With flexibility in some cases, the digital card will be mandatory from 3 November 2025 for thousands of workers in the wholesale, energy, financial services, and administrative and support activities in tourism.

The digital measurement of working time does not include teleworkers, only those who are physically present in the workplace. Therefore, the digital card marking reflects the first entry and last exit from the company’s premises.

To measure the total daily working time of employees, the pre-declared working hours in the information system ERGANI and the scheduled working hours are also taken into account.

However, Article 22 of Law no. 5053/2023 introduces the possibility for enterprises that have joined the digital work card mechanism, if they wish, not to register in advance changes or modifications of working hours or the organization of working time or overtime before they are implemented.

The responsibility

The marking of the digital work card, which must correspond to the actual start or end of employment on the premises of the enterprise, is an obligation of the employee that cannot be substituted in any other way by the employer (e.g., completion of incomplete “hits” by the employer). The responsibility, however, for the correct implementation of the system, for the correct use of the system by the employee, and for compliance with the digitally declared hours of work, is the employer’s responsibility.

By using the digital card, the first entry and the last exit from the premises of the enterprise is marked, which, in combination with the contractual pre-declared and scheduled daily working hours in the P.S. ERGANI, produces results on the actual daily working time of the employees, such as the start and end time of work, the duration of the break, as well as exceeding legal working hours.  Detailed information on the correct implementation of the Digital Job Card is available at https://psifiakikarta.gov.gr/.

The Digital Job Card is an important tool that ensures employees are paid for their actual time worked. Its implementation helps to combat undeclared and/or underreported work, while protecting both workers and healthy businesses from unfair competition. The effectiveness of the measure is confirmed by the latest official data of the information system “ERGANI” as there is an increase in recorded overtime in the sectors of application by more than 3.5 million hours compared to the years before the implementation of the measure.

This measure already protects 1,500,000 workers employed in banks, supermarkets, insurance companies, security companies, public utilities, industry, retail, tourism, and catering, while after its full implementation in wholesale trade, energy, financial companies, and administrative and support activities in tourism, the total number will reach about 1,850,000. At the same time, the total number of integrated enterprises will exceed approximately 280,000 enterprises.

The total number of enterprises will be approximately 280,000