DOL Issues New Guidance on Travel Time Compensation

By Heather Phillips 07/08/2026 3 min read 25 views

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently released two new opinion letters that clarify when employee travel time counts as compensable work under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The letters address hybrid work arrangements and field service scenarios, distinguishing between time that is unpaid “commuting” and time that is compensable “hours worked.”

Mid-Day Commuting is Not Compensable

A recent pair of DOL opinion letters issued by the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) discuss when employee travel between home and work counts as compensable “hours worked” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The letters address similar factual scenarios, but they reach different conclusions as to whether the time is compensable.

FLSA2026-9 considers non-exempt employees who want to split their workday between home and office. In this scenario, the employer does not allow employees flexibility to begin their commute after the morning rush or begin their commute home earlier to avoid the evening rush because the agency fears it would have to pay employees for the time spent in their mid-day commute under the “continuous workday” principle. The question was whether a “mid-day” commute requested by the employee to avoid rush hour traffic would be compensable time.

WHD concluded this travel remains an “ordinary” or “normal” commute and, therefore, is not worktime even though it happens in the middle of the continuous workday and predominantly benefits the employee rather than the employer. Travel in the middle of the continuous workday would normally be compensable because the timing of the travel is voluntary and driven by the employee’s own preferences. With this opinion letter, WHD formally recognizes a “third category” of time that is non-compensable even though it occurs during the continuous workday.

This scenario involves a field service engineer who travels to clients as part of his duties. The engineer has no fixed office and spends up to an hour each morning receiving pages and calling clients to schedule service appointments before leaving home for his first client appointment in an employer-provided vehicle.

The engineer’s phone calls to schedule appointments are compensable, the letter advises, because the calls are integral and indispensable to the engineer’s principal job of installing and servicing equipment. The engineer’s travel time is also compensable because the employee is required to perform substantial work immediately before the drive and again immediately after arriving at the first job site. A key factor is that the timing and manner of the travel are dictated by the employer rather than chosen by the employee.

DOL further finds receiving pages is not compensable, however, because the task is merely “incidental” to using an employer-provided vehicle for commuting under the Employee Commuting Flexibility Act. In FLSA2026-9, the employee chooses when to travel and is not performing employer-directed work immediately adjacent to the drive, so the travel remains an “ordinary” commute and is unpaid.

These opinion letters are helpful to employers who want to offer employees more flexibility with commuting times but do not want to incur the risk that the commute is compensable work. The guidance is especially helpful for employers that retain field service or traveling employees, or utilize flexible or hybrid schedules, or take-home work policies. Remember, however, some state laws impose stricter requirements than federal law regarding what constitutes compensable work and when travel time is compensable.