Too hot to work? Workplace temperature rules across Europe

Updated August 29, 2026 · Claude AC · 3 sources cited

Contents (6)

What EU law actually says
National rules, which is where the numbers live
What an employer is actually expected to do about a hot office
Measuring it properly, before the argument starts
Home working, the growing blind spot
Frequently asked questions

Every heatwave, the same question is typed into search boxes across the continent in a dozen languages: is there a temperature at which my employer has to send me home? The honest answer is that the European Union sets no maximum working temperature — and that this matters far less than it sounds, because what EU law does impose is an obligation to assess and control the risk, which bites long before any thermometer reading would.

What EU law actually says

Two directives frame the question. The framework directive on safety and health at work makes the employer responsible for assessing risks and taking the measures necessary to control them, with no exemption for weather. The workplace directive then requires, in its minimum requirements for premises, that the temperature in rooms where people work be adequate for human beings during working hours, having regard to the working methods and physical demands involved.

« Adequate » is deliberately not a number. A packing hall at 28 °C and a call centre at 28 °C are not the same risk, and a figure written into a directive in 1989 would have aged badly. The consequence for a worker is that the useful question is never « is 30 °C legal? » but « has my employer assessed this heat and acted on the assessment? ». EU-OSHA, the agency that supports member states on occupational safety, published dedicated guidance on heat at work after its 2025 worker survey found roughly one in five workers in the EU had been exposed to extreme heat on the job in the previous year — a figure that explains why national rules have been moving quickly.

National rules, which is where the numbers live

Member states fill the gap themselves, and they do it in four distinguishable styles: binding numeric ranges, tiered technical guidance, index-based thresholds, and alert-triggered duties. The table below summarises the approaches; the exact wording and current status of each text should be checked nationally before anyone relies on it, because several were amended in 2025 and 2026.

Country	Approach	What it looks like in practice
Spain	Binding numeric range	Royal Decree 486/1997 sets 17–27 °C for sedentary office work and 14–25 °C for light physical work in enclosed premises
Germany	Tiered technical rule (ASR A3.5)	26 °C as the reference ceiling, mandatory measures above 30 °C, and above 35 °C the room counts as unsuitable for work without heat-protection measures
Belgium	Index-based thresholds	The welfare code uses WBGT — a measured index combining heat, humidity and radiation — with action thresholds of 29 for light work down to 18 for very heavy work
France	Alert-triggered duties	A 2025 decree ties employer obligations to Météo-France heat vigilance levels: risk assessment updated, drinking water provided (at least three litres per worker per day where there is no running water), work organisation adapted
Greece	Emergency circulars	During declared heatwaves the labour ministry suspends outdoor and manual work in named regions during peak hours, typically 12:00–17:00, and pushes teleworking for at-risk groups
Poland	Labour-code duties, reform under way	Free cold drinks are owed above 28 °C indoors; explicit maximum-temperature rules have been drafted and debated since 2025 and should be checked for current status
United Kingdom	No maximum at all	The 1992 workplace regulations require a « reasonable » temperature and the regulator publishes guidance; there is a minimum in practice but no legal upper limit

Three observations are worth more than the individual figures. First, the countries with the hottest summers do not necessarily have the strictest indoor rules — Spain does, but Greece governs peak heat mostly through emergency measures aimed at outdoor work. Second, the German numbers are the ones most often quoted abroad as « the European rule », and they are technical guidance rather than a hard prohibition — highly authoritative in practice, but not a switch that sends an office home at 30.1 °C. Third, the direction of travel is unmistakable: France in 2025, Poland’s draft, Greece’s annual circulars and Cyprus’s heat-stress rules are all recent, and all move from vague adequacy toward triggered obligations.

What an employer is actually expected to do about a hot office

Because the duty is risk-based, the expected response follows the standard prevention hierarchy rather than a purchase order. In roughly the order an inspector will look for:

Stop the heat getting in. External shading, solar-control film, blinds on the sun-facing façade. Solar gain through unshaded glazing is the dominant load in most European offices and the cheapest to remove.
Cut internal gains. Server cupboards ventilated separately, obsolete lighting replaced, printers and kitchen equipment moved out of occupied space.
Ventilate intelligently. Night purging while outdoor air is cooler, closing up in the morning — the free strategies detailed in our guide to cooling without air conditioning in Europe.
Adapt the work. Shifted hours, rest breaks in cooler areas, relaxed dress codes, deferral of physically demanding tasks to the morning, teleworking where the home is cooler than the office.
Provide drinking water, which several national texts make explicit rather than optional.
Then cool mechanically, sized and sited properly. A fixed split or an existing building system will always beat the row of hired portable air conditioners that appear in offices during heatwaves and dump their condenser heat into the corridor.

Nothing in any of this obliges an employer to install air conditioning as such. The obligation is to reach an adequate temperature by adequate means; cooling equipment is one means among several, and in a building with south-facing single glazing and no blinds it is rarely the first one an inspector would expect to see.

Measuring it properly, before the argument starts

Disputes about workplace heat usually stall on the measurement. Air temperature should be read at the workstation, at roughly seated head height, away from direct sun, away from equipment exhausts and away from a supply grille — a thermometer on a sunlit windowsill proves nothing. Belgium’s framework goes further and requires WBGT, which is why a Belgian office can be legally comfortable at an air temperature that a German technical rule would flag: humidity and radiant heat are part of the index. Keep a simple dated log of readings, note what the employer did in response, and take it to the health and safety representative or works council. That evidence trail is what turns a general legal duty into a specific one.

Health and safety obligations do not evaporate when the desk moves home, but their application varies sharply between member states and is unsettled almost everywhere. In practice, employers are far more likely to fund a fan, a portable unit or a return to an air-conditioned office than to be found in breach for a hot spare room. If your home office is the hotter of the two locations, the ability to come in during a heatwave is a reasonable request; if it is the cooler, teleworking is precisely the adaptation several national texts encourage.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a temperature at which I can legally stop working?

Almost nowhere in Europe is there an automatic numeric cut-off for indoor office work. Germany’s technical rule treats above 35 °C as unsuitable without protective measures, several countries suspend heavy or outdoor work during declared heatwaves, and every member state grants workers the right to withdraw from a situation of serious and imminent danger. Heat becomes such a danger through symptoms and circumstances — dizziness, cramps, exhaustion — rather than through a threshold on a display.

Must my employer install air conditioning if the office is too hot?

No European rule requires air conditioning by name. The requirement is an adequate temperature achieved by adequate measures: shading, ventilation, adapted hours and equipment changes are all valid answers, and mechanical cooling is the last step of the hierarchy rather than the first. What an employer cannot do is nothing.

Which country has the strictest indoor temperature rules?

Spain has the clearest binding numbers for enclosed workplaces, Germany the most detailed tiered guidance, and Belgium the most technically rigorous method through its WBGT thresholds. Comparing them directly is misleading, because they measure different things — an air temperature limit and a heat-stress index are not interchangeable.

Does the same rule apply to outdoor work?

Outdoor work is where the recent legislative movement has been concentrated: Greek circulars suspending manual work in peak afternoon hours, the French decree keyed to heat vigilance levels, and dedicated heat-stress rules in several southern member states. The reason is blunt — outdoor fatalities during heatwaves are what drove the reforms.

What is a sensible office temperature to aim for anyway?

Comfort research and every national text converge on a band rather than a point: broadly 20–26 °C for sedentary work, with humidity and air movement mattering as much as the number itself. Setting a cooled office to 21 °C in August wastes energy, creates uncomfortable transitions from outdoors and often makes complaints worse — the reasoning is set out in our guide to the best air conditioning temperature in Europe.