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When Must I Pay Employees for Travel Time?

Travel Time vs. Commuting Time

Image by Jo Zixuan Zhou © The Balance 2020 

In general, your business should pay employees for the time they spend traveling for work-related activities. You don't have to pay employees for travel that is incidental to the employee's duties and time spent  commuting  (traveling between home and work). Travel time can include both local trips and travel away from home. 

Travel vs. Commuting Time 

Commuting is going back and forth to work. Everyone (at least everyone who doesn't work at home) commutes to a job. Commuting time is personal time, not business time. The IRS does not allow businesses to deduct commuting time as a business expense, and employees should not be paid for the commuting time.     

The Department of Labor (DOL) discusses employees who drive employer-provided vehicles. The DOL considers the time spent in home-to-work travel by an employee in an employer-provided vehicle, or in activities performed by an employee that are incidental to the use of the vehicle for commuting, generally is not "hours worked" and, therefore, does not have to be paid.  

Here's a possible rule of thumb: If your business authorizes a trip by an employee, no matter how the employee travels (car, train, bus, etc.) you should pay for the employee's travel time. 

Travel time for hourly and salaried employees may be counted differently. Pay to employees for local travel time is only applicable to non-exempt (hourly) employees, not to exempt (professional or managerial) employees.     Exempt employees are paid for their expertise by the job, not by the hour.  

Different Types of Travel Time:

Home to Work Travel , as explained above, is commuting time, not work time, and it's not paid.

Travel on Special One Day Assignment in Another City. The DOL says "the time spent in traveling to and return from the other city is work time," but they note that you may deduct the time the employee would spend commuting.

Sara works in an office in your company, but you send her to another city on a special assignment. She leaves from her home, goes to the city, and comes back home the same day. She spends 3 hours traveling (1 1/2 hours each way) from home to the other city. She would normally spend 30 minutes total driving from her home to work and back, so you could deduct the 30 minutes and pay her for 2 1/2 hours of travel time.

Travel That's Part of the Employee's Normal Work. Time an employee spends traveling is part of the job. You must count this time as work time. The time the employee spends going to the first job site, and home from the last job site, is commuting time and isn't paid.  

An LPN (licensed professional nurse) works for a nursing facility and travels between the two locations of this facility, providing care for patients at both locations. Her daily travel time between these locations must be included in her pay because she is not commuting. But she can't count the time driving from home to the first location or the time back home from the last location.

Travel Away from Home. If travel includes an overnight stay it is travel time. The DOL doesn't include travel away from home outside regular hours as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus, or car as work time. But you must count hours worked on regular working days and work hours on nonworking days (weekends and holidays).  

If an employee travels from Cleveland to Pittsburgh for a two-day seminar at the direction of your company, you must pay for the hours the employee would have worked in a normal workday for each of those days, even if they were on Saturday or Sunday.

Incidental vs. Work Travel: Paid or Not Paid?

• An employee drives to work from his home every day. You ask him to stop on his way and pick up bagels for the staff meeting. This driving time is not paid. Time commuting to work is never paid time; the time to stop for the bagels is "incidental" to the commuting and is not part of the employee's job. 
• You ask an employee to drive to a store on work time to get bagels for the office meeting. If the employee makes this trip during normal work hours, he or she should be paid. 

Also, you might want to contact an employment attorney to discuss these issues. 

Paying for Travel Expenses

In addition to paying employees for travel time, you should pay their expenses for travel. The Department of Labor doesn't require reimbursement for travel expenses, but it makes sense to pay employees if you require them to travel.   Your business can deduct employee travel expenses as a business expense.   If employees mix business and personal travel, you need to sort out the part that is business-related and pay only these expenses. 

State Regulations on Paying for Employee Travel

Check with your state labor department to see if there are any rules which might override the federal rules. Contact the nearest local office of the U.S. Department of Labor for information on specific instances of travel time that affect your business.

Internal Revenue Service. " Publication 535 (2019): Business Expenses ," Page 5. Accessed May 26, 2020.

Internal Revenue Service. " Travel & Entertainment Expenses ," Page 3. Accessed May 26, 2020.

U.S. Department of Labor. " Travel Time ." Accessed May 26, 2020.

Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. " Travel Time ." Accessed May 26, 2020.

U.S. Office of Personnel Management. " Fact Sheet: Hours of Work for Travel ." Accessed May 26, 2020.

U.S. Department of Labor. " Fact Sheet #17D: Exemption for Professional Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ," Pages 1-3. Accessed May 26, 2020.

U.S. Department of Labor. " Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ." Accessed May 26, 2020.

U.S. Department of Labor. " Opinion Letter FLSA 2018 ," Page 2. Accessed May 26, 2020.

U.S. Department of Labor. " Reimbursed Travel Expense Payments ," Page 1. Accessed May 26, 2020.

Internal Revenue Service. " Topic No. 511 Business Travel Expenses ." Accessed May 26, 2020.

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When Do Employers Have to Pay Employees for Travel Time?

Deanna deBara

For some small businesses, traveling to meet clients, make sales, and manage day-to-day activities is a must. For others, traveling is valuable for attending conferences, participating in networking events, or undergoing specialized training.

But if it's your employees doing the traveling, do you need to pay them for that time? Whatever your preferences are as a small business owner, the  legal  answer is: that depends.

Let's explore when you need to provide travel time pay for hourly employees, which employees are entitled to that pay, and, if they are entitled, how much you'll need to pay them. 

Who Is Entitled to Travel Pay?

All  non-exempt employees  are entitled to travel pay during normal work hours and when they are actively working outside of those hours. They aren't entitled to travel pay for doing their typical commute, according to the  Fair Labor Standards Act  (FLSA).

Non-exempt employees are typically paid an  hourly wage  and are paid less than $684 per week or $35,568 per year. 

These rules don't apply to exempt employees, and therefore it's up to you whether you want to pay them to travel.

What's more—your state may have some extra rules, so make sure to check your state's Department of Labor or Wage and Hour Division website.

When Do You Have to Provide Travel Time Pay for Hourly Employees?

But when, exactly, are these employees paid to travel? Compensable work time needs to be paid when employees travel:

• Locally: You need to pay employees when they travel locally as part of their regular duties (for example, from your office to a supply store). And if that travel happens outside of the employee's regular workday hours (even if they're only waiting to travel, like sitting at a bus stop or train station)? You still need to pay.
• Between worksites: Employees get travel pay when traveling between worksites. For example, a courier who transports materials between different job sites must be paid for the time spent traveling. Similarly, plumbers who travel between customers' homes are eligible for travel pay.
• For special one-day assignments: You must provide travel pay for hourly employees who travel out of town, even if they return home at the end of the workday—though you can deduct the employee's normal commute time from the total payment. For example, let's say an employee spends a total of two hours traveling to and from a work conference (which takes place during normal working hours). Because her typical daily commute takes 30 minutes, you would only need to pay for 1.5 hours of traveling (in addition to regular hourly wages).
• Overnight: Employees traveling overnight are due travel pay during their regular working hours and any time they spend working outside of those regular hours (for example, participating in late-night conference calls while on a train). You also need to pay employees for traveling during their regular working hours, even on non-working days, like weekends, holidays, or their normal days off.

Bonus tip : The best way to track travel time for your employees? Time tracking software like  Hourly . Workers clock in right from their phones, and the platform automatically tracks their location, hours and what project they're working on—which you can see in real-time. Another perk? You can run payroll with the click of a button.

How Much Do You Have to Pay Employees for Travel Time?

Employees traveling for work need to be paid at least the minimum wage, but they can be paid more or less than their normal pay rate.  

If you want to pay a different rate than an employee's hourly wage, you'll need to:

• Tell the employee they will be paid a different rate before they begin their trip.
• Make sure the hourly rate for travel pay doesn't cause the employee's total pay for all workable hours to  fall below minimum wage  (state, local or federal—whichever is highest) or result in incorrect overtime pay.
• Ensure that you're not violating their employment contract.

This gives you the flexibility to offer a higher rate of pay as an incentive for traveling outside of regular business hours—or, if you decide to pay less than their typical rate (but still minimum wage or above!), it can help make sure that paying for travel won't interrupt your cash flow or cause other financial concerns for your company.

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When Do You NOT Have to Provide Travel Time Pay for Hourly Employees?

Exempt employees—like outside salespeople, executives, managers, administrators, and even IT personnel—aren't entitled to travel pay. And non-exempt workers? They're  not eligible for travel pay  when they are:

• Commuting: An employee's commute—the time spent driving from their home to work (and from work to home)—doesn't qualify as travel time. This also includes the time spent driving from accommodations/lodging (like a hotel) to a work location, like a client's office or conference center.
• On break or during personal time : Non-exempt employees aren't entitled to travel pay during breaks (including meal periods and time spent sleeping) or when they can spend their time how they see fit. In other words, you don't need to pay for traveling during the time an employee can go shopping, sightseeing, or out to eat.
• Away from work and not working : Employees on overnight travel or business trips don't need to be paid outside of regular working hours  unless  they're working during that time period. For example, an employee who regularly works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday only needs to be paid for traveling on a Saturday if they travel during their normal working hours (i.e., 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)—unless they're working  outside  of those hours too (like answering customer support emails or counting inventory).
• A passenger: You don't need to pay for travel when an employee is a passenger (in any sort of vehicle) and isn't doing work outside of regular work hours. The only exceptions occur when you  require  an employee to drive the vehicle or be actively engaged in working (like riding to a job site while handling customer calls or riding as a passenger in a client's vehicle).
• Choosing to drive themselves : If you offer to pay for an employee's travel method (like airfare, a bus ticket, or a train ticket) and the employee requests to drive instead, the employee is only entitled to travel pay while driving during their regular work hours. In other words, if an employee requests to drive themselves vs. taking public transit, you don't need to pay for travel outside of the employee's regular shift.

In other words, a non-exempt employee  isn't entitled to travel pay  unless they are driving, traveling during their normal working hours, or actively working while traveling.

Does Travel Time Count Towards Overtime?

Yes, travel time counts toward overtime, and you'd owe them 1.5 times their regular rate for any hours worked over 40 while they're traveling.

What if your pay rate for traveling is different from an employee's regular wages? Then it gets a little more complicated. 

In that case, you need to use the weighted average of the two overtime rates to get their final pay. Here's an example: 

Let's imagine one of your employees is pulling a 40-hour week at the office. Their rate? $15 per hour. So that gives them $600 for their regular workweek (that's 40 hours multiplied by $15 per hour). Now, during that same week, they also spent 8 hours traveling as overtime, for which you're paying them $11.25 per hour. This gives them an extra $90 (which is 8 hours multiplied by $11.25 per hour).

Add these together, and their total straight-time pay for the week is $690.

Now, to figure out their average rate for the week (including travel time and regular office time), you need to divide this total pay by their total hours worked. In this case, it's 48 hours in total (40 regular hours plus 8 overtime hours). So, $690 divided by 48 hours gives you a weighted average rate of $14.375 per hour.

But they've already been paid for all 48 hours at their respective rates, right? For the 8 hours of overtime, what you owe them is an extra half of that weighted average rate. That's what we call the "overtime premium." Half of $14.375 is about $7.19. So, the overtime pay would be 8 hours (overtime) times $7.19, which comes out to $57.52.

To get their final paycheck, you add this overtime pay to their straight-time pay. So, $690 (straight-time pay) plus $57.52 (overtime pay) equals $747.52. As a business owner, using the weighted average method to calculate the overtime rate, you'd be paying out $747.52 for this employee's week of work, including their overtime.

Additionally, if you pay for travel time that isn't  required  to be paid (like commuting), you  can't count them as hours worked  for overtime purposes.

Travel Time Pay Best Practices

Handling travel pay can be complex and difficult at first. But it doesn't have to be! Use these best practices to simplify paying your employees for working on the go.

Create a Travel Policy

If your small business sends employees to different locations, you need to establish a written travel policy—and include it in your employee handbook. 

Your travel policy should outline which situations result in compensable travel time (like attending conferences or visiting different job sites), as well as any exclusions where employees won't be compensated (like an employee's regular commute or traveling as a passenger on non-working days).

If you pay a different hourly rate for time spent traveling, make sure to include it in your policy. Then, have employees sign the policy to acknowledge they understand it and agree to its terms—and then add the signed document to their employee file.

Track Hours Traveled

As a small business owner, you need to track employee travel time to follow  labor laws  and make sure their paychecks are accurate. 

Though you can ask employees to record and document the time they spend traveling—which can help you make sure your records are accurate—the responsibility for doing so is ultimately on you.

Pay for or Reimburse Travel Expenses

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) doesn't require you to pay for your employee's travel expenses.

Still, if you're sending your employees out of town, you  should  pay for the cost of travel—like tickets and lodging. 

If you don't, your employees are almost guaranteed to get frustrated that they have to pay for expenses out of pocket—and that frustration could lead to issues with employee engagement and retention.

When writing your travel policy, outline which travel expenses your company covers. If you expect employees to front some or all of the travel expenses, detail your procedure for requesting reimbursement and how to track expenses (like mileage or airfare).

You might also want to provide some form of  per diem  or stipend that helps employees pay for small travel expenses, like food. 

This can either be an allowance per meal period (like $15 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $40 for dinner) or a specific amount that the employee can use throughout the trip (like $50 per day or $150 for the weekend). Have your employees save and submit their receipts to avoid taxation. You can also consider a company card to lessen the burden on your team's bank account.

Check With Your State's Laws

In addition to federal law, some state laws apply additional regulations to travel time. This means rules can vary based on the state you operate in. For example,  compensable work time  in California includes riding as a passenger in a vehicle when traveling for work.

But which set of employment laws should you follow? You should apply the set of rules that provide the highest payment to your employees. So, if your state regulations specify that certain activities qualify as compensable—even if the FLSA does not—you need to pay for time spent traveling.

(For guidance about your state's specific laws and guidelines, contact your  state's Department of Labor  and local  Wage and Hour Division .)

FAQs About Travel Time Pay for Hourly Employees

Do remote/hybrid workers qualify for travel pay.

A  remote or hybrid worker  qualifies for travel pay when you require them to travel to your place of business or another venue (like a conference hall, training facility, or client location) and they:

• Live far away from the regular worksite (requiring an overnight stay or significant travel time)
• Are only expected to work on-site by request or on a day they're not normally required to be on-site

However, remote/hybrid workers  aren't  entitled to travel pay when:

• Your policy specifies that both an employee's home/remote office and your office are considered primary work locations
• They are expected to work on-location on certain days
• The time spent traveling to the office is considered an employee's commute (even if they are a remote or hybrid worker)

Do employees who drive/travel as part of their job qualify for travel pay?

The  FLSA requires  you to pay employees their regular hourly wages when they are driving or traveling as part of their job responsibilities. For example, bus or delivery drivers should be paid their regular wages while on the job.

Compensating Your Employees for Traveling Doesn't Need to Be Difficult

Traveling for business can take a toll—both on the road and off. Paying travel time for hourly employees can incentivize them to hit the road when necessary and make up for the time they spend away from their families and lives. 

Once you've determined which employees qualify for travel time pay, implement a clear travel policy (that adheres to state and federal law) and use management tools (like  Hourly !) to maintain accurate records and compensate your employees for time spent traveling.

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DOL Clarifies When Continuing Education and Travel Time Are Compensable

​The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has clarified the rules on when time spent fulfilling continuing-education requirements must be compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in a recent opinion letter.

In a separate opinion letter, the DOL explained when the travel time of nonexempt foremen and laborers is compensable.

A main takeaway from the first opinion letter is that when an employer lets an employee fulfill continuing-education requirements during normal work hours, the time will be compensable under the FLSA, said James Coleman, an attorney with Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete in Fairfax, Va.

"Employers should pay their employees if they fulfill continuing education during regular work hours, or they should have a clear written policy prohibiting employees from attending such training during their regular work hours," said Susan Harthill, an attorney with Morgan Lewis in Washington, D.C.

"Employers will need to carefully consider the content of the continuing education—that is whether it directly relates to the employee's job, when it is being offered and whether such participation is voluntary," said Jeffrey Ruzal, an attorney with Epstein Becker Green in New York City. "These criteria dictate whether such continuing education must be treated as compensable work time."

Six Hypotheticals

In FLSA 2020-15 , the employer asked the DOL for guidance on the compensability of employee training in six hypotheticals where participation in the training programs is voluntary. Here are the scenarios and the DOL's answers.

1. A nurse uses her employer-provided education funds to take continuing education directly related to her job off hours, though she could view the on-demand webinar anytime. Is it permissible to treat this as unpaid time? Yes.

2. An accounting clerk uses his education funds for a webinar directly related to his job but that has no continuing-education component. Although he could view it any time, he does so off hours. Is it permissible to treat this as unpaid time?

The DOL said there wasn't enough information to determine whether the clerk's time viewing the webinar qualified as work time for FLSA purposes. If additional facts showed that the webinar corresponded to courses offered by independent bona fide institutions of learning, the time spent watching the webinar might not be considered compensable.

3. An accounting clerk uses his education funds for a webinar directly related to his job but that has no continuing-education component. Although he could view it anytime, he does so during work hours. Can the employer require him to substitute paid time off for the time spent watching the webinar?

No. The employee's participation during regular work hours in a training program that directly relates to the employee's job is work time for FLSA purposes. But the DOL added that the employer could establish a policy prohibiting such viewing during regular work hours.

4. An accounting clerk uses his education funds for a webinar that is not directly related to his job and has no continuing-education component. Although he could view it anytime, he does so during work hours. Is it permissible to require him to substitute paid time off for the time spent watching the webinar?

No. Even though the webinar is not directly related to the clerk's job, the viewing time would qualify as work time for FLSA purposes when the clerk views the webinar during regular work hours. But the employer could establish a policy prohibiting such viewing during regular work hours.

5. A nurse uses her education funds for a webinar that isn't directly related to her job but has continuing-education units that can go toward her licensure requirement. Although she could view it anytime, she does so during regular work hours. Is it permissible to require her to substitute paid time off for the time spent watching the webinar?

No. The viewing time would qualify as work time under the FLSA. But the employer could establish a policy prohibiting such viewing during regular work hours.

6. A nurse uses her education funds for an in-person weekend conference that covers several topics, some of which directly relate to her job. Continuing-education units are available. She has to travel out of town to attend. Both the travel and the conference cut across normal work hours, but the actual conference occurs on days she normally doesn't work. Does she have to be paid for her travel or training time?

No, so long as her participation in the training is voluntary and she does not perform any work during the trip.

The opinion letter provides that employers may prohibit employees from attending courses during work hours, Coleman emphasized. But an employer may want to consider allowing time during work hours to take a course to complete continuing-education requirements if the course is related to the employee's job, he added.

[Are you a small business with big legal questions? Check out the new  SHRM LegalNetwork .]

Travel Time of Nonexempt Foremen and Laborers

In FLSA 2020-16 , the DOL considered three scenarios involving whether the travel time of nonexempt foremen and laborers is compensable.

In the first scenario, the job site is local. Each foreman retrieves a company truck in the morning from the employer's principal place of business, drives it to the job site and returns it at the end of the day. Laborers may choose to drive directly to the job site or drive to the principal place of business and then ride to the job site with the foremen.

In the second scenario, the job site is between one-and-a-half and four hours' travel time from the employer's principal place of business. The employer pays for hotel accommodations for those who work onsite and a per diem meal stipend. Each foreman retrieves a company truck from the principal place of business at the beginning of the job, drives it to the job site and returns it at the end of the job. Laborers are to drive their personal vehicles to and from the remote job site at the beginning and end of the job, though some want to drive their personal vehicles to the employer's principal place of business and ride to and from the job site with the foremen.

In the third scenario, the facts are the same as in the second, except the laborers choose to travel between the remote job site and their homes each day rather than stay at the hotel.

The foremen's travel time between the employer's principal place of business and the job sites is compensable in each scenario, the DOL said.

In scenario one, the laborers' travel time isn't compensable.

In scenario two, the laborers' time driving in their own vehicles to the remote job site at the beginning of the job and home at the end of it is compensable if their travel cuts across their normal work hours, even if they are traveling on what would otherwise not be a workday, the DOL said. Travel from their hotel to the job site would not be compensable. If the employer offers the laborers the opportunity to ride to the remote worksite with the foremen in the company vehicles, the employer may choose to count as hours worked either the time accrued during a trip in the company trucks or the time the laborers actually take to travel to the remote worksite.

In scenario three, the laborers' travel to and from the job site at the beginning and end of the job would be treated the same as in the second scenario. The laborers' intervening drives home and back to the remote job site would not be compensable, which Coleman described as the "most notable" portion of this opinion letter.

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Travel time as hours of work, applicability.

This information applies to GS, FP, and FWS EXEMPT and NONEXEMPT employees.

When is Travel Compensable

Time in a travel status away from the official duty station is compensable for EXEMPT and NONEXEMPT employees when the travel is performed within the regularly scheduled administrative workweek, including regularly scheduled overtime. In addition, travel is compensable for both categories of employees for purposes of meeting the daily and weekly overtime standards when it:

• Involves the performance of work while traveling, (e.g., as a chauffeur or courier);
• Is incident to work performed while traveling (e.g., a courier's travel relative to the spot where further travel to deliver a diplomatic pouch would begin);
• Is carried out under such arduous and unusual conditions that the travel is inseparable from work; or
• Results from an event which could not be scheduled or controlled administratively, including travel by an employee to such an event and the employee's return from such an event to his or her official duty station.

For a NONEXEMPT employee, travel meeting the weekly overtime standard (but not the daily overtime standard) also includes:

• Travel as a passenger on an overnight assignment during hours on nonworkdays which correspond to regular working hours; and
• One-day travel as a passenger to and from a temporary duty station (not including travel between home and the employee's normal duty station).

Who Makes the Determination

Officials to whom authority has been delegated to authorize or approve travel on official business are responsible for determining whether travel outside the regularly scheduled workweek meets any of the conditions for hours of work.

How Much Travel Time is Creditable For Pay

When travel outside the normal workweek constitutes hours of work, the following rules will apply in determining the amount of time in a travel status that is deemed hours of work for premium pay:

When is an employee in travel status . An employee is in a travel status only for those hours actually traveling between the official duty station and the point of destination, or between two temporary duty points, and the usual waiting time which interrupts travel.

When traveling by common carrier . Time in a travel status begins with the scheduled time of departure from the common carrier terminal, and ends upon arrival at the common carrier terminal located at the destination. However, when the employee spends 1 hour or more in travel between the common carrier terminal and place of business or residence, then the entire time traveling between the carrier terminal and place of business or residence (that is actual time traveling, exclusive of waiting time at the terminal prior to the scheduled departure time) counts as hours of work.

Waiting time . Usual waiting time between segments of a trip or at common carrier terminals counts as worktime for premium pay (up to 3 hours in unusually adverse circumstances, e.g., holiday air traffic, severe weather) provided travel away from the duty station is compensable because it meets any of the conditions of this Section.

Authority to Order Noncompensable Travel

Congress has not provided a remedy whereby an EXEMPT employee who performs official but noncompensable hours of travel may be compensated (57 Comp. Gen. 43, 50, 1977). A manager does, however, have the authority to schedule official travel that is noncompensable. As a requirement of 5 CFR 610.123, the manager must record the reasons for ordering such travel in a memo to be filed with the employee's Time and Attendance Report (T&A). A copy of the memo must be given the employee if the employee requests it.

Work performed while traveling . In order to meet the intent of the law as defined in the majority of Comptroller General decisions, work performed while traveling must be work which is inherent in the employee's job and which can only be performed while traveling, e.g., chauffeuring, hurricane reconnaissance performed aboard a plane flying into the eye of the hurricane, etc. Discretionary work such as review of a scientific presentation by a scientist or treaty papers by a foreign service officer enroute to a meeting is work which could be performed in an office independently of travel and does not satisfy the definition of work while traveling and is, therefore, not compensable for purposes of overtime. (B-146288, January 3, 1975)

Work incident to work performed while traveling . Travel which is incident to work performed while traveling must also meet the definition of "work performed while traveling" above. Travel which is necessary to meet another mode of travel is compensable for overtime purposes if the traveler performs work while traveling which is an inherent part of the job and which could only be performed while traveling, for example, a motor vehicle operator who is ordered to travel by plane in order to take responsibility for a truck which he or she is then to deliver to its permanent location (57 Comp. Gen. 43 (1977), or a courier who travels to pick up and deliver a pouch (B-178458, dated June 22, 1973). Travel and incidental transport of files is not within the definition since the transportation of files is work not inherent in the job (B-181632, dated April 1, 1975).

Travel under arduous conditions . Arduous means more than the inconvenience associated with long travel delays, unbroken travel, unpleasant weather, or bad roads. Prolonged travel in heavy blowing snow which makes driving difficult but stops short of endangering the employee might be considered arduous. A distinction must be made between travel which is arduous and travel which is hazardous duty. Each case must be judged on its own merits (B-193623,

July 23, 1979).

Travel resulting from an event which could not be administratively scheduled or controlled . An event that cannot be administratively scheduled or controlled implies immediate official necessity for travel. If it is discretionary when the employee begins travel, not including the minimum necessary time to make travel arrangements, the notion of immediate necessity which is implied by an event that could not be scheduled or controlled is lacking and the intent of the law as defined by the General Accounting Office is not satisfied. Therefore, time spent in such travel would not be compensable for overtime purposes

(B-186005, August 31, 1976).

Within the agency's administrative control . Whether the scheduling or timing of the event that precipitates an employee's travel was within the administrative control of the agency is strictly interpreted in decisions of the Comptroller General (CG). Travel on overtime to and from a meeting arranged at the discretion of two Federal agencies is not compensable since agencies have it within their power to ensure that the employee travels during work time (B-146288, January 3, 1975 et alia).

For the same reason, travel to and from training which is conducted by the government, under government contract or by a private institution solely for the benefit* of the government is not compensable since the government has it within its power to ensure that the start and end times of such training allow the employee to travel on work time (B-190494, May 8, 1978; also, 66 CG 620, 1987).

*In William A. Lewis et al, 69 CG 545 (1990). The CG ruled travel on overtime to and from training that is given by a private institution is compensable because government cannot control the private institution or its scheduling of the course. The Lewis opinion further held that the notion of "immediate official necessity for travel" which prior CG decisions have held must be present in travel which responds to an event that is not schedulable or controllable was established by the start time of the class. To be present when the class began, the employees had to travel on Sunday.

NOTE : The regulations which govern training time which is compensable as overtime and travel to and from training are separate and distinct. The circumstances under which premium pay may be paid while an individual is in training are covered in the section titled Premium Pay and Training.

Meeting abroad - a matter of accommodation . An employee's claim for overtime compensation for travel overseas to be present at the opening of a conference with representatives of a foreign government was disallowed. Although the employee's agency indirectly scheduled the meeting through the USAID Mission, the Comptroller General ruled the lack of governmental control envisioned by law and regulation for travel on overtime to be deemed compensable was not present. (Gerald C. Holst, B-202694, January 4, 1982; and B-222700, dated October 17, 1986).

NOTE : The Lewis decision (see discussion above) precipitated a review of CG decisions with the result that government control of events was sufficient to validate all previous decisions except one: Gerald C. Holst, was overruled. In overruling the 1986 decision, the Comptroller General found the agency to lack control of the scheduling of the meeting to an appreciable degree. Further, the start time of the opening conference established the immediate official necessity for travel. Travel, was, therefore, compensable.

Failure to plan . An employee who travels outside his or her normal tour of duty to perform maintenance on equipment so that the equipment can perform necessary functions in accordance with operational deadlines is not performing compensable travel if the maintenance responds to gradual deterioration which could have been prevented if maintenance was scheduled on a timely basis (49 Comp. Gen. 209, 1969).

Two-day per diem rule . An employee may be required to travel on his or her own time if in order to allow the employee to travel during working hours, the agency would be required to pay two days or more per diem. However, the two-day per diem rule does not of itself support an entitlement to overtime compensation for the employee. To be compensable at the overtime rate, travel must respond to an event that could not be scheduled or controlled administratively and there must be an immediate official necessity for the travel to be performed outside the employee's regular duty hours (60 Comp. Gen. 681, 1981).

Return travel . When an employee performs compensable overtime by traveling to an event which could not be controlled or scheduled, he or she is automatically eligible for compensation for return travel to his or her duty station.

Disparity in hours of work means disparate overtime entitlement . Because FLSA provides two situations in which a NONEXEMPT employee, but not an EXEMPT employee, can be paid for travel on overtime hours, (specifically, during hours on nonworkdays which correspond to regular working hours and for one-day travel as a passenger to and from a temporary duty station), it is possible for a NONEXEMPT employee to be paid for travel when an EXEMPT employee in the same situation is ineligible for overtime pay.

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Compensatory Time Off for Travel - Examples

Fact sheet: compensatory time off for travel - examples, examples of creditable travel time, example 1: travel to a temporary duty station on a workday.

On a workday, an employee is required to travel from home to a temporary duty station for an afternoon meeting. The employee's regular working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In total, the employee spends 13 hours (6:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.) traveling to and from the worksite. However, the time between 8:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. is compensable as part of the employee's regular working hours. Also, an employee's time spent traveling outside of regular working hours to or from a transportation terminal (e.g., an airport or train station) within the limits of his or her official duty station is considered to be equivalent to commuting time and is not creditable travel time. (See 5 CFR 550.1404(d).) In this case, the employee spends 2 hours traveling to and from an airport within the limits of his official duty station.

In this example, the employee's compensatory time off for travel entitlement is as follows:

Total travel time: 13 hours

Travel time within regular working hours: 4.5 hours

Travel to/from airport within limits of official duty station: 2 hours

Compensatory time off for travel: 6.5 hours

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Example 2: Travel to a temporary duty station on a nonworkday

An employee is required to travel to a temporary duty station for a week-long conference. The employee's regular working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Because the conference begins early Monday morning, the employee travels to a hotel at the temporary duty station the Sunday evening before the conference. The conference is scheduled to continue into the evening on Friday, so the employee returns home on Saturday morning.

In total, the employee spends 13 hours (5:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Sunday and 6:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on the following Saturday) traveling to and from the conference. However, the hour the employee spends on Sunday traveling to the airport and the hour the employee spends on Saturday traveling from the airport within the limits of her official duty station is considered equivalent to commuting time and is not creditable time in a travel status.

* The agency's compensatory time off for travel policy allows up to 90 minutes of creditable waiting time at a transportation terminal. Therefore, only the time from 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. is creditable as "usual waiting time." (See 5 CFR 550.1404(b)(1).) The time from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. is considered "extended waiting time" and is not creditable. (See 5 CFR 550.1404(b)(2).)

Extended waiting time: 2 hours

Compensatory time off for travel: 9 hours

Example 3: Travel from a temporary duty station on a workday (with cancelled connecting flight)

On a Friday (workday), an employee is required to travel from a temporary duty station to home. However, due to severe weather, the employee's connecting flight is cancelled until Saturday morning (nonworkday). On Friday, the employee's regular working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In total, the employee spends 17.5 hours (5:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday and 6:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday) traveling from the temporary duty station. However, the time between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. is compensable as part of the employee's regular working hours. (For the purpose of this example, we are assuming the employee has a 30-minute meal period during his regular working hours.) The extended waiting period from 4:30 p.m. until the employee departs for the airport on Saturday morning is not creditable travel time, since the employee is free to use the time for his own purposes. (See 5 CFR 550.1404(b)(2).) Also, an employee's time spent traveling outside of regular working hours to or from a transportation terminal (e.g., an airport or train station) within the limits of his or her official duty station is considered to be equivalent to commuting time and is not creditable travel time. (See 5 CFR 550.1404(d).) In this case, the employee spent 1 hour traveling from an airport within the limits of his official duty station.

Total travel time: 17.5 hours

Travel time within regular working hours: 8.5 hours

Travel from airport within limits of official duty station: 1 hour

Compensatory time off for travel: 8 hours

Example 4: Driving to and from a temporary duty station on a workday

An employee is required to travel to a temporary duty station on a workday for a 1-day training session. The training location is a 2-hour drive from the employee's home. The employee's regular working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In total, the employee spends 4 hours (6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.) driving to and from the training session.

If an employee travels directly between home and a temporary duty station outside the limits of his or her official duty station, the time spent traveling outside regular working hours is creditable travel time. However, the agency must deduct the time the employee would have spent in normal home-to-work/work-to-home commuting. (See 5 CFR 550.1404(c).) In this case, the employee's normal daily commuting time is 2 hours (1 hour each way). Therefore, 2 hours must be deducted from the employee's creditable travel time.

Total travel time: 4 hours

Normal commuting time: 2 hours

Compensatory time off for travel: 2 hours

Example 5: Travel to multiple temporary duty stations on a workday

An employee is required to travel on a workday to two temporary duty stations to make presentations to stakeholders. The employee's regular working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In total, the employee spends 13.5 hours traveling (6:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m., and 4:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.) between home and the two presentation sites. However, the time between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. is compensable as the employee's regular working hours. (For the purpose of this example, we are assuming the employee has a 30-minute meal period during her regular working hours.) Also, the 2 hours the employee spends traveling outside of regular working hours to and from the airport within the limits of her official duty station is not creditable travel time.

Total travel time: 13.5 hours

Travel time within regular working hours: 5.5 hours

Compensatory time off for travel: 6 hours

When is travel time considered as hours worked?

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The following post does not create a lawyer-client relationship between Alburo Alburo and Associates Law Offices (or any of its lawyers) and the reader. It is still best for you to engage the services of a lawyer or you may directly contact and consult Alburo Alburo and Associates Law Offices to address your specific legal concerns, if there is any.

Also, the matters contained in the following were written in accordance with the law, rules, and jurisprudence prevailing at the time of writing and posting, and do not include any future developments on the subject matter under discussion.

AT A GLANCE:

All the time during which an employee is required to be on duty or to be at the employer’s premises or to be at a prescribed workplace, and all the time during which an employee is suffered or permitted to work is considered as compensable work hours. (Section 3, Rule I, Book III, Omnibus Rules to Implement the Labor Code)

Travel time is considered as hours worked when: (1) employee is called to travel during emergency; (2) travel is done through a conveyance furnished by the employer; (3) travel is done under vexing and dangerous circumstances; and (4) travel is done under the supervision and control of the employer.

The Omnibus Rules to Implement the Labor Code provides that all the time during which an employee is required to be on duty or to be at the employer’s premises or to be at a prescribed workplace, and all the time during which an employee is suffered or permitted to work is considered as a compensable work hours. (Section 3, Rule I, Book III, Omnibus Rules to Implement the Labor Code)

Generally, travels from home before an employee’s regular workday and returns to his home at the end of the workday is not considered as hours worked.

However, travel time is considered as hours worked when: (1) employee is called to travel during emergency; (2) travel is done through a conveyance furnished by the employer; (3) travel is done under vexing and dangerous circumstances; and (4) travel is done under the supervision and control of the employer.

“Travel that is all in a day’s work”

Time spent by an employee travelling from one jobsite to another during the workday must be counted as hours worked.

When an employee is required to report at a meeting place to receive instructions or to perform other work there, the travel from the designated place to the workplace is part of the day’s work.

“Travel away from home”

Travel away from home refers to the travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight. It is considered work time when it cuts across the employee’s workday.

Such time spent traveling away from home is hours worked not only during regular working hours but also during the corresponding hours on non-working days.

Read also: When are power interruptions or brownouts considered as working hours?

Alburo Alburo and Associates Law Offices specializes in business law and labor law consulting. For inquiries regarding taxation and taxpayer’s remedies, you may reach us at [email protected], or dial us at (02)7745-4391/0917-5772207.

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Does my commute to the office count as work time? Here’s what OPM says

In the age of continued remote work and telework (for some in the federal government, at least), questions arose whether commuting time to and from the office is considered time on the clock.

Many federal employees will be seeing themselves and their colleagues coming back to federal offices more frequently this fall, as several agencies have announced formal in-person schedules. Those who live outside of the D.C.-metro area or moved to the suburbs during the pandemic may wonder whether their longer commutes to the office can be billable hours.

The guidance comes after nearly two years of heightened telework for some government agencies that were forced to operate remotely because of the global pandemic. But over the last year, the government has signaled an expectation that in-person work will return, albeit exactly how much and when is still taking shape depending on agencies’ leadership. Some federal employees say the thought of wading through city traffic again is a headache in the making, while others have said it’s high time federal employees return.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ annual survey found that driving alone and telework accounted for nearly nine in 10 commute days in 2022. Meanwhile, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is projecting a $750 million shortfall after losing half its weekday rail rideship during the pandemic to telework, according to a June report by The Washington Post.

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Whether feds will commute by plane, train or automobile, some will see that travel to work compensated, while others will not.

In a nutshell, guidance by the Office of Personnel Management published Aug. 22 says: it depends. Factors like whether on whether an employee is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act and whether they are a teleworker or remote worker influence how commuting time is compensated, if at all.

Under the FLSA, travel time is creditable if the employees is required to travel during regular working hours, either for a trip or other official business. For the most part, those who work in executive, professional, and administrative jobs are exempt from the FLSA.

However, if an employee begins working at home as a teleworker and is then required by a supervisor to report to an agency worksite after the start of the workday, time spent traveling from home to the office during the workday is considered hours of work for both FLSA-exempt and FLSA-nonexempt employees.

If an employee has been given advance notice of a requirement to report on-site on what would have been a telework day, then traveling to the office is considered normal, non-compensatory commuting time.

A teleworking employee can also use annual leave or paid time off to end the workday earlier and commute home for certain obligations if necessary, OPM said. Workers could also request leave to cover the commute home, or they can commute during designated breaks to work the remainder of the day from their home office.

For fully remote workers who do not report to an office with any regularity, the rules differ slightly.

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The treatment of travel time depends on whether the agency worksite is within the “official duty station.”

Ask yourself this question: is the office within the official duty station of where you’re working remote? If so, travel is considered just commuting time for all workers, whether the FLSA applies or not.

For example, say you begin working your day from home as usual as a remote worker. But then, mid-morning, your supervisor requires you to come into the office. Assuming you live close enough to the office and could make same-day reporting possible, time spent traveling to and from the agency worksite during regular working hours is merely commuting time because you live close enough.

Guidance issued by OPM on Aug. 22 explains under what circumstances remote federal workers may be compensated for their commute to the office. (Illustration courtesy of OPM).

But if not, then the time commuting is also considered hours worked.

Now, what happens if you are a remote worker and you work in a different time zone than the agency office?

In that case, according to OPM, the agency could either establish fixed daily hours times for the remote worker or approve a flexible work schedule with core hours that ensure some overlap with colleagues in the other time zone.

Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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The 67-Hour Rule

Married couples are working as much as ever.

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One of the hard-and-fast laws of economics is that people in rich countries work less than their peers in poorer countries. The rule holds across nations. British and Japanese people work less on average than those in Mexico and India. It’s also true across history. Today, the typical American works about 1,200 fewer hours a year than he did in the late 19th century.

But something strange happens when we shift our attention from individual workers to households. In the 1880s, when men worked long days and women were mostly cut off from the workforce, the typical American married couple averaged just over 68 hours of weekly paid labor. In 1965, as men’s workdays contracted and women poured into the workforce, the typical American married couple averaged 67 hours of weekly paid labor—just one hour less. In the early 2000s, the typical American married couple averaged, you guessed it, almost exactly 67 hours of weekly paid labor. In 2020? Still 67 hours.

These figures come from two papers: “The Great Transition,” which covers labor-market changes since 1880, by the economists Jeremy Greenwood, Ricardo Marto, and Nezih Guner, and “Measuring Trends in Leisure,” which covers labor-market changes from 1965 to 2003, by the economists Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst. There exists no perfect statistical time series to track work hours for married couples in the U.S. over the past 140 years. Sources do not always agree on precise figures, and over time dual earners may have averaged a little less or a little more than 67 hours exactly . And, of course, taking an average across many different industries is an extremely blunt measure. But as I read and reread these statistics, I was struck by the clear implication that married couples are working as much as ever.

That’s astonishing. After all, in the past 140 years, almost everything about the American economy has changed radically. In the 19th century, about half of the U.S. labor force worked in farming. By the 1940s, agriculture’s share of employment fell, and about a third of the country worked in manufacturing. Today, both sectors combined barely account for one in 10 American jobs. After all this, the average married couple in America still works about 67 hours a week. It is as if some god with an affinity for double-digit prime numbers descended from heaven and decreed that, no matter what seismic changes upended the world from one generation to the next, the average American family must labor for the same number of hours a week, for all of eternity.

So what explains the 67-Hour Rule? Any answer must begin with the fact that paid working hours have increased for women even as they have declined for men, for very different reasons.

In 1900, just 5 percent of married women held down a paid job. Instead, they typically put in a full 60-hour week at home, where basic upkeep was grueling by modern standards. Washing, drying, and ironing one load of laundry took up to seven hours, almost a full day’s work. By the mid-20th century, electricity had made possible a set of household technologies—the automatic washer and dryer, the refrigerator, the vacuum, and the dishwasher—that combined to reduce housework by 30 hours a week. Many women took advantage of those efficiencies (and shifting women’s-rights norms) to get a job. From 1880 to 1965, women’s labor-participation rate skyrocketed from about 5 to more than 40 percent; by the 1990s, six in 10 women were in the labor force. Meanwhile, housework hours kept falling. From 1965 to 2003, the average married woman reduced her “nonmarket” labor—cleaning, cooking, shopping, running errands—by 13 hours a week and redirected about nine of those hours toward paid work.

As married women worked less in the home and more outside of it, married men underwent an opposite shift. In 1880, 98 percent of men participated in the labor force, and the typical worker labored 10 hours a day, six days a week. Gradually, labor-rights protests and union strikes combined to pressure employers to shorten the workweek. In her paper “The Wage and the Length of the Work Day: From the 1890s to 1991,” the economist Dora Costa writes that state governments in the late 1800s and early 1900s moved to limit work hours through legislation. During World War I, the War Labor Board established an eight-hour workday for contractors. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which created a right to overtime pay for those who worked more than 40 hours a week.

Meanwhile, the widespread adoption of new technologies, including tractors and cars and, later, computers, made workers more productive in their shorter workdays. Men gradually used their extra time to take on more hours of chores, errands, and child care at home.

The 67-Hour Rule is, then, a reflection of increased efficiency. Fantastic news, in other words, especially for women. One study of women in rural areas without electricity in the 1940s found that hand-washing and ironing a 38-pound laundry load required taking about 6,300 steps around the house, the well, the stove, and back to the house. After nine such loads, a woman would have walked the equivalent of a marathon. The electrification of housework reduced the ambulatory burden of that same laundry load by 90 percent.

“It was a tremendous gain for women to be freed from housework and be able to join the labor force in exchange for a wage,” Marto wrote to me by email. “Most people would argue that is a good thing. My wife certainly does!” Household automation, combined with cultural and economic changes, freed women to work as they pleased. At the same time, labor laws shortened the typical workweek and outlawed child labor, while industrial technology increased productivity.

The economist Jeremy Greenwood is emphatic that the most important theme of the past 140 years of work in America has been the rise of leisure time. “Popular books like The Overworked American and More Work for Mother tell people that we’re doing more work than ever and have less leisure time than ever, but this is clearly false,” he told me. In fact, the decline of men’s paid work and women’s housework has freed up more leisure hours, even after accounting for the increase in child-care time. According to Aguiar and Hurst, leisure time increased in the second half of the 20th century for all groups they studied: men and women, singles and married couples.

But pointing out that men’s workweeks declined while women’s workweeks increased, and that both men and women have more leisure time, doesn’t fully explain why, together, they still labor as long as they used to outside the home more than 100 years ago.

Greenwood told me that, beyond rising efficiency, the 67-Hour Rule may also reflect rising costs and rising expectations. Americans are more productive than ever. But buying homes, raising kids, and caring for older family members are all more expensive than they used to be. (Prices for housing, medical care, and college have been rising faster than inflation for practically this entire century .) The typical home today is also larger than it used to be, and outfitted with a suite of technologies—air-conditioning, flatscreen televisions, dirt-cheap electric lighting—that would have flabbergasted an 1880s monarch.

Several factors determine why a married couple might work more or less in any given year. Laws shape the normal workweek, employers set schedules, and workers choose jobs based on diverse needs and preferences. Describing the average family is difficult because doing so requires glossing over large differences: Some households with five children get by with one working spouse, while some couples without children work long hours. But overall, millions of families across time have independently concluded that it takes about 67 hours to afford the essential features of a comfortable American life, as they define it. After all, if American families felt that they could be comfortable and happy by working only 15 hours a week, many more of them would do so.

The consistency of the workweek for married couples might also reflect a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses effect. As workers get raises, some of them could choose to work less. But richer economies also create new categories of desire: movies, amusement parks, electronics, travel, summer camps, Stanley water coolers. If people become envious of their peers’ rising standard of living, they’ll instead choose to continue working at higher wages to buy nicer stuff. Thus the hedonic treadmill sustains higher working hours and holds the 67-Hour Rule in place.

Why 67 instead of 60 or 70 or some other number? Again, other sources may not replicate that precise figure. More generally, my guess is as good as yours. Here I feel tempted to blame that prime-number god again.

At any rate, there is something a little disappointing about the possibility that married couples have the same market workweek that they did in 1880. I’m not the first writer to worry about the tragic ironies of the dual-earner household. In their book, The Two-Income Trap , Senator Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi observed that the rise in household income in the late 1990s was driven by the rise in two-income households. Clearly, they acknowledged, this was progress. But when a household adds a second earner, they said, it creates additional expenses, especially for child care, which often consumes much of the additional income. Thus, many working parents with kids feel like they’re running in place rather than pooling their income to buy more comfort.

The overwork worrywarts are narrowly wrong: Americans really do have more leisure time than they used to. But they’re broadly right: Americans ought to have more leisure time than they have, and it is a little scandalous that they don’t.

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Travel Time

Time spent traveling during normal work hours is considered compensable work time. Time spent in home-to-work travel by an employee in an employer-provided vehicle, or in activities performed by an employee that are incidental to the use of the vehicle for commuting, generally is not "hours worked" and, therefore, does not have to be paid. This provision applies only if the travel is within the normal commuting area for the employer's business and the use of the vehicle is subject to an agreement between the employer and the employee or the employee's representative.

Webpages on this Topic

Handy Reference Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act - Answers many questions about the FLSA and gives information about certain occupations that are exempt from the Act.

Coverage Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Fact Sheet - General information about who is covered by the FLSA.

Wage and Hour Division: District Office Locations - Addresses and phone numbers for Department of Labor district Wage and Hour Division offices.

State Labor Offices/State Laws - Links to state departments of labor contacts. Individual states' laws and regulations may vary greatly. Please consult your state department of labor for this information.