Time registration: what is it and why automate it?

Time registration is the systematic recording of when employees start and stop working. In Belgium it is moving from something most employers choose to do, to something they will be required to do.

What is time registration?

Time registration means capturing the hours an employee actually works: start, stop, breaks and, where relevant, which project or site the hours belong to. That is different from a planned roster, which records what someone was supposed to work. The distinction matters, because the whole point of a registration duty is to have an objective record rather than an assumption.

It is also different from Check-in-at-Work. CIAW records presence on certain sites for social-inspection purposes. Time registration records hours worked for labour law and payroll. Sites above the CIAW threshold need both, and they are not interchangeable.

What counts as digital time registration

Digital registration replaces paper time sheets with a record captured at the moment the work happens, usually through an app, a badge, a terminal or a site pole. The practical test is whether the record is created at the time of the event by the person doing the work, or reconstructed afterwards by someone in the office. Only the first is objective.

What changes in 2027

Two separate things are coming, and they are easy to confuse.

A general duty to register working time. The government intends to require every employer to keep an objective, reliable record of employees’ working time, with 1 January 2027 as the target date. This brings Belgium in line with European case law, which held that maximum working hours and minimum rest periods cannot be enforced unless hours are actually measured. Worth being precise here: the legislation has not been passed yet, so the shape is clear but the detail is not final.

Check in and out at work on construction sites. Separately, the Programmawet of 30 May 2026 makes IN and OUT registration mandatory for works in immovable state (excluding cleaning) and for delivery of ready-mix concrete, on sites worth 500,000 euro excluding VAT or more. That takes effect on 1 April 2027, and from that date attendance for such works can no longer be registered in Check-in-at-Work at all.

Why employers automate it

• Accuracy. Hours reconstructed at the end of the week are estimates. Rounding, forgotten overtime and missing breaks all end up in payroll.
• Admin time. Collecting, chasing and rekeying time sheets is work that produces nothing. Most of it disappears when the record arrives already structured.
• Evidence. If an inspector asks how you know an employee worked those hours, a digital record answers it. A spreadsheet rebuilt afterwards does not.
• Project costing. Once hours carry a site or project, you can see what work actually costs rather than what it was quoted at.

What to look for if you are choosing a system

• It has to work where the work happens – on site, in a vehicle, offline if coverage is poor.
• It has to reach payroll without rekeying, ideally straight into your social secretariat’s format.
• It has to handle the people who are not on your payroll if you run sites with subcontractors.
• It should be able to record an OUT, not just an IN, given what is planned for April 2027.

If you are comparing options, our time registration solution covers field, site and vehicle-based teams, and Check-in-at-Work handles the site-presence side.

Who has to register working time today

Right now the picture is uneven, which is exactly why a general duty is being introduced. Employers already have to be able to show compliance with maximum working time and minimum rest, and specific regimes carry their own obligations – part-time work, flexible working arrangements and sectors with their own collective agreements. On construction sites above the threshold, Check-in-at-Work adds a presence registration on top. The result is that many employers already register something, but not consistently and not in a form that would survive an inspection.

The four ways hours actually get registered

• Mobile app. The worker registers on their own phone. Best fit for teams that move between sites or work from vehicles. Needs a plan for people who will not use a personal device.
• Badge or tag. A physical badge scanned at a fixed point. Simple for crews who arrive at the same place, and it sidesteps the personal-phone question entirely.
• Site pole or terminal. A fixed unit on site. Common on larger construction projects where one registration point covers everyone arriving.
• Vehicle-based. Registration tied to the vehicle, which suits service and delivery teams whose working day effectively starts when they set off.

Most organisations end up with more than one, because a single method rarely fits every crew. The thing to check is whether they all land in the same record.

Where digital registration usually goes wrong

• Registering after the fact. If hours are entered at the end of the week, the record is a reconstruction. It fails the “objective and reliable” test that the coming duty is built on.
• No offline handling. Sites with poor coverage produce gaps, and gaps get filled in manually later.
• Breaks left to memory. Rest periods are part of what has to be demonstrable, not an optional field.
• A separate system per crew. Two tools means someone reconciles them, and reconciliation is where payroll errors come from.
• Rolling out without the foremen. Adoption is decided on site in the first fortnight, not in the office at signature.

Time registration, CIAW and payroll are three different things

It is worth separating them once, clearly:

• Time registration records hours worked, for labour law and costing.
• Check-in-at-Work records presence on specific sites, for social inspection.
• Payroll turns hours into pay, via your social secretariat.

A site above the CIAW threshold needs the first two, and the third depends on the first. Buying a tool that does one and assuming it covers the others is the most expensive mistake in this area.

Sources

RSZ/ONSS, Checkinatwork, including the alert of 30 July 2026 on Check in and out at work from 1 April 2027.
SD Worx, verplichte arbeidstijdregistratie.
Checked 30 July 2026. The general working-time registration duty is announced but the legislation has not yet been passed – treat dates as planned, not final.