Successful claim for financial compensation for overtime – what the ruling means for you

We’ve all been there: the to-do list gets longer, the working hours get longer – and at the end of the month it turns out that you’ve worked significantly more than planned.

Additional work is also often the order of the day in the public sector, as a recent case from Lower Saxony illustrates.

On February 11, 2025, a former primary school principal was awarded financial compensation by the Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony for working too much. His individual weekly additional work amounted to five hours and 48 minutes; he had claimed eight hours and 42 minutes.

The OVG Lower Saxony has now ruled: The teacher is entitled to an additional payment of 31,000 euros for “excess work”. The senate has not allowed an appeal to the Federal Administrative Court.

This ruling sends a clear signal: Teachers can be paid for working longer than agreed on a permanent basis. Provided they have fully documented their working hours.

However, the ruling is not only exciting for the public sector – the time recording obligation affects all industries.

Why time tracking is indispensable today

With the time recording obligation planned by the legislator (ArbZG-E), there is a fundamental obligation to document the start, end and duration of employees’ daily working hours.

In some companies, timesheets are still used to record times. This approach is time-consuming, error-prone and involves a high administrative burden. That’s why companies are best off switching directly to digital time tracking .