Minimum rights for workers in the European Union

How EU rules work

EU directives set minimum requirements. They almost never apply “on their own” between you and your employer: each country turns them into national law (transposition). To enforce a right you usually rely on the law of the country where you work. The directives still tell you what no EU country may take away.

Working hours, rest and paid leave

The Working Time Directive provides ^[1]:

• Daily rest: at least 11 consecutive hours in every 24 (Art. 3).
• Breaks: if the working day is longer than 6 hours you are entitled to a break; collective agreements or national law set its length (Art. 4).
• Weekly rest: in every 7-day period, at least 24 uninterrupted hours plus the 11 hours of daily rest (Art. 5).
• Maximum hours: on average no more than 48 hours per 7 days, including overtime (Art. 6). The average is normally calculated over a period of up to 4 months (Art. 16). Some countries allow longer hours only with your individual consent, and you must not suffer any detriment if you refuse (Art. 22).
• Paid annual leave: at least 4 weeks a year, which cannot be replaced by money except when the job ends (Art. 7).
• Night work: on average no more than 8 hours in 24 (Art. 8) and a free health assessment before you start and at regular intervals (Art. 9).

Written information, probation and predictability

The Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive ^[2] gives you these rights:

• Written information on the essential aspects of the job (Art. 4): parties, place of work, role, start date, end date if fixed-term, probation, leave, notice, pay, hours, collective agreement and more. The key items must be given between your first working day and the seventh calendar day; the rest within one month (Art. 5). On paper, or electronically if you can store and print it (Art. 3).
• Probation of no more than 6 months, save justified exceptions; for fixed-term contracts it must be proportionate, and there is no new probation if the contract is renewed for the same role (Art. 8).
• Second job: your employer cannot ban you from working for others outside your schedule, except for objective reasons such as health and safety or conflicts of interest (Art. 9).
• Unpredictable schedules: if your hours are mostly variable, you may refuse an assignment outside the agreed reference hours or without reasonable notice, without consequences (Art. 10).
• More secure work: after at least 6 months with the same employer and once probation is over, you can ask for a more predictable and secure form of employment and receive a reasoned written reply within one month (Art. 12).
• Mandatory training free of charge and counted as working time (Art. 13).
• Protection from dismissal for using these rights: you can ask for the reasons in writing (Art. 18).

Minimum wages: what the EU does and does not do

The Adequate Minimum Wages Directive ^[3] does not create an EU minimum wage and does not force countries where wages are set only by collective agreements to introduce a statutory minimum (Art. 1). Instead, it requires countries to promote collective bargaining: where less than 80% of workers are covered by collective agreements, the country must adopt an action plan to increase coverage (Art. 4). Countries with a statutory minimum wage must have procedures to set and update it using adequacy criteria.

On 11 November 2025 the Court of Justice (Grand Chamber), in Case C-19/23 Denmark v Parliament and Council, upheld most of the directive but annulled Article 5(2) (the list of mandatory criteria for setting statutory minimum wages: purchasing power, level and growth of wages, productivity), the reference to those criteria in Article 5(1), and the words in Article 5(3) preventing automatic indexation from lowering the minimum wage ^[4].

Pay transparency

The Pay Transparency Directive had to be transposed by 7 June 2026 (Art. 34) ^[5]. Check whether your country has already adopted its law. In short:

• Before you are hired you have the right to know the starting pay or its range; the employer must not ask about your pay history (Art. 5).
• While employed you can request in writing your own pay level and the average pay levels, broken down by sex, of people doing the same work or work of equal value. The answer must come within two months. Contract terms that stop you disclosing your pay are prohibited (Art. 7).
• Larger employers must report their gender pay gap (Art. 9) and, if there is an unjustified gap of at least 5% not fixed within 6 months, carry out a joint pay assessment with workers’ representatives (Art. 10).
• In a dispute, if you show facts suggesting pay discrimination, the employer must prove there was none (Art. 18).

Equal treatment

Discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation in access to work and working conditions is prohibited ^[6], and so is discrimination on grounds of sex, including in pay and dismissals ^[7].

Checklist

• Within your first week: did you receive in writing your role, pay, hours, probation length and start date?
• Check that probation does not exceed 6 months (or your country’s lower limit).
• Keep your own record of hours, breaks and rest: it helps if something goes wrong.
• Check that you have at least 4 weeks of paid leave and ask in writing how many days you have left.
• Before an interview, ask for the pay range; you do not have to say what you earn now.
• If you think you are paid less than colleagues doing the same work, make a written information request and contact a trade union or the labour inspectorate.