When is travel time compensable?

Q           Our technicians travel to different jobsites with company-provided vehicles, and they don’t typically drive to a central company location but rather drive from site to site and then home at the end of the day. Is the travel time to the first worksite and then back home at the end of the day compensable, and if a technician needs to stop at a company location, would travel to that location also be compensable?

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), ordinary home-to-work travel is generally not compensable. This principle applies even when employees report to varying job sites. Accordingly, travel from home to the first worksite of the day, and from the last worksite back home, is typically treated as noncompensable commuting time.

The use of a company-provided vehicle does not, standing alone, alter this analysis. Commuting in an employer’s vehicle remains noncompensable when the travel is within the normal commuting area and subject to an agreement or understanding between the employer and employee.

Once the workday begins, however, the analysis shifts. Travel between jobsites during the workday is compensable because it constitutes travel “all in the day’s work.” For technicians who travel directly from home to their first assignment, the workday generally begins upon arrival at that first jobsite.