduce maternity, parental, adoption or commissioning parental leave,
• reduce sick leave, or
• conflict with the child-labour and forced-labour rules in Chapter 6.

Other collective agreements, and agreements between an individual employer and employee, may replace or exclude a basic condition only to the extent the Act or a sectoral determination allows (s49(2) and (3)). The Minister may also vary basic conditions by determination for a category of employers or employees, but never sections 7, 17(3) and (4), 25, 43(2), 44 or 48 (s50).

Sectoral determinations made under Chapter 8 set conditions for a specific sector and area, such as domestic work. Where one applies, read it alongside the BCEA. Domestic workers in particular have sector-specific rules covered in domestic worker rights. The national minimum wage of R30.23 an hour from 1 March 2026 sits under its own Act and applies alongside the BCEA.

Notice, severance and leaving a job

Chapter 5 deals with ending employment. Section 37 sets minimum notice of one, two or four weeks depending on length of service, with special rules for farm and domestic workers; see notice periods in South Africa. Section 41 requires severance pay of at least one week's remuneration per completed year of continuous service when someone is dismissed for the employer's operational requirements; see retrenchment and severance pay.

On termination, section 40 also requires payment for annual leave that is due but not taken. Whether a dismissal itself was fair is a Labour Relations Act question, covered in unfair dismissal.

How the BCEA is enforced

Every employee has the right to complain to a trade union representative, a trade union official or a labour inspector about a failure to comply with the BCEA or the National Minimum Wage Act (s78(1)(a)). Employees may also refuse an instruction or a contract term that is contrary to the Act, and inspect the employer's records about their own employment. Section 79 prohibits discriminating against or prejudicing an employee, former employee or job applicant for exercising these rights.

Labour inspectors are appointed by the Minister of Employment and Labour (s63). They can advise employers and employees, carry out inspections, investigate complaints and refer non-compliance disputes to the CCMA (s64). They may enter a workplace without a warrant or notice at any reasonable time, but need consent or a Labour Court authorisation to enter a home (s65). They can question people, inspect and copy records, and require documents to be produced (s66).

Enforcement usually runs in two steps:

1. Written undertaking. An inspector who believes an employer has not complied may try to secure a written undertaking to comply, including agreement on any amount owed (s68). If the employer then fails to honour it, the Director-General may ask the CCMA to make the undertaking an arbitration award (s68(3)).
2. Compliance order. The inspector may instead, or afterwards, issue a compliance order setting out the breach, any amount owed and the steps required, by a deadline (s69). The employer must comply or refer a dispute about the order to the CCMA within that period. If it does neither, the Director-General can apply to the CCMA to turn the order into an arbitration award (s73).

A compliance order cannot cover money owed to an employee who earns above the threshold, an amount already being claimed in the CCMA or a court, or an amount that has been payable for more than 36 months before the complaint (s70).

Claims for unpaid amounts (s73A). An employee or worker earning below the threshold can refer a dispute about any amount owing under the BCEA, the National Minimum Wage Act, a contract of employment, a sectoral determination or a collective agreement directly to the CCMA. A commissioner first tries conciliation, and arbitration starts immediately if it is not resolved. An employee earning above the threshold must instead claim in the Labour Court, the High Court or, within their limits, the Magistrates' Court or the Small Claims Court (s73A(3)).

Where an employee brings an unfair dismissal case, the arbitrator or Labour Court may also decide any amount owing under the BCEA in the same proceedings (s74(2)). Amounts due under the Act carry interest at the prescribed rate (s75). In any dispute, the burden is on the employer to prove its records are accurate, or, if it kept none, to prove it complied (s76).

For the referral procedure, forms and time limits, see how to refer a dispute to the CCMA. The CCMA's call centre is 0861 16 16 16.

Where to go next

The South Africa labour law section links every guide in this series, and the South Africa Laws hub covers the wider site.

This guide is general legal information, not legal advice. For advice on your own situation, consult an attorney, or contact Legal Aid South Africa (0800 110 110) if you cannot afford one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Basic Conditions of Employment Act apply to me?

Almost certainly, if you are an employee. Section 3 applies the Act to all employees and employers except members of the State Security Agency and unpaid volunteers working for a charitable organisation. Independent contractors are not employees. Some chapters exclude people who work fewer than 24 hours a month for an employer, and the working-time chapter excludes senior managers and travelling sales staff who set their own hours.

What is the BCEA earnings threshold for 2026?

R269,600.90 a year, with effect from 1 May 2026, set by Notice 7384 in Government Gazette No. 54544. Earnings means regular annual remuneration before deductions such as tax and pension, but excluding overtime pay, subsistence and transport allowances and achievement awards. Divided by twelve, the figure is about R22,466.74 a month.

If I earn above the threshold, can my employer refuse me overtime pay?

The BCEA no longer requires overtime pay for you, because section 10 is one of the sections the threshold switches off. Your contract, a collective agreement or company policy may still provide for it, and those terms are enforceable. Your leave rights, notice period and severance pay are not affected by the threshold.

Can my employer make me work overtime?

Only in accordance with an agreement. Section 10 limits overtime to 10 hours a week and caps the working day, including overtime, at 12 hours. An overtime agreement made when you start the job, or in your first three months, lapses after one year. A collective agreement may raise the weekly limit to 15 hours for no more than two months in any 12-month period.

Is a lunch break paid in South Africa?

Not normally. Section 14 requires a meal interval of at least one continuous hour after five hours of continuous work, but it is paid only if you are required to work or be available during it, or for any part of the interval longer than 75 minutes, unless you live on the premises. A written agreement can reduce the interval to 30 minutes, or remove it if you work fewer than six hours that day.

Am I entitled to a payslip?

Section 33 requires an employer to give written pay information on every pay day, including the period covered, the gross pay, each deduction and its purpose, and the amount actually paid. Section 28(2) excuses employers with fewer than five employees from this duty and some related record and notice duties, though a sectoral determination or contract may still require a payslip.

Can my employer deduct money from my wages?

Only if you agree in writing to a deduction for a specified debt, or the deduction is required or permitted by a law, collective agreement, court order or arbitration award (s34). A deduction to recover loss or damage is allowed only if the loss happened in the course of employment through your fault, the employer followed a fair procedure first, the amount does not exceed the actual loss, and total deductions for it stay within one quarter of your pay in money.

What can I do if my employer is breaking the BCEA?

You can complain to a labour inspector at the Department of Employment and Labour, who can secure a written undertaking or issue a compliance order. If you earn below the threshold, you can also refer a claim for unpaid amounts to the CCMA under section 73A. Section 79 prohibits victimising you for making a complaint or exercising these rights.