Guarding and ERGANI: what the employer must declare

Article 577 §1 of the Labour Code lists what is filed digitally in ERGANI II. For a security company, the items that matter are:

• The hiring announcement for every guard.
• Changes to the employment relationship, on the “change of employment details” form — for example pay, conversion from part-time to full-time, working hours under a working-time arrangement.
• The digital organisation of working time, meaning the schedule each guard works.
• The end of the contract: dismissal, resignation, expiry of a fixed term or mutual agreement.
• Hourly pay: the conversion of a salary or daily wage into an hourly rate must be registered (§4).

In addition, guarding and protection businesses with activity codes (ΚΑΔ) 8010 and 8020 are covered by the digital work card (Ministerial Decision 24595/2024). How the card works on a shift is explained in the guide to the digital work card in guarding.

ERGANI is not the only filing. Law 2518/1997 (art. 4) requires a security company to report its staff to the police every month, with each person’s work-licence number and post. It is a separate duty under a different law, and it should match ERGANI.

Under art. 578 §1, the employer posts the digital start-of-work announcement to ERGANI II “before the start of work”, with the essential terms of the job. To be valid, the employee signs it by hand, with an approved e-signature, through a gov.gr digital certification, or accepts it in MyErgani.

• First shifts are often nights or weekends. The announcement must be done before the guard reaches the post, not on the next working morning.
• On-site training counts. A new guard who spends a shift beside an experienced colleague to learn the site is already working.
• The guard’s acceptance is part of the process. Leave time for it to be completed before the shift.

If an employee is found working without the announcement, the undeclared-work sanctions of art. 5 of Law 4554/2018 apply (art. 578 §4).

Article 581 §1 makes no exception for multi-site businesses: registration happens “in any case before employees take up duty”. §3 lets employers on the digital card skip advance registration, but if the change cannot be identified from the card marking, a fine is imposed per employee.

In a security company with dozens of posts, the risk is not ignorance of the law; it is that changes are made by phone and nobody records them. Three practices keep ERGANI in step with reality:

1. One roster, one source. Every change goes into the shift roster first and flows from there into the filings — not into notes or chat messages.
2. One owner per change. The supervisor or duty manager who approves a change makes sure it is recorded before the shift starts.
3. End-of-day reconciliation. Roster, card markings and shift reports are compared daily; anything that does not match is fixed the same day.

How to build a roster that changes less is covered in the guide to the security shift roster.

• A guard from another post or a rest day: their working-time organisation changes, so art. 581 applies.
• The previous guard stays until relief arrives: the extension must show in the card marking; the guard clocks out when they actually leave.
• A new person “just for tonight”: without the digital start-of-work announcement before the shift, the work is undeclared (art. 578). And without a security staff work licence, they cannot guard at all (Law 2518/1997, art. 3).

Replacements must also respect rest periods between shifts. A relief pool of guards with a known schedule makes cover both lawful and fast; see how to set one up in the guide to the shift roster.

Article 582 allows late submission (§1) and correction by amending submission (§2). But art. 581 §1 provides for sanctions when inspectors find a schedule change or overtime that was not registered before it started. Correcting is a duty of accuracy, not a cure for lateness.

There is a reason beyond inspections: the guard sees every filing about them in MyErgani and can get a notification on their phone (art. 577 §1). A schedule that does not match the hours actually worked is noticed first by the guard — a matter of trust as much as of compliance.

• The post’s roster by shift, with the name of whoever covered it.
• Confirmation that the post’s shifts are declared with hours that match the roster, or a statement from an independent accountant.
• Work-licence numbers of the guards on site.
• A consequence if the data is not provided or does not match.

Which evidence to ask for, and why not payslips by name, is covered in the guide on checking that a security company pays its guards lawfully. At OVIT, every shift’s patrols, incidents and reports appear in one live picture in Guardly, so the client sees who guarded the site. To see how that would work for your premises, request a proposal.