Short Answer

Blanket contract clauses stating that your flat monthly salary compensates for all accumulated overtime are legally void for standard employees.

Your employer cannot force you to perform uncompensated labor under a vague, limitless contractual summary.

What Most Expats Don't Realize

You regularly logged 50-hour workweeks at a tech startup, believing a clause in your agreement meant you were contractually obligated to work the extra hours for free. When you resigned, you requested a payout for your 120 hours of accumulated overtime, but HR pointed to the catch-all clause and rejected your claim completely. You lost approximately €3,600 in earned income because you did not challenge the invalid paragraph before your final exit.

What To Do

  • Print out your digital time-tracking logs or maintain a personal physical calendar detailing every minute of extra work performed.
  • Ask an employment lawyer to review the wording of your contract's compensation clause to confirm its legal invalidity.
  • "Da die Überstundenklausel in meinem Vertrag intransparent und somit unwirksam ist, fordere ich die Vergütung meiner geleisteten Mehrarbeit." (Since the overtime clause in my contract is non-transparent and therefore invalid, I demand the compensation of my performed extra work.) — send this formal demand to accounting upon termination.