Travel time, overtime and working away from home: what labour departments say

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. It describes what the sources say about hours worked. It does not say what any employer owes or what a worker may claim, and it gives no pay rate or per diem figure. How overtime is worked out on a day rate or piece rate is on the guide to day rate and piece rate pay.

United States

The Department of Labor's rules on hours worked are printed in 29 CFR Part 785. They sort travel by kind. Section 785.35 says an employee who travels from home before the regular workday and returns home at the end of it is engaged in ordinary home to work travel, a normal incident of employment, and that this is true whether the employee works at a fixed location or at different job sites. It says normal travel from home to work is not worktime.

Other sections set out the exceptions and the cases on the other side of the line:

Section 785.36, emergencies: it gives the example of an employee who has gone home after the day's work and is later called out at night to travel a substantial distance for an emergency job for one of the employer's customers, and says all time spent on that travel is working time.
Section 785.37, a special one-day assignment in another city: it says such travel cannot be regarded as ordinary home to work travel, because it was done for the employer's benefit and at the employer's special request, though the home to work part of the trip may be deducted.
Section 785.38, travel that is all in the day's work: it says time spent in travel as part of the principal activity, such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, must be counted as hours worked. It says where an employee is required to report at a meeting place to receive instructions or to pick up and carry tools, the travel from there to the work place is part of the day's work and counts regardless of contract, custom or practice.
Section 785.39, travel away from home: it says travel that keeps an employee away overnight is clearly worktime when it cuts across the employee's workday, including the matching hours on non-working days. It adds that as an enforcement policy the Divisions will not count time spent as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus or automobile outside regular working hours.
Section 785.41, work performed while traveling: it says any work the employee is required to do while traveling is hours worked, and that an employee who drives, or is required to ride as an assistant or helper, is working while riding except during bona fide meal periods or when permitted to sleep in adequate facilities furnished by the employer.

Wage and Hour Division Fact Sheet #22, revised July 2008, gives the same split in plain terms: ordinary home to work travel is not work time, and travel between job sites during the workday is work time that must be counted as hours worked. Section 778.104 of the overtime regulations adds that each workweek stands alone, and that hours are not averaged across two weeks.

Ontario

The Ontario government's guide to the Employment Standards Act says that commuting time, the time it takes to get to work from home and back, is not counted as work time. It lists exceptions. If an employee takes a work vehicle home in the evening for the convenience of the employer, work time begins when the employee leaves home and ends on arrival home. If an employee must transport other staff or supplies to or from the workplace or site, that time counts. If an employee with a usual workplace must travel to another location to do work, the time traveling to and from that location counts. It says time spent travelling during the course of the workday is work time.

On training, the guide says time in training required by the employer or by law counts as work time, and training that is not required in order to do the job does not. On limits, it says most employees cannot be required to work more than eight hours a day, or the hours in an established regular workday if longer, or more than 48 hours a week, unless there is an electronic or written agreement. It says such an agreement does not relieve the employer of paying overtime when overtime hours are worked. It also says most employees must receive at least 11 consecutive hours off work each day, and at least eight hours between shifts.

New Zealand

Employment New Zealand says an employee's hours of work must be agreed in a written employment agreement, and that the agreement must fix the maximum number of hours to be worked. It says employers must make sure employees are paid at least the minimum wage for all the time they work, and that this applies equally to overtime and normal hours. Where specific hours are not in the agreement, for example because hours change so often, it says an accurate and timely written record is needed of exactly what hours the employee has worked. The page does not address travel time.

At a glance

Kind of travel	United States	Ontario
Home to the usual workplace	Not worktime	Not work time
Between job sites in the workday	Hours worked	Work time
To another location from a usual workplace	Hours worked when part of the day's work	Work time
Carrying staff or supplies	Driving or riding as required counts as work	Counts as work time
Overnight travel across the workday	Worktime, including matching hours on non-working days	Not addressed on the page