TOIL is a promise, not a right
Nowhere in the UK, the US, Australia or Canada can a worker simply demand time off in lieu of overtime pay. It exists only where somebody agreed to it: a UK contract or written policy, an Australian award or registered agreement, a written agreement under a Canadian province's employment standards, or, in the US, a public-sector employer using the one legal route open to it. This tracker keeps the ledger; it does not create an entitlement that was never there.
The trap nothing else mentions: banking hours can breach the minimum wage
HMRC's own National Minimum Wage Manual, NMWM08550, is direct about this: TOIL is not a concept minimum wage law recognises at all. The hours actually worked count as working time in the pay reference period they were worked in, full stop, and the period spent off in lieu afterwards counts as no work done.
So if hours are earned in one pay period and not offset with time off until a later one, the earlier period was, for minimum wage purposes, worked and unpaid. Whether that breaches the minimum wage depends on how close to the floor the ordinary rate already sits, which is exactly the case nobody checks because the time off feels like it squares the books. It does not, not for minimum wage purposes. This tracker flags every hour that crossed into a later pay period before being offset, because that is the shape of the risk regardless of anybody's actual pay rate.
What happens when somebody leaves reverses completely between markets
This is the question people ask on the way out of a job, and the four markets do not merely differ, two of them are opposites. The UK pays nothing unless it was promised. Australia usually must pay.
| Market | Is unused TOIL paid out on leaving? | Where that comes from |
|---|---|---|
| UK | Only if it was promised. There is no equivalent of the rule that forces untaken statutory holiday to be paid, and most contracts say nothing at all. | Contract or policy. The Working Time Regulations do not cover it. |
| Australia | Usually yes, and at the overtime rate. The opposite default to the UK. | The award or registered agreement that provides for TOIL. |
| Canada | Yes, and on a clock. Banked overtime must be used within three months, or twelve if the employee agrees in writing, and is paid out when that window passes or when employment ends, whichever comes first. | Ontario's Employment Standards Act, used as the worked example. Standards are set province by province. |
| United States | Yes, for the few who may have it. Accrued and unused comp time is cashed out on leaving. | FLSA section 7(o). State and local government employees only. |
Most American workers cannot lawfully have this arrangement at all
This is the sharpest difference of the four. 29 CFR 553 and DOL Fact Sheet #7 permit comp time instead of cash overtime for state and local government agencies only: 1.5 hours off per overtime hour, capped at 240 hours generally or 480 for public safety, emergency response and seasonal work. A private employer cannot lawfully give a non-exempt hourly employee time off instead of overtime pay, at any conversion rate. Overtime there has to be paid in cash. A salaried employee who is exempt from overtime altogether sits outside this entirely: time off given to them is a discretionary perk with no federal rate or cap, not comp time in the legal sense, and it lives or dies on whatever the employer's own policy says.
Picking "private sector, paid hourly" in the market settings surfaces this plainly rather than quietly letting the arrangement look normal. The tracker still totals the hours, because somebody may need the record to show what they gave up, but it will not pretend the arrangement itself is lawful.
What the tracker does
Add an entry every time hours are earned or taken, and the running balance, in hours and in days, updates as you go. Earned hours are spent oldest first, so when a crossing into a later pay period happens, the tracker can say exactly which entry it was rather than only that some balance is stale. Everything is saved on this device alone: no account, nothing uploaded, and a cleared browser or a different computer starts again from nothing.
Left out deliberately: converting the balance into a pounds, dollars or euros figure. That needs a pay rate, which turns a tracker into a payroll calculation, and the four markets disagree sharply enough on what rate even applies that guessing one would be worse than leaving the box empty.
Common questions
Is time off in lieu a legal right?
No, nowhere in the UK, US, Australia or Canada is TOIL something a worker can simply demand. In the UK it exists only if the contract or a written policy says so. In Australia and Canada it usually needs a specific award, agreement or written consent. In the US it is lawful only for state and local government employees; a private employer cannot substitute it for a non-exempt worker's overtime pay at all.
Can banking hours as TOIL breach the minimum wage?
Yes. HMRC's National Minimum Wage Manual (NMWM08550) is explicit that TOIL is not a concept minimum wage law recognises: hours worked count as working time in the pay reference period they were actually worked in, and the time taken off later counts as no work done, and that is the trap almost nothing else mentions. If hours earned in one pay period are not offset with time off until a later one, the earlier period was, for minimum wage purposes, worked and unpaid. Whether that actually breaches the minimum wage depends on how close to the floor the normal rate already sits.
What happens to unused TOIL when I leave my job?
It depends entirely on which market you are in, and the answer reverses. In the UK there is no automatic right to be paid for it, unlike statutory holiday, unless the contract or policy says so, and most say nothing. In Australia, where an award or agreement provides for TOIL, unused hours generally must be paid out at the overtime rate. In Ontario, banked overtime must be used within three months (twelve with written agreement) or paid out, and is paid out on leaving regardless. In the US, the one group the law actually allows to earn comp time, state and local government employees, get it cashed out too.
Can a US employer give comp time instead of paying overtime?
Only if the employer is a state or local government agency. The Fair Labor Standards Act, section 7(o) and 29 CFR 553, allows those employers to give 1.5 hours of time off for every overtime hour worked, capped at 240 hours generally or 480 for public safety, emergency response and seasonal roles. A private-sector employer cannot lawfully do this for a non-exempt hourly worker at any rate; it owes cash overtime instead. A salaried, exempt employee is outside the overtime rules altogether, so time off given to them is a discretionary perk rather than comp time in the legal sense.
How many hours off do I get for an hour of overtime?
Whatever has actually been agreed, in most cases. The UK has no statutory rate at all: 1:1 is common but not required. Australia is usually 1:1 unless the award or agreement says otherwise. Ontario's Employment Standards Act fixes it at 1.5 hours of time off per overtime hour, the same premium as the overtime pay it replaces. US state and local government comp time is fixed at 1.5 by federal law. The tracker suggests a default for the market picked, and it is editable because the UK figure in particular is only ever what the two of you agreed.
Does TOIL count towards the 48-hour working week in the UK?
Yes. The Working Time Regulations 1998 do not stop applying because hours were repaid with time off instead of money. The hours were still worked, so they still count towards the 48-hour average and the rest break and daily rest entitlements, and TOIL cannot be used to reduce or replace any of those separately protected rights.
Is my data saved anywhere?
On this device only, in the browser's local storage. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and a different computer or a cleared browser will not have it. Closing the tab keeps it; clearing your browsing data does not.