Is a security guard's nap time working time? How do you design labour for intermittent duty?

Bottom line first: A security guard's nap time is working time, even while asleep, if staying in the nap room and responding to alarms and calls is required and release from work is not guaranteed (the general view from the Oboshi Building Management case, Supreme Court First Petty Bench, 28 February 2002). Standby time during traffic control is also working time when under the employer's direction. To remove the working-hours, break and holiday rules as monitoring or intermittent duty requires permission from the head of the Labour Standards Inspection Office (Labour Standards Act Article 41(iii)), and even with permission the late-night premium (Article 37(4)) is not waived. The security-business authorisation and renewal belong to a Gyoseishoshi (Public Safety Commission procedure) and the property to a real-estate agent, each contracted separately as an independent business entity.

This page focuses on the labour side a Shakai Hoken Roumushi handles: whether nap and standby time are working time, the permission for intermittent duty, and premium wages. The security-business authorisation itself is the area of a Gyoseishoshi and the Public Safety Commission.

Is nap time working time even when you are not working?

Even without actual work during a nap, if staying in the nap room is required and you must respond to alarms or take calls, so that release from work is not guaranteed, the nap time counts as working time as a whole. This is the view shown in the Oboshi Building Management case (Supreme Court First Petty Bench, 28 February 2002), which recognised as working time under Article 32 of the Labour Standards Act the nap time of a building-management employee on an overnight shift (staying in the nap room, taking calls and responding to alarms were required).

How the nap is placed	View on working-time status
Staying in the nap room is required; duty to respond to alarms/calls	Release from work not guaranteed = working time as a whole
Free to leave the worksite, no call-outs, a complete break	Release from work guaranteed = break time
Called a "nap" but patrol or monitoring in fact continues	Actual work itself = working time

What labour must grasp is that it is decided by the reality of whether release from work is guaranteed, not by the name "nap" or "break". If a nap is treated as working time, premium wages are needed for the part exceeding statutory hours (8 hours a day / 40 a week, Article 32). The difference between night shift and overnight duty is set out in How night shift and overnight duty differ at a group home.

Is standby time during traffic control working time?

In traffic control or facility security, "standby time" spent waiting for instructions or for visitors and passers-by differs from a break. Standby time is not guaranteed release from the employer's direction and keeps you ready to respond at once. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's "Guidelines on measures employers should take for the proper grasp of working hours" also treats working time as time under the employer's direction and includes standby time.

Type of time	Working time?	View
Break time	No	Time with a guaranteed right to be released from work (Labour Standards Act Article 34)
Standby time	Yes	Waiting for work or instructions, unable to leave the employer's direction

Treating travel to a site or waiting on site as a "break" easily leads to unpaid-wage problems. The idea of on-call/standby allowances and working time is also related to Is a home-visit nursing on-call allowance working time.

What permission is needed to remove the working-hours rules as intermittent duty?

For monitoring or intermittent duty with little actual work and much standby time, such as a watchman or gatekeeper, if the employer obtains permission from the head of the Labour Standards Inspection Office, the provisions on working hours, breaks and holidays (Chapter 4 of the Labour Standards Act) are excluded (Article 41(iii)). Permission is obtained by submitting an application in Form No. 14 to the competent head of the Labour Standards Inspection Office (Labour Standards Act Enforcement Regulations Article 34).

Item	Content
Basis	Labour Standards Act Article 41(iii) (a person in monitoring or intermittent duty for whom the employer has obtained administrative permission)
Rules removed by permission	Working hours (Art. 32), breaks (Art. 34), holidays (Art. 35), the overtime/holiday part of premium wages (Art. 37)
Authority / procedure	Head of the competent Labour Standards Inspection Office; application in Form No. 14 (Enforcement Regulations Article 34)
Hard to be granted	Duty with much actual work or frequent response, i.e. little standby time

Security with ongoing actual work or judgement, such as traffic control, is hard to bring within the permission for monitoring or intermittent duty, and whether a duty can be granted turns on the reality of the work. Because the specific application of which security duty qualifies depends on the Inspection Office's review, we do not conclude on the individual case here (unverified). The permission criteria for overnight/day duty are set out separately in Permission criteria for overnight/day duty in medicine and care.

Even with permission, is the late-night premium required?

Yes. Because Article 41 does not exclude the night-work provisions, even with permission for monitoring or intermittent duty, a late-night premium must be paid for work in the late-night band from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. (administrative interpretation, Hatsumoto No. 1506 of 14 October 1948). Even where wages are set on the premise of a 24-hour rotation, this late-night premium duty is not waived.

Duty	Overtime premium	Holiday premium	Late-night premium
Ordinary guard	Required (Art. 37(1))	Required (Art. 37(1))	Required (Art. 37(4))
Guard with intermittent-duty permission	Removed (Art. 41(iii))	Removed (Art. 41(iii))	Required (Art. 41 does not exclude night work)

The idea that permission lowers all labour costs is wrong; the late-night premium remains. This follows the same reasoning as a manager still needing a late-night premium; the relationship between a nominal title and premium wages is set out in Nominal managers and the late-night premium.

How do you calculate premium wages for late-night and long duty?

For ordinary guard duty without permission, you calculate premium wages separately for overtime beyond statutory hours, work on a statutory holiday, and work in the late-night band. Where they overlap, the rates add up (e.g. late-night overtime is 25% + 25% = 50% or more).

Category	Basis	Premium rate
Overtime	Labour Standards Act Article 37(1)	25% or more
Overtime beyond 60 hours a month	Same (applied to SMEs too from 1 April 2023)	50% or more
Statutory-holiday work	Article 37(1)	35% or more
Late-night work (10 p.m.–5 a.m.)	Article 37(4)	25% or more

For security with long hours, the overtime cap (Article 36) and concluding/filing a 36 Agreement are the premise. The scope a 36 Agreement can allow is in How far can a 36 Agreement allow overtime, choosing a variable working-hours system to level out peaks in Choosing variable working hours and flextime, and the duty design of a facility with night shifts in Staffing and night-shift labour of a fee-charging home for the elderly. From how many employees work rules are mandatory is in From how many employees are work rules mandatory.

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Who should you consult about the security-business authorisation and renewal?

The authorisation and renewal to start or continue the security business itself are a Public Safety Commission procedure and the area of a Gyoseishoshi. The person in charge differs from labour design.

Procedure	In charge
Security-business authorisation and renewal (Public Safety Commission), disqualifications and training	Gyoseishoshi (四葉行政書士事務所, a business entity independent of this office)
Working-time status of nap/standby, intermittent-duty permission, premium wages, work rules, working-hour management	Shakai Hoken Roumushi (四葉社会保険労務士事務所)
Confirming the property used as an office or standby place	Real-estate agent
Tax	Tax accountant

四葉社会保険労務士事務所 accepts labour work as an independent business entity, and where another professional such as a Gyoseishoshi (四葉行政書士事務所) or a real-estate agent is needed, we introduce them under a contract you conclude directly, separately. This office takes no referral fee.

What can 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 do?

What this office takes on is the design of labour so a security company can build wages and duty matched to the reality of naps and standby, and avoid unpaid premium wages.

• Checking the reality of nap/standby time and organising the range to treat as working time
• Considering whether a duty should obtain permission for monitoring or intermittent duty (Article 41(iii)), and reflecting the late-night premium that remains even with permission
• The method of calculating overtime, holiday and late-night premiums, the design of fixed overtime pay, and concluding/filing the 36 Agreement
• Designing a variable working-hours system matched to the peaks of guards' duty
• Preparing work rules, wage rules, notice of working conditions and working-hour management

The security-business authorisation and renewal belong to a Gyoseishoshi, the office property to a real-estate agent, and tax to a tax accountant. 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 accepts work as an independent business entity, and where another professional is needed, we introduce them under a contract you conclude directly, separately. There is no referral fee.

Consultations are free of charge. Fees are set out in the fee schedule; see also our services and how a consultation proceeds.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Is nap time always working time?
A. Not always. It becomes working time as a whole where staying in the nap room is required and there is a duty to respond to alarms or calls, so release from work is not guaranteed (the general view from the Oboshi Building Management case, Supreme Court First Petty Bench, 28 February 2002). If it is a complete break with free exit and no call-outs, it can be treated as break time. Which the reality amounts to turns on the specific arrangement of the duty.

Q. Is time spent waiting on site during traffic control a break?
A. Standby time that is not guaranteed release from the employer's direction and is spent waiting for work or instructions is working time, not a break. The Ministry's guidelines on the proper grasp of working hours also include standby time as working time. A break is time with a guaranteed right to be released from work (Labour Standards Act Article 34).

Q. If we get permission for intermittent duty, is overtime pay no longer needed at all?
A. No. With permission from the head of the Labour Standards Inspection Office (Article 41(iii)), the rules on working hours, breaks and holidays and the overtime/holiday premium are removed, but the late-night (10 p.m.–5 a.m.) premium is not (administrative interpretation, Hatsumoto No. 1506 of 14 October 1948). Also, duty with much actual work and little standby is hard to be granted in the first place.

Q. Can a Shakai Hoken Roumushi handle the security-business authorisation?
A. The security-business authorisation and renewal are a Public Safety Commission procedure and the area of a Gyoseishoshi. What a Shakai Hoken Roumushi takes on is labour: the working-time status of naps and standby, intermittent-duty permission, premium wages, and work rules and working-hour management. We introduce the authorisation to a Gyoseishoshi (四葉行政書士事務所, a business entity independent of this office), under a contract you conclude directly.

Basis for this article

• Labour Standards Act (Act No. 49 of 1947) Article 32 (working hours), Article 34 (breaks), Article 35 (holidays), Article 36 (overtime and holiday work), Article 37 (premium wages for overtime, holiday and late-night work; paragraph 1 = 25% or more for overtime, 35% or more for holidays, 50% or more over 60 hours a month applied to SMEs too from 1 April 2023; paragraph 4 = 25% or more for late-night), Article 41(iii) (a person in monitoring or intermittent duty for whom the employer has obtained administrative permission is excluded from the working-hours, break and holiday rules)
• Labour Standards Act Enforcement Regulations (Ordinance of the Ministry of Welfare No. 23 of 1947) Article 34 — the Article 41(iii) permission is obtained by submitting an application in Form No. 14 to the competent head of the Labour Standards Inspection Office
• Oboshi Building Management case (Supreme Court First Petty Bench, 28 February 2002) — nap time during which staying in the nap room, taking calls and responding to alarms were required, and release from work was not guaranteed, counts as working time under Labour Standards Act Article 32 as a whole, including the time not spent on actual work (general view)
• Administrative interpretation (Hatsumoto No. 1506 of 14 October 1948) — because Article 41 does not exclude the night-work provisions, even a person with permission for monitoring or intermittent duty must be paid the late-night premium (general view)
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, "Guidelines on measures employers should take for the proper grasp of working hours" — working time is time under the employer's direction, and standby time is included (accessed 1 October 2026)
• The application of the permission for monitoring or intermittent duty (which security duty qualifies) and the final judgement of whether a nap or standby amounts to working time in a specific case turn on the Inspection Office's review and the courts' judgement. This article does not conclude on the individual case (unverified)

This article is general information. Individual determinations are made by a qualified professional after a consultation, in light of individual circumstances. 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 can advise on organising the working-time status of nap/standby time, considering the permission for monitoring or intermittent duty and reflecting the late-night premium that remains, the overtime/holiday/late-night premiums and fixed overtime pay, concluding/filing the 36 Agreement, variable working hours, and preparing work rules and wage rules. The security-business authorisation and renewal are handled by a Gyoseishoshi (四葉行政書士事務所), the office property by a real-estate agent, and tax by a tax accountant. 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 accepts work as an independent business entity, and where another professional is needed, we introduce them under a contract you conclude directly, separately; there is no referral fee. Frequently asked questions are collected in the FAQ. Written by Joji Uramatsu (Shakai Hoken Roumushi, Gyoseishoshi, Registered Real Estate Transaction Specialist).