Hong Kong rostering rules: what the Employment Ordinance requires in 2026.

Who the rules cover: the new 468 rule

Most Employment Ordinance entitlements — rest days, statutory holiday pay, paid annual leave — apply to employees under a continuous contract. For decades that meant the "418" test: four consecutive weeks with the same employer, working at least 18 hours in each of them.

Since 18 January 2026the test is "468": an employee is continuously employed after 4 weeks if they worked at least 17 hours in each week or at least 68 hours in aggregate across the 4-week period. The practical effect for hospitality: casuals whose hours swing week to week — quiet Tuesday, packed Saturday — now qualify far more easily. If you roster a casual pool, assume more of it is covered than last year.

Rest days: one in seven, no exceptions you can plan for

An employee under a continuous contract is entitled to not less than one rest day in every period of seven days. A rest day is a full 24 hours. You cannot compel work on a rest day except in a genuine unforeseen emergency — a breakdown, not a busy Saturday — and if that happens, you must grant a substitute rest day within 30 days and tell the employee within 48 hours.

The trap for roster-writers is the boundary between weeks: a pattern that looks fine on each printed page can still run someone eight or nine consecutive days across the page break. That streak is where the rule actually breaks.

Statutory holidays: 15 days in 2026, and counting

Hong Kong's statutory holidays are increasing in steps — 13 from 2022, 14 from 2024, and 15 in 2026, with Easter Monday newly added — on the way to 16 in 2028 and 17 in 2030. Employees with three months of continuous employment are entitled to holiday pay for each of them.

Hotels don't close on statutory holidays, so the rules on working them matter: you may require work on a statutory holiday, but you must grant an alternative holiday within 60 days (before or after), and paying cash instead of granting the day is not permitted. Every statutory holiday worked therefore creates a day you owe — a liability that quietly accumulates unless the roster tracks and repays it.

Working hours and overtime: the rule is your contract

Hong Kong has no statutory maximum working hours and no statutory overtime premium for general adult employees. That surprises managers arriving from other markets — but it doesn't mean hours are unregulated. It means the binding rules are the ones in your own employment contracts: contracted weekly hours, agreed overtime terms, internal policies. The roster is where those promises are kept or broken, and disputes are settled by what was scheduled and worked.

Annual leave: 7 to 14 days by service

Paid annual leave under a continuous contract starts at 7 days after the first 12 months and rises one day per year of service from the third year (8 days), reaching the maximum of 14 days at nine years. Alongside statutory holidays and owed rest days, this is the third balance a roster has to burn down before year-end — December pileups are made in July.

What this means for whoever writes the roster

• Check consecutive working days across week boundaries, not per printed week.
• Track which casuals have crossed the 468 threshold — their entitlements changed in January 2026.
• Record every statutory holiday worked and schedule the alternative day inside the 60-day window.
• Keep contracted vs actual hours visible per person — with no statutory overtime rules, your contracts are the whole game.
• Plan annual leave down across the year instead of discovering the balance in November.

This is exactly the category of bookkeeping that breaks spreadsheets — and exactly what RosterProject enforces automatically: rest-day and consecutive-day rules are hard constraints the AI cannot violate, statutory holidays and owed days are tracked and repaid in later rosters, and contracted hours sit on every grid. See how it works for restaurants, front desk and housekeeping teams.