November 2026 Iowa Q&A roundup

Q           If we require employees to use their personal vehicle for work, are we legally obligated to reimburse them for mileage or other vehicle-related expenses even if their pay wouldn’t fall below the minimum wage if we didn’t?

The specifics of this will depend on your state. Some states, like California, have very strict rules about employee “costs,” as do other states, such as Illinois. Others, like Iowa, are more open-ended, but all of them have either statutory or common-law requirements that employees not be charged or experience a loss for certain work-related expenses. 

It may depend on the expense and how big the expense is, but courts frequently take into consideration what seems “fair” even if the statute isn’t specific. If you have employees use personal vehicles on a regular basis (not just as a onetime thing, like if they go to pick up coffee), then you need to have a comprehensive written policy that addresses licensure, Department of Transportation (DOT) license checks, insurance, reporting issues, and payment, as well as other matters. 

It’s likely that a failure to pay anything if you require consistent use of a personal vehicle would negatively impact recruitment and retention, as well as possibly create wage and hour, insurance, and other issues.