Overtime rules for garment factories

Working hours are where garment factories fail audits most often, and where unrest starts when overtime goes unpaid. The rules are short; keeping to them every week of peak season is the hard part.

The limits

• 8 normal hours a day and 48 a week.
• With overtime, at most 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week, averaging no more than 56 a week over a year.
• A rest break of an hour after 6 hours (or 30 minutes after 5).
• One full weekly holiday, with no deduction from wages. If it is lost, a compensatory day off is due.
• Women work between 10 pm and 6 am only with their consent.
• Hours after midnight on a night shift count to the day the shift began.

A 2026 government order allowed export garment factories two extra overtime hours for a limited period. The dates are reported inconsistently, so check the current gazette before planning around it. Most buyer codes keep the 60-hour week regardless, and require overtime to be voluntary.

Overtime pay

Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate of basic. The usual hourly basic is the monthly basic divided by 208 (26 days of 8 hours). For the entry grade basic of ৳6,700, that is ৳32.21 an hour, so ৳64.42 for each overtime hour. Work on the weekly holiday counts as overtime in full.

What auditors check

• 12 months of time records against the overtime register and the payslips. Any difference is a finding.
• Weeks over 60 hours, and days without a weekly holiday, especially in peak months.
• Overtime approval and worker consent before the hours are worked.
• Records edited by hand without a trail, or hours capped at a ceiling instead of the real clock time.

The worst finding is two sets of books: one register shown to auditors and another used for pay. It turns a fixable hours problem into a trust problem with every buyer.

How Ovelit Comply applies this

Punch machine logs are imported as they are. Every morning each worker's previous day and week are checked: days over 10 hours, weeks over 60, and 7 days in a row without rest raise alerts while there is still time to change the roster. Overtime approvals can be required before overtime counts, and each buyer's own limit is stored with the buyer. Check one worker's week with the overtime limit checker.