Everything You Should Know About Travel Time To Work

Generally, employees are supposed to be paid for time spent traveling to ventures that are work-related. Logically, that would seem to include your daily commute, but that’s not the case. Commuting time, or time spent traveling back and forth between work and home, is considered personal time. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) doesn’t allow this time as a business expense deduction — employees are not paid to commute. Going out on a service call, on the other hand, requires an employee to be paid for the time spent traveling to and from the client.

Learn more: What Is Compensation and How Is It Determined?

There are many types of travel time for work as well as factors that determine whether you’re entitled to travel pay. The reason for a trip, your typical work hours, and the nature of the trip — overnight vs. day trip, for example — impact eligibility for travel pay. Below are a few types of work-related travel time:

Variable commutes

As mentioned, traveling to and from the same location each day for work doesn’t qualify for travel pay. Where an employee lives and the span of their commute are not within the employer’s control. However, if the company requests that an employee travel to an alternate worksite — especially if the distance is substantial — the employer will be obligated to pay for the extra commute time. How frequently an employee’s job site changes and the company’s standard business radius are likely to impact whether the drive is considered a variable commute.

Additionally, a significant increase in the employee’s required travel distance could entitle them to wages for that extra time. This is particularly true if the company only asks an employee to commute long distances infrequently. Because the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) uses the (slightly abstract) term “substantial distance” when providing guidelines for such evaluations, companies are expected to use their discretion for each scenario.

Principal work duties

Some employees report to different job sites on a regular basis. Examples of non-exempt employees who travel as part of their primary work responsibilities include an electrician going from one call to the next, an executive traveling between offices for meetings, or a delivery driver transporting goods to homes or warehouses. Companies consider these types of scenarios compensated travel time to work.

Special assignments

Occasionally, an employee must travel to and from their home to a work location that’s unusual for a typical workday. For example, if an employee is attending a work seminar that’s farther from home than their regular office, their employer should compensate them for the time spent traveling to that location that exceeds their normal commute.

One-day trips

Business travel is travel away from home for a duration longer than an ordinary day of work. “Away from home,” according to the IRS, refers to locations outside the city or general area of business. A long duration typically refers to an overnight stay. However, some employees also go on daylong work trips to attend conferences or visit suppliers, for example. If an employee goes on a one-day trip for business, they must also receive compensation for their time spent traveling.

Any time spent getting to and from an airport or a train station, for example, is commute time — even if the duration exceeds that of an employee’s typical commute — and is unpaid.

Overnight trips

The IRS applies different rules to employees who spend longer than a day out of town. An employee is always entitled to be paid for any time spent working, but transit time is a more complex. Time spent traveling on a business trip within the hours they regularly work (9 a.m. to 5 p.m., for example) is eligible for travel pay. This includes travel time on weekends.

For example, if an employee normally works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and leaves work at 2 p.m. to catch a flight for an overnight business trip, they should be paid for the remaining two hours in their workday. They won’t, however, be paid for the remainder of their travel time that evening. If they fly home at 9 a.m. on a Saturday, and the flight is four hours long, they’re eligible for travel pay for the time spent traveling back, since it falls within their regular work window even though it’s on a weekend.

Note that state FLSA laws and requirements regarding business-hour travel vary.

Whether an employer can make you travel depends on your work contract. It’s not uncommon for employees to be asked to travel as part of their work. That said, when an employer hires someone for a position that involves regular travel, they must state this in the contract. They should outline specifics such as travel pay, overtime pay while traveling, and expected work hours in the contract, as well. By signing a contract that mentions travel as an expectation or a requirement for the job, the employee agrees to meet that expectation.

Learn more: 11 Companies That’ll Pay You to Travel

If an employee signed a contract like the one mentioned above and then refuses to travel for work, they’ll be in breach of their employment contract. How employers and employees handle work travel, of course, depends on the company. There are many reasons an employee might not be able or willing to travel occasionally, and the way an employer responds to an opt-out request is completely up to them. Here are a few things for both employees and employers to keep in mind:

• Employers can ask employees to travel for work if it’s mentioned in their contract or other relevant official documentation.
• Employees can refuse to travel (despite their contract) if they have a genuine concern (e.g., a medical condition) about putting themselves or the company at risk by traveling.
• Most employers are understanding and willing to make exceptions occasionally.

The Department of Labor (DOL) doesn’t require employers to reimburse employees for expenses accrued while traveling for work. However, many employers do because businesses can deduct employee travel expenses as business expenses. Of course, for an expense to qualify as a business expense, it must be entirely business-related. Gas mileage to visit a friend while on a business trip, for example, doesn’t count.

Note that the IRS requires any business expense over $75 to be accompanied by a receipt, so employees who save their receipts have a better chance of being reimbursed for qualifying expenses.

The time an employee spends traveling during regular work hours is eligible for compensation. Time spent commuting to and from work, outside of work hours, is unpaid. If an employee spends time traveling between work locations during working hours, the IRS considers it hours worked, and the company must provide compensation. An employee is entitled to compensation for any time they spend traveling to another city and back within the same workday — to a conference or meeting with a client, for example. Overnight travel is paid travel time as long as it falls within an employee’s regular working hours.

Many states have labor laws that grant employees more rights than federal labor law. For example, federal law doesn’t require employee travel expense reimbursement. California law, on the other hand, mandates that employees be compensated for all necessary expenditures and losses related to work and provides a detailed list of qualifying covered expenses. As an employee, it’s worth looking into. The Portal to Portal Act can be a useful resource for employers and employees looking for legal information about travel time to work and regulations regarding wages and overtime pay.