Nights, Sundays, holidays: a security guard’s premiums

Article 150 §1 of the Labour Code sets a 25% premium for work between 22:00 and 06:00, in businesses that run continuously or not, for all workers, whether or not they are permanently employed in those hours. A shift is not “a night shift” as a whole: what counts is each of its hours that falls inside 22:00–06:00.

• Night-only by the nature of the job: someone who works exclusively at night does not get the allowance only if their pay is already at least 25% above the statutory minimum; if the margin is smaller, the difference is paid (§2).
• Base and offsetting: the premium is calculated on the mandatory minimum wage and daily-wage limits, is not offset against any higher pay, and is reduced proportionally when you work less than the normal schedule (§3).

For sleep, food and light on night shifts, see our guide to night-shift health.

Article 219 §1 gives 75% to anyone working on Sundays and on the holidays in §2, regardless of the validity of the agreement to work them. The §2 holidays are:

• 25 March
• Easter Monday
• 1 May
• Dormition of the Virgin Mary (15 August)
• 28 October
• Christmas Day (25 December) and 26 December
• New Year’s Day (1 January)
• Epiphany (6 January)

If you are paid a daily wage and did not work on one of these holidays for a reason that was not your own, you are owed your daily wage without the premium (art. 219 §3).

Hypothetical examples, in hours only:

• 06:00–14:00 on a Tuesday: 0 night hours, 0 Sunday hours.
• 14:00–22:00 on a Tuesday: 0 night hours (night starts at 22:00).
• 18:00–02:00: 4 night hours (22:00–02:00).
• 22:00–06:00: 8 night hours.
• 06:00–14:00 on a Sunday: 8 Sunday hours, 0 night hours.
• 06:00–14:00 on 28 October: 8 holiday hours, 0 night hours.
• Saturday 22:00 – Sunday 06:00: 8 night hours, of which 6 (00:00–06:00) fall on the Sunday date.

A night week of five 22:00–06:00 shifts gives 5 × 8 = 40 night hours. A week of 06:00–14:00 mornings, Monday to Friday, gives 0. On a rotating roster your night hours therefore change from month to month — see how guard shifts are organised.

For shifts that cross midnight into a Sunday or holiday, log the hours before and after 00:00 separately. Article 219 refers to decisions 8900/1946 and 25825/1951 for how the premium applies; ask payroll to show you how those hours were counted.

Saturday night into Sunday is the most common case: 00:00–06:00 is night work and falls on a Sunday. We calculate no amount here, because how the two combine does not follow from the text of either article. What you can check with certainty is that the hours appear on your payslip, in the right column.

1. Note the hours that are both night and Sunday (or holiday).
2. Check they appear on the payslip as night hours.
3. Check they appear as Sunday or holiday hours.
4. If they are missing from either, ask in writing how they were calculated.

Guarding companies under activity codes (ΚΑΔ) 8010 and 8020 are on the digital work card (Ministerial Decision 24595/2024). The card records in real time in the ΕΡΓΑΝΗ ΙΙ system the start and end of work, breaks, work beyond the schedule and leave (art. 580 §2). So the time you clocked is the official trace of your shift.

1. Roster: the shifts you were assigned.
2. Card: the actual start and end times — a shift that ran over because relief was late shows up here.
3. Your own log: date, post, start, end, and how many night, Sunday and holiday hours the shift contained.
4. Payslip: the month’s totals in the same three columns.

How the card is marked at a client’s site and what happens when a shift changes is covered in our guide to the digital work card in security. The statutory pay floor is in the security guard salary guide.

• Be specific: “On 12/10 the 22:00–06:00 shift had 8 night hours; the payslip shows 6.” Not “I wasn’t paid properly.”
• In writing: by e-mail or message, so there is a trace.
• Promptly: every month, not a year later.

The Labour Inspectorate uses the digital work card to check that schedules are kept (art. 580 §4). A clean hours log makes every conversation shorter. OVIT hires guards for its local teams through the Careers page.