Unpaid time outside contracted shift

Short answer

In most cases, yes. If your employer requires you to carry out tasks such as opening up, closing down, setting up, or cleaning before or after your rostered shift, that time will normally count as working time. It must be paid, and it counts towards your entitlement to the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage. Employers cannot simply treat this as “off the clock” unpaid time.

The legal position

Under the National Minimum Wage rules, working time includes time spent at the workplace actually working, excluding rest breaks. It also includes time when you are required to be available at or near the workplace for the purpose of working, even if you are just waiting to be given tasks.

The key question is whether your employer requires or expects you to be there doing the activity. If opening, locking up, cash handling, setting up equipment, cleaning down, or handing over to the next shift is something you are told to do or reasonably have to do as part of the job, it is working time and must be paid.

GOV.UK guidance for employers specifically warns that failing to pay for additional time added onto a shift is a minimum wage breach. The examples HMRC gives include team handovers between shifts and time spent passing through security checks on entry and exit. Time spent cleaning or opening and closing on the employer’s instruction falls into the same category of tasks that must be paid.

How this affects the minimum wage

This matters for two separate reasons.

First, you should be paid for the time itself at your agreed rate.

Second, even if you are paid a salary or your paid hours are otherwise above the minimum, the unpaid extra minutes can drag your average hourly rate below the legal minimum. The minimum wage is calculated across all the hours you actually work in a pay reference period. If you regularly do fifteen unpaid minutes of opening or cleaning each shift, those minutes are added to your total working hours, and your total pay is divided across all of them. If that brings your effective hourly rate below the applicable minimum wage rate, your employer is underpaying you unlawfully.

Situations where it might not be paid

Do not assume every minute automatically counts. The position can differ depending on the facts.

If you genuinely choose to arrive early or stay late for your own convenience, and you are not required or expected to work during that time, it may not count. The test is whether the employer requires you to be there working or available to work.

Voluntary, unrequired activity that produces no work for the employer is different from instructed tasks. But if in practice you cannot do the job without opening up, or the premises cannot close without you cleaning and locking up, that is realistically required time even if the employer has never spelled it out.

Rest breaks are generally excluded from working time unless your contract says otherwise, so genuine breaks are a separate matter from pre- and post-shift duties.

Facts that would change the answer

To be sure of your position it helps to pin down a few things. How much extra time is involved on each shift and how often. Whether your employer instructs, rosters, or clearly expects the tasks. Your contract or written terms and what they say about hours and duties. Your actual pay and paid hours, so the effective hourly rate can be worked out. Whether any of the time is a genuine break rather than work.

If the tasks are required and unpaid, and the resulting hourly rate is below the minimum wage, you have a strong case. If the time is genuinely voluntary and unrequired, the position is weaker.

Practical next steps

1. Keep a contemporaneous record. Note the dates, your rostered start and finish times, the actual times you started and stopped, and what you were doing in the extra period. This evidence is central to any claim.

2. Check your contract and payslips. See what hours you are contracted and paid for, and work out your effective hourly rate once the unpaid time is included.

3. Raise it informally first. Many employers correct this once it is pointed out, particularly as it exposes them to minimum wage enforcement. Ask, in writing, for the pre- and post-shift working time to be paid and, where relevant, for arrears.

4. Put it in a formal written grievance if an informal request fails. Set out the tasks, the times, and the amount you say is owed.

5. Report to HMRC. You can make a complaint to HMRC, which enforces the minimum wage. It can investigate, require repayment of arrears going back up to six years, and fine the employer. You can report anonymously.

6. Consider Acas early conciliation and the employment tribunal. Unpaid wages can be pursued as an unlawful deduction from wages claim, or as a minimum wage claim. Before bringing a tribunal claim you must notify Acas and go through early conciliation. Strict time limits apply, generally three months less one day from the deduction or the last in a series of deductions, so do not delay if informal routes are not working.

Points to bear in mind

The unlawful deduction route can capture a series of underpayments, but there are limits on how far back a tribunal series claim can reach, so acting promptly protects the value of your claim. HMRC enforcement can reach back further for minimum wage arrears. Choosing between these routes depends on how much is owed, how long it has been happening, and whether you want to remain anonymous.

If several colleagues are affected in the same way, a joint approach or a collective complaint to HMRC can be effective and reduces the risk of you being singled out.

To give you a firmer view, tell me roughly how much extra time you do each shift, how often, whether your employer tells you to do it, and your current pay and contracted hours.