• Four kinds of travel time are considered under federal regulations.
• Employees must receive pay for unusual travel that is significantly longer than their normal commute.

In most cases, travel time counts as working time. When travel is considered as hours worked, the time must also be counted toward overtime. Most state laws do not address travel time, and those that do primarily mirror federal requirements. Federal law mainly addresses four types of travel:

1. Commuting to and from work (which is not usually working time),
2. During a normal workday,
3. To another city in the same day, and
4. Overnight travel to another city.

Commuting time

A normal commute to work and back home is not paid working time. However, there are some cases where such time has to be paid. For example, if an employee must report to a business location to pick up tools, equipment, or even a company vehicle before proceeding to the job location, the workday begins at the first business location. Although the employee does not have to be paid for driving from home to the business location, the travel from that location to the job site is work-related travel.

Also, if an employee commutes from home in a company vehicle, the time might have to be counted as working time. Most company vehicles do not impose this obligation. However, certain vehicles (such as semi-trailer trucks, cement trucks, or cranes) may require the employee to drive a different route or may be significantly more difficult to operate than a company vehicle. If so, the drive time may have to be paid, even if the employee is traveling home from work.

Travel time spent carrying heavy, burdensome equipment, as contrasted with light hand tools, is hours worked. On the other hand, carrying light hand tools between an employee’s home and the work site, involving no appreciable burden or inconvenience, is not hours worked. In determinations of this kind, some consideration must be given to the custom in the industry. For example, a carpenter who carries a typical toolbox from home to the worksite is commuting, not working or engaged in principal activities of employment.

However, an employee who is required regularly to carry heavy mail or bulky packages to the post office en route from the factory to that employee’s home, is working. A different situation exists if an employee carries only light mail to and from the post office on the way to or from work, and generally such time is not hours worked.

Although employees do not have to be paid for an ordinary commute to and from work, they may have to be paid for unusual travel that is substantially longer than an ordinary commute. However, the ordinary commuting time may be subtracted from hours of work.

The first issue is whether the driving time or distance is within the employer’s usual or customary business area. If an employee drives from home to the first customer location of the day, this initial drive may be as much as an hour, yet still be within the normal business area and could be unpaid — even if the employer assigns work locations each day.

The second issue is the frequency of changes in reporting locations. If an employee is only occasionally required to report to a distant location (perhaps once per month or less), then the additional drive time may have to be paid. State and federal regulations refer to travel that is “substantially” longer than a usual commute, but do not define this term. Part of the challenge may be that each employee’s commute is different; some employees may commute regularly for only a few minutes, while others may commute for an hour or more.

Employers might consider a commute to be “substantially” longer if the additional time can reasonably be recorded (such as 15 minutes or more). While a few extra minutes could be ignored, and there is a regulation that allows employers to disregard small amounts of time that cannot be practicably recorded, that regulation also warns that:

“This rule applies only where there are uncertain and indefinite periods of time involved of a few seconds or minutes duration, and where the failure to count such time is due to considerations justified by industrial realities. An employer may not arbitrarily fail to count as hours worked any part, however small, of the employee’s fixed or regular working time or practically ascertainable period of time he is regularly required to spend on duties assigned to him.” (785.47, Where records show insubstantial or insignificant periods of time)

Thus, assigning an employee to an alternate location infrequently, knowing that the assignment will involve additional travel time, could well be viewed as part of the expected working day. Disregarding that time may not be defensible.

Frequency of changes in reporting locations may become a consideration if the employee reports to alternative locations so regularly that it becomes a normal or expected part of the job. For example, a maintenance employee who is responsible for three locations, and visits each location at least once per week, may be taking a normal (unpaid) commute even if the driving distance varies by a half-hour or more. Conversely, if this employee regularly reports to one location and is only occasionally called to other facilities, the additional drive time may have to be paid.