INDIA · STATE · WORKING TIME
Working hours under the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act
What the Shops and Establishments Act applicable in Karnataka sets for daily and weekly hours, spread-over, rest intervals, overtime and night-shift work — the rules that govern employers in Bengaluru, Mysuru. Every value below links to the source it was verified against.
- Governing Act
- Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 (Karnataka Act 8 of 1962), as amended by the Amendment Act, 2026 (L.A. Bill 23 of 2026) — which changes registration, service certificates and penalties (ss.3, 4, 6, 21, 22, 25, 30, 33) and leaves the hours chapter (ss.7–12) untouchedprsindia.org ↗
- Maximum daily hours
- 9 hours (s.7(1)); total hours including overtime capped at 10 per day except on stock-taking and accounts days (first proviso)Sources disagree: Notification E-LD 4 LET 2019 of 27 September 2024 (24×7 operation for establishments with 10+ staff) sets 8 hours a day as a condition of using it, repeating the January 2021 text rather than the July 2021 corrective amendment that aligned it to 9 hours. Establishments relying on the 24×7 permission should plan on 8prsindia.org ↗
- Maximum weekly hours
- 48 hours (s.7(1))prsindia.org ↗
- Spread-over limit
- 12 hours in any day, inclusive of the rest interval (s.10)prsindia.org ↗
- Rest interval
- At least 1 hour, and no work period may exceed 5 hours before it (s.9)prsindia.org ↗
- Overtime rate
- 2× normal wages for work beyond 9 hours a day or 48 a week (s.8(1)); “normal wages” = basic plus allowances, excluding bonus (s.8(2))prsindia.org ↗
- Overtime cap
- 50 hours in any period of three continuous months (s.7(1) second proviso). The 2024 and 2025 Labour Department proposals to raise this to 144 hours a quarter were not enacted — the 2026 Amendment Act does not touch s.7prsindia.org ↗
- Weekly off
- One whole day per week per employee (s.12(3)); the establishment itself must close one day a week (s.12(1)) unless permitted to stay open under s.12(2). Notification E-LD 4 LET 2019 of 27 September 2024 permits all shops and commercial establishments with 10+ employees to open 24×7 for three years from gazette publication, on condition that additional staff are appointed so every employee gets one day off a week by rotationfoxmandal.in ↗
- Women on night shifts
- s.25 bars women from work at night (“night” = at least 12 consecutive hours including 8pm–6am, s.2(m)); the proviso inserted by Act 14 of 2002 lets the Government exempt IT/ITES establishments subject to transport and security. Under the 27 September 2024 24×7 notification a woman may work 8pm–6am only with her written consent, with protection of her dignity and safety, transport for shift workers (notice at the main entrance), restrooms, lockers and a functioning POSH Internal Committee (conditions 6–9)foxmandal.in ↗
- IT/ITES exemption
- Statutory, not notification-based: s.3(2)(q) and (r), inserted by Act 11 of 2001 (in force 1 June 2001), exempt Information Technology and IT-enabled-service establishments only from s.11 (opening/closing hours) and s.12(1) (weekly closure). Daily/weekly hours, overtime, rest and spread-over (ss.7–10) still apply to IT firmsprsindia.org ↗
Notes on Karnataka
- →The five-year IT/ITES exemption renewed on 10 June 2024 (Notification LD 328 LET 2023, to 9 June 2029) is under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, not the Shops Act. It does not change working-hours limits; not read first-hand here.
- →Section 25 was substituted in 2020 to allow women in any establishment to work at night subject to listed conditions — the 2026 Amendment Act omits clauses (h)–(o) of s.25(1). The 2020 substitution text was not read; the women-night-shift conditions above are taken from the 2024 notification, which is the operative instrument for 24×7 establishments.
- →The 24×7 notification of 27 September 2024 runs three years from gazette publication (to roughly October 2027); check for renewal. Its 8-hour daily condition contradicts s.7(1)'s 9 hours — Fox Mandal flagged this; the July 2021 amendment to the earlier notification had fixed the same defect.
- →Karnataka published draft OSH Code rules in January 2026; final state rules were not confirmed as of October 2026 (secondary trackers).
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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