INDIA · STATE · WORKING TIME
Working hours rules in Goa
What the Shops and Establishments Act applicable in Goa sets for daily and weekly hours, spread-over, rest intervals, overtime and night-shift work — the rules that govern employers in Panaji, Verna IT Park. Every value below links to the source it was verified against.
- Governing Act
- Goa, Daman and Diu Shops and Establishments Act, 1973 (cited in later Goa legislation as Act 13 of 1974). A replacement Act — the Goa Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 2025 — is gazetted but awaits a commencement notificationgoa.gov.in ↗
- Maximum daily hours
- 8 hours in any day (ss.5(1) shops / 11(1) establishments) — lower than most statesgoa.gov.in ↗
- Maximum weekly hours
- 48 hours in any week (ss.5(1) / 11(1))goa.gov.in ↗
- Spread-over limit
- 12 hours; extended to 14 hours for stock-taking and preparation of accounts, on payment of overtime wages (ss.7 / 13)goa.gov.in ↗
- Rest interval
- At least one hour after 5 hours of work (ss.6 / 12) — an hour, not the half-hour common elsewheregoa.gov.in ↗
- Overtime rate
- Twice the ordinary rate of wages beyond 8 hours a day or 48 a week (s.29)goa.gov.in ↗
- Overtime cap
- 6 hours per week (ss.5(2) / 11(2)), plus a separate allowance of up to 24 hours in aggregate across at most 15 days a year for stock-taking and accounts (ss.5(3) / 11(3))goa.gov.in ↗
- Weekly off
- One full day per week — shops close (s.8(1)); establishment employees get a holiday of one whole day (s.14(1)), with no wage deduction (s.14(4))goa.gov.in ↗
- Women on night shifts
- The 1973 Act contains no restriction on women working at night — Chapter IV restricts children and young persons only. This is an absence of prohibition, not an affirmative permission notificationgoa.gov.in ↗
- IT/ITES exemption
- Notification 24/11/2018-LAB/672 of 7 November 2019 exempted registered IT units from ss.8, 10, 11, 16 and 50 for five years — which expired around November 2024, and no renewal was found. Treat as lapsed unless confirmed with the Labour Commissionerteamleaseregtech.com ↗Secondary source
Notes on Goa
- →Two regimes exist on paper. The 1973 Act governs today (8 hours a day, 6 overtime hours a week, one-hour break). The 2025 Act — 10 hours a day, 144 overtime hours a quarter, half-hour break — is enacted and gazetted but not yet commenced.
- →The 2025 Act, once in force, applies only to establishments with 20 or more workers and excludes workers earning above ₹24,000 a month, which would take most IT staff outside it entirely.
- →Reports of a 2026 Goa women's night-shift notification trace to draft rules under the OSH Code, not to the Shops Act.
Verify before you rely on it. State rules are amended by notification, exemptions for IT/ITES establishments are often time-bound and renewed separately, and the Labour Codes continue to be brought into force state by state. This page records what we could verify against a named source at the time of writing — it is general information, not legal advice, and it does not replace reading your state's current rules or asking your compliance advisor.
Keeping to these limits in practice
Limits are only enforceable against a record. Workclave captures every work session with its start, stop and breaks, applies your workspace's shift and break rules, and produces the statutory attendance register from the same data — so daily, weekly and overtime totals are computed as work happens rather than reconstructed at month end. Multi-state employers can configure rules per workspace.
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