French HCR agreement: automating restaurant scheduling and time tracking in 2026

Why the HCR agreement is special

The French national Hotels-Cafes-Restaurants collective agreement (IDCC 1979) covers around 700,000 employees in France. It governs all commercial restaurants, cafes, bars and independent hospitality. See the full details on the HCR convention page.

What makes it special: it sets a 39-hour conventional weekly duration (instead of the legal 35h), with specific overtime tiers, unpaid splits, and a meal in-kind allowance that must appear on payslips.

For a manager discovering this agreement, it is easy to miss things. For a scheduling tool not configured for HCR, it leads to payroll errors every month.

The 4 HCR rules to automate

1. Weekly threshold: 39h forfaitized

Unlike the general 35h regime, HCR sets 39h as standard duration. The 4 hours between 36h and 39h are forfaitized with a 10% markup.

Concretely: an employee at 39h gets their base salary without visible markup, but 4h are actually paid +10%. It is built into the agreed hourly rate.

In Squadra, the HCR contract is selected when creating the employee, and all calculations adjust automatically.

2. HCR overtime tiers

Beyond 39h, the agreement sets 3 tiers:

Hour range	Markup
39h to 43h	+20%
43h to 48h	+50%
Beyond 48h	+100% (exceptional, on authorization)

It is different from the general regime (+25% then +50%). A tool not configured for HCR would apply wrong rates.

To verify your calculations manually, the Squadra overtime calculator handles both regimes.

3. Unpaid splits

In restaurants, services concentrate on lunch (12pm-2:30pm) and dinner (7:30pm-11pm). Between the two, the employee goes home. This split of more than 2 hours is unpaid by default under HCR.

The scheduling tool must:

• detect a split over 2 hours
• exclude it from effective work time
• show the employee their schedule with the split visible
• not charge it as overtime

Squadra handles this case automatically when scheduling two non-contiguous shifts on the same day.

4. Meal in-kind allowance

The meal AVN (Advantage in Kind) is mandatory for any employee taking their meal on site during service. 2026 value: €4.15 per meal, to be accounted for in addition to salary (payslip side) and deducted from contributions.

For each service day over 4 hours, the tool calculates:

• 1 meal if the shift covers only lunch or dinner service
• 2 meals if the shift covers both services

The monthly AVN total is reported on the payroll export to Payfit, Lucca or Silae.

Common pitfalls in restaurants

Mistake 1: applying the 35h regime by default

When a manager opens a generic scheduling tool, the default regime is 35h. If the HCR contract is poorly set, the system triggers overtime starting at 36th hour (+25% instead of +10%). On 100 overtime hours per month, the error can reach €300 in extra cost.

Mistake 2: counting splits as presence hours

Without HCR configuration, a naive system considers an employee present from 11am to 11pm as having worked 12 hours. With HCR, they worked 12h - 4h split = 8 hours. The difference translates into ghost overtime on payslips.

Mistake 3: forgetting AVN on payroll export

The in-kind advantage is mandatory. URSSAF (French social security) can requalify 12 months of omission on inspection, around €600 per employee per year. For 30 restaurant employees, that is €18,000 in reassessment.

Mistake 4: not tracking Sunday and holiday work

The HCR agreement imposes specific markups for Sunday work (+50%) and bank holidays (+100% or double compensation rest). Without a tool that detects automatically, it is easy to forget on some shifts.

How to configure Squadra for HCR

On the employee profile, select the "HCR 39h" contract. Everything else aligns automatically:

• 39h weekly threshold
• +10% / +20% / +50% tiers
• split detection
• meal AVN per service day
• Sunday and holiday markups

See the Squadra for traditional restaurants page or the fast food page.

Real case: a 12-employee restaurant

Assumptions:

• 12 employees at 39h conventional
• Lunch + dinner service with 2:30pm-7:30pm split
• Open 6 days a week
• Occasional Sunday work

Before Squadra (Excel + manual payroll entry):

• 4h/week for the manager to do the schedule
• 6h/week for manager + accountant for time tracking and payroll export
• 2 payroll errors per month on average
• Splits counted as effective work on 30% of shifts

After Squadra:

• 1h/week for scheduling
• 30 min/week to validate payroll export
• 0 errors in 6 months
• Splits detected automatically

Net gain: about 25h/month recovered for the manager, or one half-time equivalent.

Summary

The HCR agreement is no more complicated than another, provided the right configuration. The 4 rules to automate are:

1. 39h threshold with built-in markup up to 39h
2. Overtime tiers +20% / +50% / +100%
3. Long unpaid splits
4. Meal in-kind allowance per service day

For a restaurant or brasserie, the return on investment of a tool configured for HCR is measured in months, not years. Open a test account on Squadra Pro or use the Free plan if you have under 5 employees.