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Any work between midnight and 4am (goods) or 1am and 5am (passenger) caps working time at 10 hours. What counts, worked examples and how to extend it.
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The night work limit applies to mobile workers, and to self-employed drivers, who do any work in the night-time window. The rule comes from regulation 9 of the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005. Night time runs from midnight to 4am for goods vehicle crews and from 1am to 5am for passenger vehicle crews.
The part operators most often miss: the limit is triggered by doing any work in the night-time window. There is no minimum number of night hours before it applies, and the 10 hours is a cap on working time, not on the length of the shift.
Key points at a glance:
Regulation 9(1) is short. The working time of a mobile worker (or self-employed driver) who performs night work in any period of 24 hours must not exceed 10 hours during that period. That is the whole limit. Everything else, what “night time” means, what counts as work, how to extend the limit, hangs off it. You can read the provision in full on legislation.gov.uk.
“Night work” means any work performed during night time, and night time is defined by the type of vehicle:
So a lorry driver who does any work between midnight and 4am has performed night work that day. For a coach or bus driver, the window is 1am to 5am. The shift does not have to be mainly at night: one piece of qualifying work inside the window is enough.
Night work is not only driving. Loading, unloading, walkaround checks, fuelling and job-related paperwork all count as work. Any of it carried out inside the night-time window is night work and brings the 10-hour limit into play for that 24-hour period.
Any amount. There is no threshold.
This is the single most common misunderstanding, because the road transport rule differs from the better-known one. A single minute of work in the night-time window makes that a night-work day, and the 10-hour cap applies to the working time in that 24-hour period. A 03:45 start for a goods vehicle, or a tip that runs past midnight, is enough.
Under the general Working Time Regulations 1998, a “night worker” is broadly someone who works at least three hours at night on the majority of their working days, and the general night period is 11pm to 6am. People often assume the same three-hour idea and the same 11pm-6am window apply to drivers. They do not. For mobile workers in scope of the 2005 Regulations, use the specific goods (00:00-04:00) and passenger (01:00-05:00) windows, and remember there is no three-hour threshold.
These windows apply to drivers in scope of the 2005 Regulations: broadly, drivers of vehicles covered by Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 as it has effect in the UK, and drivers on international journeys under the AETR (see which rules apply: assimilated, AETR or GB domestic). Drivers of vehicles that are exempt from those rules and work under GB domestic drivers’ hours are outside the 2005 Regulations. They fall under the general Working Time Regulations 1998 instead, where the 11pm-6am night period and the three-hour night-worker test do apply.
The 10-hour night work limit is a limit on working time. Under the 2005 Regulations and DVSA guidance, working time is time when the worker is at the workstation, at the employer’s disposal and carrying out road transport activities.
Working time normally includes:
Working time normally excludes:
Because the cap is on genuine working time, a driver can be on duty for longer than 10 hours and still comply, provided actual working time stays within 10. But every minute of driving and other work is counted.
This is where tachograph modes and manual entries matter. If a driver records genuine availability as other work, the working time total is overstated and you may chase a phantom breach. If they record actual work as availability, you may miss a real one. The treatment has to match what the driver was actually doing, and the record has to support it.
Pay particular attention to mode switches around the start and end of the night-time window. If work done inside the window is recorded as availability or rest, the night work is invisible in the data and the 10-hour cap is never tested.
The legal wording is “any period of 24 hours”, and the Regulations do not define it further. In practice, measure it from the start of the driver’s working time, not the calendar day, and not only the hours inside the night-time window.
So you assess each 24-hour period that contains night work, counted from the start of working time, and check that the working time within it stays at or under 10 hours.
Within the limit: an HGV driver works 18:00 to 04:00. During that duty they take 1 hour of break and record 1 hour as a genuine period of availability. Working time is 8 hours. Because they worked after midnight the night work rule is triggered, but the 10-hour limit is not exceeded.
Over the limit: an HGV driver works 17:00 to 05:00 with 45 minutes’ break and no period of availability. That is 11 hours 15 minutes of working time in a duty that includes night work. Unless a valid agreement or self-employed election extends the limit, this exceeds the 10-hour night work limit.
A clean night work result does not prove the whole duty is compliant. The same duty still has to be checked against drivers’ hours, breaks, daily rest and the weekly working time limits.
Yes, but it is not a casual individual opt-out. Regulation 9 allows the 10-hour period to be extended for objective or technical reasons, or reasons concerning the organisation of work, by a collective agreement or a workforce agreement. A self-employed driver may elect to extend their own limit for the same reasons (regulation 9(2A)).
For employed mobile workers, an operator relying on an extension should be able to point to the relevant agreement and show which workers it covers, and DVSA guidance says workers must be able to see the details in advance. In practical terms, a workforce agreement is a proper workforce document, not a line buried in a driver handbook, and not a permission slip signed after the shift has already run.
Two further points are worth holding onto:
There is no individual opt-out from the road transport working time rules, unlike the 48-hour week under the 1998 Regulations. A driver cannot simply sign the limit away.
The night work limit is one layer of compliance. Drivers in scope still have to meet the driving, break and rest requirements in Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 as it has effect in the UK, and the tachograph recording duties under Regulation (EU) No 165/2014. Where the rules overlap, you follow the stricter one.
The working time break rules are separate again. Under regulation 7 of the 2005 Regulations, a mobile worker (or self-employed driver) must not work more than 6 hours without a break; work of more than 6 and up to 9 hours needs at least 30 minutes’ break; and work of more than 9 hours needs at least 45 minutes. Each break can be made up of periods of at least 15 minutes.
Where the work is mainly driving, a drivers’ hours break may also satisfy the working time break if it is long enough and taken at the right time. But it is not safe to assume every tachograph break solves every working time problem - check both layers.
The interaction that catches people out: daily driving can be up to 9 hours, extendable to 10 twice a week. But if any of that shift is night work, total working time is still capped at 10 hours unless extended by agreement. So 9 hours’ driving plus 1.5 hours of loading and checks is 10.5 hours’ working time, a breach if any of it falls in the night-time window, even though the driving limit itself was respected. A driver can be perfectly legal on driving time and still breach working time.
Operators should also remember the separate health assessment duty for night workers under the Working Time Regulations 1998. GOV.UK guidance says employers must offer workers a free health assessment before they become a night worker, and regular assessments afterwards. Workers do not have to accept. If a health professional says night work is affecting a worker’s health, the employer must offer suitable alternative work where possible.
Keep this separate from the 10-hour road transport night work limit. One is a working time cap on mobile road transport work; the other is a health protection duty for night workers. Both can apply to the same driver.
Employers must keep working time records for two years. The digital tachograph captures driving and other recorded activity, but on its own it does not always give a clean working-time picture: work done away from the vehicle may need separate records, and the driver has to have selected the correct mode. Regulation 9(4) places a positive duty on the employer to take all reasonable steps to keep each worker within the limit; it is not enough to discover a breach after the event.
This article covers one rule in detail. For the wider working time framework, including the weekly limits, reference periods and record-keeping duties, see the category pillar guide, The Road Transport Working Time Rules: A Guide for Operators and Drivers.
Three related guides feed directly into the night work calculation: Working Time vs Period of Availability vs Break sets out what goes into the 10 hours and what stays out; What counts towards the working day: yard time, early starts and loading covers the early-start yard work that most often tips a duty into the night-time window; and WTR breaks vs drivers’ hours breaks explains why a tachograph break does not automatically satisfy the working time break rules.
If a driver or crew member in scope of the road transport working time rules does any work in the night-time window, check the whole 24-hour period. The default cap is 10 hours of working time, not 10 hours of duty, and not 10 hours worked only at night.
The safest approach is to build night work into the plan before the vehicle leaves the yard, then verify it afterwards through accurate tachograph and working time analysis. That cross-checking, across every driver, depot and shift pattern, is the analysis Tacho Agent takes off operators’ hands, so night-work and working-time issues are spotted early rather than turning into repeat infringements at audit.
This article is provided for general guidance only and reflects our understanding of the rules as they apply in Great Britain as at the date shown on this page. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice tailored to your specific operation.
Drivers' hours, tachograph, working time and operator licensing rules are detailed and change over time, and some requirements differ in Northern Ireland and for international journeys. Always check the current guidance on GOV.UK and the underlying legislation on legislation.gov.uk, and consult your transport manager or a qualified compliance professional before acting.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Tacho Agent Ltd accepts no liability for any loss arising from action taken, or not taken, in reliance on this article. Nothing here excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence or for fraud. Use of this article is also governed by our Terms of Use.
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