The concepts of status and contract are well-established and frequently used analytical categories of good explanatory power in classical and contemporary international labour law literature. Since the interpretation of these concepts varies from era to era and from author to author, recent Hungarian legal literature has paid little attention to the interpretation of legal developments along this theoretical framework, although it could serve as an effective reference point for grasping the trends of existing law. This paper attempts to apply these concepts to describe the regulatory trends in a volatile and conflictual area of law, namely working time.