The Ultimate Guide to the 4 Day Work Week

The 4DWW movement, however, is campaigning for no reduction in salary. Therefore, if you work at a company which truly embraces the 4 day work week, you should expect to get paid at normal market rates.

One company which fully embraces the 4DWW is Buffer. Buffer also has a transparent salary policy, so you can decide if you think salaries are reduced.

And here is a list of 650+ companies that run a 4 day work week at full pay.

Definitions

What does 4DWW stand for?

4DWW is an abbreviation for “4 day work week”.

What is a 32-hour work week?

A 32-hour work week is four days of eight hours instead of five. In a 4 day week at full pay the hours drop to about 32 to 36 and pay stays the same; some employers cut pay in proportion instead, which we list as pro-rata. A compressed week fits 40 hours into four days. That is a different schedule, covered under 4/10 below.

What is a 6 hour work day?

Instead of working 4×8hr days, some companies instead prefer to work 5 shorter days (i.e. 5×6hrs). This is a specific implementation of a “4 day work week”. Really, the goal of the "4 day work week" movement is a reduction in working hours, whilst maintaining 100% output and receiving 100% salary.

What is a 4/10 work week?

A 4/10 work week is a schedule where employees work 4 days per week, 10 hours per day. This is known as a “compressed work schedule”. It is 40 hours in four days, the same hours as a five-day week, so it is not the same thing as a 4 day work week with shorter hours.

What is a 9/80 work week?

A 9/80 work week is a schedule where employees work 80 hours over 9 days.

Often this is implemented as 5×9 hours days, with a normal 2 day weekend, followed by 3 more 9 hours days, finishing with 1 more 8 hour day. In other words, it allows for employees to have every 2nd Friday off.

What is a 9/72 work schedule?

A 9/72 work week is similar to the 9/80 work schedule. However, it involves only 8-hour work days: nine of them, so there are 72 working hours over two weeks (a 9/80 has 80), and you'll benefit from having every other Friday off.

Source: Build Remote

Background, History and Future

Where does the 4 day work week originate from?

Firstly, let’s consider how we ended up with the current standard of working 5 days per week. The 5 day work week was popularised by Henry Ford in 1926, where employees switched from a 6 day work week to working 40 hours over 5 days in his automobile factories. In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a 44-hour maximum standard workweek, phased down to 40 hours (with overtime above 40) within two years.

A four day work week is also an idea which has been around for some time and is now resurfacing in the 21st century. The original movement for a 4 day work week began in the 1970, but it lost momentum unfortunately. When the COVID pandemic began, a new movement began which questioned the nature of work in general. A huge number of staff switched to working at home, with flexible working arrangements commonplace. Ultimately, the pandemic has created a new wave of optimism around the 4 day work week, with many countries and companies piloting different schemes in 2020 and 2021.

In the United States, Representative Mark Takano and Senator Bernie Sanders reintroduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act in September 2026 (H.R. 10323 and S. 5384). It would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act so that non-exempt employees become eligible for overtime pay after 32 hours a week, phased in over three years; its sponsors describe it as a 32-hour week with no loss in pay or benefits. It has not passed, and there is no federal four-day-week law in the US today.

What day off do 4 day week companies take off?

This varies from company to company but more companies take Fridays off - with Mondays off as the 2nd most popular choice.

But really it's more complicated than that. In the 2022 UK pilot, of the 44 companies that responded, 14 (32%) gave everyone Fridays off and 11 (25%) had no common day off.

Is the Four Day Work Week coming?

Nobody can say for certain, but it is no longer a thought experiment. Iceland, the UK, Scotland and Spain have all run or funded pilots (details below), and we track 650+ companies that run a 4 day work week at full pay.

Research and Studies

Which countries have tried a 4 day work week?

There are now many countries which have trialed a 4 day work week pilot. For example:

• Spain: in December 2022 the industry ministry set up a pilot grant scheme for industrial SMEs that cut weekly hours by at least 10% for two years without cutting pay
• Iceland: The Reykjavík City Council and Nation Government piloted a study (2,500 employees) which paid the same amount for shorter hours.
• Japan: the Japanese government says it encourages employers to implement a 4 day work week, in an attempt to improve work-balance of its residents.
• Ireland: in June 2021 the Irish Government announced up to €150,000 for research into the social, economic and environmental implications of a four-day working week.
• Scotland: the Scottish Government committed a £10 million fund for four-day-week pilots; a public-sector pilot at two bodies ran from October 2023 to November 2025.

In many other countries, unions, local authorities and charities are actively campaigning for a 4 day work week:

• Germany: in 2018 IG Metall, Germany’s largest trade union, won a deal in Baden-Württemberg that combined a 4.3% pay rise with a right to cut weekly hours to 28 for a limited period.
• Australia: in September 2023 an ACT Legislative Assembly committee found a public-service four-day-week trial feasible; in December 2023 the ACT Government agreed in principle to set up a working group to develop a roadmap for a possible trial.
• Canada: several Ontario municipalities have trialled or adopted compressed four-day office weeks with the same weekly hours, for example Zorra Township, whose council made a four-day compressed week permanent in December 2021 after an eight-month pilot.
• Denmark: in September 2019 Odsherred Municipality began a three-year voluntary trial of a 35-hour, four-day week (Monday to Thursday) for its roughly 300 administration staff.
• India: India’s labour codes, in force from 21 November 2025, let employers and workers agree a compressed week of up to four 12-hour days within the 48-hour weekly cap (no reduction in hours); the ministry has clarified that it is an option, not an obligation.
• Finland: in August 2019, as transport minister, Sanna Marin said at a party event that she hoped shorter working hours could become reality in future; the Finnish government said a four-day week was not government policy.
• Gambia: in 2013 the then president, Yahya Jammeh, decreed that public officials work Monday to Thursday, 8am to 6pm, with Friday a day of rest (longer days, not fewer hours); his successor, Adama Barrow, ended it in February 2017.

What 4 day work week research has been conducted?

The idea of a shorter work week has been around for decades with a number of studies researching the advantages and disadvantages a 4 day week creates.

Most of the recent large pilots have been run by 4 Day Week Global. 4DW Global have ran various large scale pilots across 100's of private companies in various countries such as:

• USA
• Canada
• Ireland
• UK
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Portugal
• South Africa
• And more

The effects of having a shorter workweek has also been studied in academic research:

• Lepinteur (2016) studied European Community Household Panel data from Portugal and France, suggesting “reduced working hours generated significant increases in job & leisure satisfaction of the workers affected in both countries, with the rise in Portugal mainly being explained by greater satisfaction with working hours and working conditions”.
• Haar et al (2018) studied the 4 day work week of Perpetual Guardian which found that there was no change in job performance. They also studied other factors such as employee stress, work-life balance and employee retention, showing a positive impact across the board.
• Bird (2010) argues that the four-day work week is “not particularly novel, questionably beneficial, and far from inevitable”, while seeing some renewed promise
• Baltes (1999) studied flexible and compressed work week schedule, where the effects of both were described as “positive” overall

Are 4 day work weeks more productive?

Many pilots and studies report that productivity or output was maintained, and in some cases improved, on shorter hours. For example:

• Researchers found that productivity and service provision stayed the same or improved in the majority of Icelandic trial workplaces,
• Perpetual Guardian, a finance advising company from New Zealand, report that reducing employees’ work schedules to a 4 day work week doesn’t harm their productivity or company output
• In a five-week 2019 trial, Microsoft Japan closed its offices on Fridays in August; sales per employee rose 39.9% year on year, though Microsoft noted the gain was not due to the trial alone.
• The UK 2022 pilot saw sick and personal days per employee fall by 65%, though the researchers could not say the change was statistically significant.

Pros and cons of a 4 day work week

The 4 day work week is becoming more popular in developed countries due to the benefits it offers. For example:

Pros:

• It can be easier to recruit: after moving all staff to a four-day week on the same salary, Atom bank reported a 500% rise in applications for open roles over the next two months (company release, January 2022)
• Employees will be more productive and less stressed because they have a better work-life balance
• Employees will be happier
• Employees are less likely to leave the company
• It’s better for the environment
• Reduced employee absenteeism
• A 4 day week can reduce costs (e.g. less office space, potentially lower salaries to attract the same talent)
• If more companies adopted a 4 day week, there would be less vehicles on the road (i.e. faster commute time)

There are some things to consider, however when switching to a 4 day work week however.

Cons:

• It’s more difficult to implement in some industries (e.g. healthcare)
• Productivity must increase by 25% to be able to maintain 100% output. In most pilots companies reported that revenue and productivity were broadly maintained while hours fell, for example by about 4 hours a week in the UK pilot.
• There are operational challenges in switching to a 4 day work week (e.g. changing employment contracts, calculating holiday entitlement etc)

Getting a 4 day work week job

Which companies have a 4 day work week?

Many companies now offer a 4 day work week including:

• Kickstarter
• AWIN
• Buffer
• MeiliSearch
• Shape
• And many more

How can I help progress the 4 day work week movement?

There are now national groups and consultancies promoting the 4 day work week, for example:

• 4 Day Week Global
• 4 Day Week Foundation (UK)
• 4 Day Week Ireland
• 4 Day Week France
• 4 Day Week South Africa
• 4 Day Week Italy
• And more...

If you support the movement, see what 4 Day Week Global and the groups above are doing in your country.

How to find a 4 day work week job?

You can find software jobs with a 4 day work week on our job board.