A guide for employers
Working hours, overtime and holidays under the Shop and Office Act
For shop and office employees the Act sets a clear ceiling on ordinary hours, and everything beyond it is overtime.
Normal hours
Eight hours a day, forty-five a week.
Ordinary working time is up to eight hours a day and forty-five hours a week, not counting the one-hour meal and rest break, so a normal working day spans about nine hours. That ceiling is what "within the statutory limit" means: any work beyond the eight-hour day or the forty-five-hour week is overtime.
A typical office runs 8.30 to 5.00, Monday to Friday, with a half-day on Saturday. Five eight-hour weekdays come to forty hours, which leaves room for a Saturday morning inside the forty-five.
Overtime
One and a half times, capped at twelve hours a week.
Work beyond the limit is overtime, paid at not less than one and a half times the normal hourly rate. Overtime itself is capped at twelve hours in any week.
Overtime that is not recorded and paid correctly is one of the most common findings when the Department of Labour looks at a workplace. A clean record of hours, overtime and the rate applied answers the question before it is asked.
Factory and shift work
Shift work runs under the Factories Ordinance.
Factory-floor and shift workers sit under the Factories Ordinance and the relevant Wages Board rather than the Shop and Office Act. The daily span still runs to about nine hours with a meal break, and a full weekly rest day, usually Sunday, is required, with a premium for working it.
Night-work rules for women aged eighteen and over were relaxed in 2024, and further from 2026, for information-technology and business-process work and for hospitality and related sectors, where the employer provides safe transport or accommodation and secure working conditions.
Holidays
Weekly, Poya and public holidays sit on top.
An employee who works twenty-eight hours or more in a week earns one and a half paid days off that week. The monthly full-moon Poya days and the eight statutory public holidays are additional, not counted within ordinary time.
Where an employee works one of these, the rate steps up: a Poya day is paid at one and a half times the daily wage, and a statutory public holiday at twice the daily wage, or an alternative day off in its place.
This guide is general information for employers, not legal advice, and does not create a client relationship. Sri Lankan law and the applicable figures change, and how they apply depends on your circumstances. Confirm your position with a qualified adviser before acting.