When Does the Clock Start? DOL Clarifies Pay for Commute and Travel Time

On July 22, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division issued two opinion letters that sharpen a question employers wrestle with daily: when does travel between home and work become paid time under the Fair Labor Standards Act? The guidance is especially relevant for the two workforces that have grown fastest—hybrid office staff and field-based employees who report to job sites instead of a desk. Although the letters do not create a bright-line rule, they show how employee choice, employer control, and the nature and amount of work surrounding a trip can change the answer.

The Rule: Ordinary Commutes are Usually Paid

The FLSA generally pays non-exempt employees for "hours worked," but an ordinary home-to-work commute has never counted, even though the workday itself is generally compensable from start to finish under the "continuous workday" doctrine. The dividing line, as the Supreme Court put it in Armour & Co. v. Wantock, is whether the time is spent predominantly for the employer's benefit or the employee's. Courts also ask whether a preliminary or postliminary task is integral and indispensable to the employee’s principal work. The facts – not the label attached to the trip—control.

Hybrid Employees: A Mid-Day Commute Can Stay Unpaid

FLSA2026-9 addresses employees who split a single workday between home and office—working part of the day at home, driving in, then driving back. The Division concluded that this voluntary mid-day travel is an "ordinary" commute and is not hours worked, even though it falls inside the continuous workday. In effect, the letter recognizes a third category of non-compensable time during the workday, alongside bona fide meal breaks and off-duty periods. Across three scenarios—an employee shifting her commute to dodge rush hour, one doing extra morning work at home before driving in, and one catching the last bus home to finish work there—the result was the same. Because the employee chooses the arrangement for personal convenience, the commute primarily benefits her and stays unpaid. The work done at home, of course, remains compensable.

Field Employees: When Calls Start the Clock

FLSA2026-10 examines a service engineer who repairs MRI systems, has no office, and drives from home to his first client. The Division split the tasks. Time spent passively receiving pages was not compensable, because it is incidental to using an employer-provided vehicle to commute. But time spent calling clients to schedule appointments and coordinating other engineers was compensable—that work is integral and indispensable to the engineer’s principal duties, not part of the commute. Most important, when the employer requires the engineer to make those calls throughout an hour before or during the drive, the drive itself becomes paid time. Loaded with required work, it loses the freedom that defines an ordinary commute and no longer qualifies as one.

What Llorca Adds in the Eleventh Circuit

Read together, the letters reject shortcuts. Voluntary flexibility and freedom from duties support treating travel as an ordinary commute. Substantial principal work before or during a trip, combined with employer control, may change that result. Minor or incidental duties do not automatically make an entire commute compensable. The inquiry remains fact-intensive.

The distinction matters in Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit. In Llorca v. Sheriff, Collier County, deputies had to monitor radios and roads, but the court held that those incidental duties did not make their commutes compensable; actual responses were paid. By contrast, FLSA2026-10 treated client scheduling and engineer coordination as principal work. The nature and amount of the activity matter as much as the instruction to perform it.

Practical Steps for Employers and Employees

Employers should review hybrid, dispatch, and field-service practices. Confirm that split-day commutes are voluntary; classify pre-shift and in-transit tasks; train supervisors on when paid time begins; and enable mobile timekeeping. Do not require calls when an employee is driving. Policies should direct employees to pull over before working or otherwise comply with safety and hands-free requirements.

Employees should record required calls, scheduling, dispatch, coordination, and other work at home or in transit, and promptly report timekeeping gaps. The letters address federal law; Georgia Department of Labor materials generally point to FLSA hours-worked rules, while other states may be more protective. Opinion letters are guidance, not binding law, and a court can reject them. But an employer that relies on one in good faith gains a defense against FLSA liability under the Portal-to-Portal Act. Where at-home work time is genuinely hard to measure, the Division endorsed "reasonable agreements" between employer and employee to fix compensation. And regardless of where the line falls, employers must still capture all hours actually worked, at the worksite or at home.

Bottom Line

For employers and employees, these letters are a useful map, not a universal answer. A “commute” may still be compensable when the facts show substantial principal work and employer control. All work performed at home or in transit must be recorded and paid. Clear policies, accurate records, and attention to actual conduct remain the safest course.

This post is for general information only and is not legal advice. For guidance on a specific situation, please contact our office.