Mid-day home-to-office travel pay: what the FLSA says

Do employers have to pay for mid-day home-to-office travel when an employee works partly from home

Under federal wage law, the answer is no for an ordinary mid-day commute between home and the office when an employee splits the day between the two. The U.S. Department of Labor has said that home-to-work travel remains an ordinary commute even when the employee teleworks part of the day and goes to the office later.

The rule people miss is that the label on the day does not control the pay rule. If the employee is simply shifting between home and the regular workplace, that trip is still normal home-to-work travel. The DOL’s 2020 opinion letter addressed exactly this setup and concluded the travel time was not compensable.

The basic regulation says ordinary travel from home to work before the workday and back home at the end of the workday is not worktime, and that remains true whether the worker has one fixed worksite or different job sites. The regulation also says that ordinary travel from home to work need not be counted even if the employer agrees to pay for it.

The part that changes the answer is not remote work. It is travel that becomes part of the principal activity. Federal rules require payment when an employee travels from job site to job site during the workday, or when the employee is required to report to a meeting place, pick up tools, or do work there before traveling onward. In those cases, the trip is part of the day’s work.

A concrete example helps. If an employee works from 8:00 a.m. to noon at home, then drives to the office for a 1:00 p.m. meeting, that drive is treated like a commute under the DOL opinion letter. If the same employee spends the morning at home, then drives to a client site, stops to pick up materials for the employer, or is sent from one work location to another, the analysis changes and the travel can become payable work time.

A second mistake is assuming every mid-day trip is paid because the employee already started working earlier in the day. The DOL rejected that shortcut. In the examples it reviewed, the employee chose to telework for part of the day, completed personal tasks, and later traveled to the office. The travel still counted as an ordinary commute because the trip was between home and the regular workplace, not between two work assignments.

Another point people get wrong is the distinction between federal wage law and company policy. The Fair Labor Standards Act sets the floor for when travel time must be counted as hours worked. A company can choose to reimburse commuting costs or pay for travel time by contract, policy, or practice, but federal law does not require payment for ordinary home-to-work travel just because the employer offers it.

There is also a narrow rule for special assignments. When an employee who normally works at a fixed location is sent on a one-day assignment in another city, the travel can be compensable because it is not ordinary commuting. The regulation treats that kind of trip as travel performed for the employer’s benefit and at the employer’s special request. That is a different situation from a mid-day drive between home and the usual office.

The inconvenient part for employers is that the line is location-based, not flexibility-based. A hybrid schedule by itself does not create paid commute time. What matters is whether the employee is traveling between home and the regular worksite, or whether the employee is traveling as part of the workday between assignments, to a temporary site, or under instructions that make the trip part of the job.

For payroll teams, the safest practice is simple: classify the travel based on what the employee is traveling between. Home to regular office is unpaid commute time under federal law. Home to a temporary duty site, one worksite to another, or a required meeting point before the first assignment can be paid working time. That distinction should be written into the travel policy and applied the same way for similar cases.

State law can be stricter than federal law, and some states add their own wage rules. The federal rules above set the baseline, but an employer should check the applicable state wage-hour law before treating all mid-day travel as unpaid. The U.S. Department of Labor also points employers to state labor offices because state rules may vary greatly.

If you are writing or reviewing a policy, the clean answer is this: when an employee works partly from home and later drives to the office, employers do not have to pay for that trip under federal law if it is an ordinary commute. Pay becomes due only when the trip is part of the day’s work or a special assignment changes it from commuting into compensable travel.

If you want a practical next step, map the employee’s route, the reason for the trip, and whether the destination is the regular workplace or a different work location. That three-part check is what separates unpaid commuting from paid travel under the FLSA, and it is the part that avoids mistakes when hybrid schedules get messy.

For related guidance on how DevConnect frames work rules and testing work, see the platform overview at https://devconnectplatform.com.

FAQ

Does it matter that the employee already worked from home earlier that day No. Under federal rules, earlier remote work does not turn a later home-to-office drive into paid travel by itself. The key question is whether the trip is an ordinary commute or part of the day’s work.

Is travel from home to a client site treated the same as travel from home to the office No. Travel from home to a regular office is ordinary commuting. Travel to a special one-day assignment, temporary duty site, or another work location can be compensable depending on the facts.

Can an employer reimburse the commute even if federal law does not require payment Yes. Federal law does not require pay for ordinary home-to-work travel, but an employer can choose to reimburse or pay for that travel by policy, contract, or practice. That is a company choice, not a federal minimum wage rule.

What if the employee has to stop for work-related reasons on the way That can change the analysis. If the employee is required to pick up tools, receive instructions, or perform work at a meeting place before traveling onward, the travel from that point can be hours worked.

Do state laws ever require more pay than federal law Yes. State wage-hour laws can be stricter than the FLSA, so the federal rule is not always the full answer. Employers should check the state where the employee works.