The 4x4 shift: how it works and when you're actually off
Four days on, four days off, and round again. It's the most widespread rotating pattern in industry, security and services that never stop, and the easiest to explain: the cycle is eight days long and repeats endlessly from the day you started.
- Days worked a year
- 184
- Days off a year
- 181
- Full weekends off
- 18
- Longest break
- 4 days
- Sundays worked
- 28
Worked out over a full year on this pattern, counting from 1 January. The figures shift a little depending where in the cycle you start.
How it works
The cycle has nothing to do with the week. Eight days don't fit into seven, so your day off moves back one each week: if you're off this Monday, seven days later you'll be working. That's why you can never say "I have Tuesdays off", and why keeping track in your head fails so often.
The good part
You work half the days of the year and rest the other half, in blocks of four days — enough to travel or actually do something, not just recover. And if your shift is twelve hours, the average working week comes in under the ordinary limit.
The hard part
The drifting cycle makes anything fixed awkward: a class on Wednesdays, Saturday's match, a recurring appointment. And free weekends are fewer than half: they fall wherever the cycle puts them. You'll work a fair few Sundays.
Load it and tell me a day you remember: I'll work out your whole calendar, forwards and backwards.
Load the 4x4 patternFrequently asked questions
How many free weekends do I get a year on a 4x4?
Around eighteen full ones, Saturday and Sunday together. That's fewer than half the year's weekends, and they don't fall regularly: it depends where you are in the cycle. The app works out your next one.
Why does my day off change every week?
Because the cycle is eight days and the week is seven. Each turn it shifts by one position, so the full pattern takes eight weeks to land on the same weekday again.
Does a 4x4 breach working time limits?
It depends on the length of each shift and whether your system is authorised as an exceptional one. With twelve-hour shifts the annual average sits close to the limit, but what governs is your contract or the resolution authorising the system, not a general rule.
General information. Every company and agreement applies these patterns its own way. Always check against your contract, your approved shift system and current legislation.