The Department of Labor's New Guidance on Travel Time

Whether or not an employer needs to compensate an employee for commute or travel time depends on factors like the type of travel, its purpose, the work an employee performs before or during the trip, and the degree of control exercised by the employer.

In late July 2026, the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division released two opinion letters that clarify a couple of different scenarios when it comes to what is compensable travel time and what is not compensable.

The first letter addresses commute time for hybrid employees who voluntarily split their workday between home and the office. The second letter addresses a field employee who receives service assignments, schedules appointments and travels from home to the first customer location.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) has traditionally deemed that if travel is part of an employee's principal activities, it is compensable. This includes travel from one customer location to another or from a central meeting place to an assigned worksite during the workday.

Under the "continuous workday" principle, the period between an employee's first and last principal activities generally is part of the workday. There are recognized exclusions, like meal periods and other times where an employee is completely relieved of his or her duties.

In the new opinion letter, the DOL explains that an otherwise ordinary commute may also be consider not compensable if it happens in the middle of the day. This can include situations such as the following:

An employee begins the workday at home, waits until rush hour traffic has died down, and then commutes to the office.
An employee voluntarily completes additional work at home before going into the office, instead of commuting earlier to complete the work.
An employee leaves work early to catch the last bus home and completes remaining work after arriving at home.

The DOL concluded that although work was performed on both sides of the trip, the travel was still considered an ordinary commute, because it was the employees' option and primarily done for their benefit. Moving the commute to the middle of the day doesn't change it into worktime.

This letter is significant for employers who have flexible and hybrid arrangements. It recognizes ordinary home-to-work travel as non-compensable time that can happen in the middle of the day, like meal periods and other genuine off-duty time.

It's important to remember that in this situation, the employees voluntarily selected the arrangements, were completely relieved of work during their travel, and were paid for all work actually performed at home and in the office.

The second opinion letter addressed a situation with a field-service engineer who worked at customer locations and had no fixed office.

In this situation, the employee drove a company vehicle from his home to the first job site. Before his scheduled time started, the employee received service requests, called customers to arrange appointments, and sometimes coordinated other engineers.

The DOL stated that merely receiving or accessing work assignments is incidental and not compensable. However, calling customers and coordinating other engineers was compensable work. Those activities were integral and indispensable to the employee's principal duties because they were necessary to arrange and perform the requested service work.

In this letter, the DOL also indicated that if work activities were performed during the commute, that any travel after that point would be compensable.

For employers who have hybrid or more flexible arrangements, the DOL's guidance stated that voluntary scheduling flexibility does not change the status of an ordinary commute into compensable work time. Employers should document that these arrangements are voluntary, ensure that employees are relieved of all duties while commuting, and accurately record work performed before and after the commute.

For employers with field-based or mobile employees, now is a great time to review when an dhow those employees begin their workdays. Required activities like contacting customers, scheduling appointments, or coordinating with coworkers may be compensable even when performed before an employee's scheduled start time. Depending on the degree of employer control and the surrounding circumstances, those activities may also affect whether subsequent travel remains an ordinary commute or becomes compensable work time.

These opinion letters clarify that flexible scheduling does not automatically convert an ordinary commute into paid time. But when an employer requires substantive work before or during travel and they control the timing and purpose of that trip, that travel becomes part of the compensable workday.

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