Nobody sits down and decides to be exploited on time. It happens slowly. One late finish becomes routine. One rest day gets borrowed. One long week stretches into a long month. And suddenly you are working much more than you are paid for — and you have no record of when it started.
Time is money in a very direct sense in labour law. Every extra hour beyond the legal limit has a price. If it was not paid, it was taken.
The basic rules for working hours
In Israel, the regular working week is 47 hours for a 6-day week or 43 hours for a 5-day week. A regular day of work is 8 hours on a 6-day week and 9 hours on a 5-day week.
Once you go beyond those daily limits, overtime begins.
The overtime rate is: – First two overtime hours in a day: 125% of your regular hourly rate – Further overtime hours in the same day: 150% of your regular hourly rate
This means a 10-hour day on a 6-day week should appear on your payslip as 8 regular hours and 2 overtime hours at 125%. If your payslip only shows 8 hours, those two extra hours were not paid.
The important exception for live-in caregivers
Many Sri Lankan workers in Israel work as live-in caregivers — and if you are one of them, this section is among the most important in the entire guide.
If you work as a caregiver living in the employer’s home, the overtime rules described above do not apply in the same way. Israeli case law has established a different framework for live-in caregivers because of the nature of round-the-clock presence.
This does not mean caregivers have no rights. It means your hours, rest, and payment calculation work differently. If you are a live-in caregiver and you are unsure how your hours should be calculated, this is exactly the kind of situation where guessing is dangerous — check with an expert.
A related issue: on-call time. Being required to stay near the employer’s home, available to respond at short notice, is different from genuine free time. Whether on-call hours count as work time in your specific caregiver arrangement is one of the most contested questions in Israeli labour law. If this affects you, it is worth raising with the Ombudsman.
💬 Are you a live-in caregiver unsure about your hour calculation? Use Ask an Expert on LankaConnect. The rules for caregivers are specific and your situation deserves a personal answer.
What counts as work time
Most workers think “work time” means whatever is written on the schedule. It does not. Work time includes It includes: time waiting at the workplace at the employer’s request, training time required by the employer, time spent completing tasks before or after the official shift, and work done on what should be a rest day.
If your employer asks you to arrive 30 minutes early every morning to prepare, that 30 minutes is work time. If it never appears on your record, it is hidden unpaid work.
Weekly rest: what it actually means
Every worker in Israel is entitled to at least 25 consecutive hours of weekly rest. That is not “some free time when work is quiet.” It is an uninterrupted period during which you should not be called, not be asked to respond, and not be expected to be available.
If your rest day is regularly interrupted — short calls, brief returns, messages that require immediate action — you may effectively have no real weekly rest at all. When that happens consistently, it should be documented and questioned.
How to keep track without making it complicated
You do not need special software. A phone note updated at the end of each day works perfectly. Write: date, start time, finish time, any unusual instruction, and whether you worked during what should have been your rest day.
This habit costs almost nothing. But if a dispute arises about how many hours you worked over the past three months, your log is the difference between having evidence and having a memory.
When the shift record and the payslip tell different stories
This is where most problems become visible. You know you worked long days. The payslip shows only regular hours. The gap between your record and the employer’s record is where underpayment lives.
When you see that gap, the first step is a written question: “My records show I worked 11 hours on May 6th. The payslip shows 8 hours and no overtime. Please explain how the hours were counted.”
Sending that in writing does two things at once: it creates a record, and it forces a real answer. What the employer says next — or does not say — tells you where you actually stand.
Simple checklist
- Know your daily regular hour limit (8 hours for 6-day week, 9 for 5-day week)
- Record start and finish times every day including breaks
- Note any work done during scheduled rest time
- Check whether overtime lines appear on the payslip and match your records
- If you are a live-in caregiver, verify which specific rules apply to your arrangement
- Ask a written question when the payslip does not match your records
WHERE TO GET HELP
| Organisation | What they help with | Contact |
| Ombudsman for Foreign Workers’ Labour Rights — Ministry of Labor | Wage, hours, leave, dismissal complaints. Free. No lawyer needed. Complaints accepted in many languages. | 📍 Shlomo (Selma) St 53, Tel Aviv · 🌐 gov.il (search: foreign worker rights) |
| PIBA — ජනගහන හා සංක්රමණ අධිකාරිය | ඔබේ වීසා, රැකියා බලපත්රය, හෝ ඊශ්රායලයේ නෛතික තත්ත්වය ගැන ගැටළු ඇත්නම් PIBA හා සම්බන්ධ වන්න. (Visa, work permit and legal status questions) | 📞 *3450 · 🌐 piba.gov.il |
| Sri Lankan Embassy in Israel | Passport renewal, document authentication, consular assistance, emergencies | 🌐 israelembassy.gov.lk |
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