Working time and overtime advice in Peru

Working time rules are among the most frequent sources of employment claims and inspection findings in Peru, and among the easiest to overlook from abroad. A group may assume that salaried staff are exempt, that time recording is optional for office roles, or that a roster used in another country will work in Peru. None of those assumptions is safe.

The business problem

The maximum ordinary working time in Peru is eight hours a day or 48 hours a week. Employers can adopt cumulative or atypical schedules, such as rotating rosters at mining or remote sites, provided the average over the cycle does not exceed the maximum. Night work, between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., carries a minimum pay floor above the statutory minimum wage. Employees are entitled to a meal break of at least 45 minutes and a weekly rest of 24 consecutive hours.

Overtime is voluntary. It must be paid with a premium of at least 25% for the first two hours and 35% for later hours, or compensated with equivalent time off by agreement. Overtime that was worked, even without prior authorization, is presumed authorized and must be paid. Employers must keep an attendance record showing entry and exit times, including overtime. Our guide to working time in Peru sets out the rules; the notes on overtime and atypical work schedules cover the most common questions.

How we approach it

We begin by mapping how people actually work: scheduled hours, recorded hours, messages and system logs that show work outside hours, and practices at remote sites. Gaps between those sources are where exposure lies.

We then test the operation against the rules, including exempt classifications. Only management personnel, employees not subject to immediate supervision and certain intermittent roles are excluded from the maximum. Where the analysis shows a gap, we redesign schedules or rosters, draft an overtime policy with approval and recording rules, and document the exempt positions properly.

What the engagement includes, and its limits

The service covers schedule and roster review, overtime policy, exempt-role documentation, time recording rules and an estimate of historical exposure. It is often combined with a wider employment audit.

We do not select or implement time-recording software, and our exposure estimates depend on the records available. Collective agreements may add conditions; we take them into account but do not renegotiate them within this service. We cannot guarantee how an inspector will read records that are incomplete.

Coordination with the parent company, finance and payroll

Working time decisions translate directly into payroll cost. We share the overtime rules and roster designs with the payroll team so that premiums, night pay and rest-day work are calculated consistently; where payroll is run by Lynch Payroll, that coordination is direct. Finance receives an estimate of historical exposure and the cost of the proposed schedules, and the regional office a short English summary of what changes and why.

Getting started

Send us current schedules, a sample of time records and a description of how overtime is approved today. That is enough for a first view of where the risks are.