Guide · Work · 7 min read
Hours, overtime and rest days
The daily and weekly limits on your hours, overtime pay, rest days and shift work.
In plain English · by bruneilaws · not legal advice· Law as at 30 Sep 2026
On this page · 9 parts
The short answer
Except as the Employment Act provides, your contract of service cannot require you to work more than 8 hours in one day or more than 44 hours in one week.
If you work past the daily or weekly limit that applies to you at your employer's request, you are paid for the extra work at not less than one and one-half times your hourly basic rate of pay, whatever the basis on which your rate of pay is fixed.
Who these rules cover
The Employment Act's definition of an employee does not include a seaman, a domestic worker, or a person employed in a managerial, executive or confidential position.
The limits on hours in section 65 do not apply to employees in the fire and rescue service, or to work that by its nature involves long hours of inactive or stand-by employment.
Hours of work
Except as the Act otherwise provides, you cannot be required under your contract of service to work more than 6 consecutive hours without a period of leisure.
If your work must be carried on continuously, you may be required to work 8 consecutive hours, including one or more periods adding up to at least 45 minutes in which you have the chance to have a meal.
The 8-hour limit may be exceeded in these cases, but you cannot be required to work more than 9 hours in one day or 44 hours in one week:
- Your contract has you working fewer than 8 hours on one or more days of the week, and the limit is exceeded on the remaining days
- Your contract has you working on not more than 5 days a week
If your contract has you working fewer than 44 hours in every other week, the 44-hour limit may be exceeded in the other week, but you cannot be required to work more than 48 hours in one week or more than 88 hours in any continuous period of 2 weeks.
Except in the circumstances listed in section 65(2), you cannot be permitted to work more than 12 hours in any one day.
You cannot be permitted to work overtime for more than 72 hours a month.
When your employer can ask for more
Your employer may require you to exceed the limits on hours in section 65(1), and to work on a rest day or a public holiday, in any of these cases:
- An accident, actual or threatened
- Work that is essential to the life of the community
- Work that is essential for defence or security
- Urgent work to be done to machinery or plant
- An interruption of work that was impossible to foresee
- Work in an industrial undertaking essential to the economy of Brunei Darussalam, or in an essential service as the Internal Security Act defines it
In a dispute, the Commissioner has the power to decide whether your employer was justified in calling on you to work in the last of those cases.
Shift work
If you are engaged under your contract of service in regular shift work, or you have agreed in writing to work the hours section 67 sets, you may be required to work more than 6 consecutive hours, more than 8 hours in one day or more than 44 hours in one week. The average over any continuous period of 3 weeks cannot exceed 44 hours a week.
Your written agreement is valid only if sections 65 and 67 were explained to you and you were told the times your hours of work begin and end, the number of working days in each week, and your weekly rest day.
Under section 67, you cannot be permitted to work more than 12 hours in any one day.
If, at your employer's request, you work more than an average of 44 hours a week over any continuous period of 3 weeks, you are paid for that extra work at the overtime rate in section 65(4).
Overtime pay
For a monthly-rated employee, the hourly basic rate of pay used for overtime is 12 times the monthly basic rate of salary, divided by 52 times 44 hours.
Additional payments for overtime work have to be paid not later than 14 days after the last day of the salary period in which the overtime work was done.
Rest days
You are allowed a rest day of one whole day in each week. It is Sunday or another day your employer decides.
If you do shift work, your employer may give you any continuous period of 30 hours as your rest day instead.
If your employer decides your rest days, it has to prepare a roster of them before the month in which they fall begins.
For sections 63, 65 and 67, the word week means a continuous period of 7 days starting at midnight on Sunday.
Subject to section 65(2), you cannot be compelled to work on a rest day unless your work, by its nature, has to be carried on continuously by a succession of shifts.
Pay for working on a rest day
If you work on a rest day or a public holiday at your own request, you are paid for that day:
- Up to half your normal hours of work: the basic rate of pay for half a day's work
- More than half, up to your normal hours: the basic rate of pay for one day's work
- Beyond your normal hours, when you worked the rest day or public holiday at your own request: the basic rate of pay for one day's work, plus not less than one and one-half times your hourly basic rate of pay for each hour or part of it beyond them
If you work on a rest day or a public holiday at your employer's request, you are paid for that day:
- Up to half your normal hours of work: the basic rate of pay for one day's work
- More than half, up to your normal hours: the basic rate of pay for 2 days' work
- Beyond your normal hours, when you worked the rest day or public holiday at your employer's request: the basic rate of pay for 2 days' work, plus not less than one and one-half times your hourly basic rate of pay for each hour or part of it beyond them
Your normal hours of work are the hours a day you and your employer agree as your usual hours, within the limits of section 65 or 67. If you have not agreed any, they are taken to be 8 hours a day.
Exemptions by the Commissioner
After considering the employer's operational needs and the health and safety of the employees, the Commissioner may, by order in writing, exempt an employee or a class of employees from the limits in sections 65(1), 65(5), 65(8) and 67(3), on conditions the Commissioner thinks fit.
When the Commissioner makes such an order, or directs that the pay for extra work does not apply, your employer has to display the order or a copy of it conspicuously where you are employed.
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