Do employers have to pay for training time and travel time?

Who this note covers

These are the federal hours worked rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). They matter for nonexempt employees, who must receive at least the minimum wage for every hour worked and at least one and one half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. To check whether a salaried role meets the salary part of the exemption test, see our note on the FLSA exempt salary threshold.

Training, lectures, and meetings

Start from the rule in 29 CFR 785.27. Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs, and similar activities can be left out of hours worked only when all four of these are true:

1. Outside regular working hours. Regular hours mean the hours the employee usually works, which may differ from the hours the business is open.
2. In fact voluntary. Training the employer requires is not voluntary. It is also not voluntary when the employee is given to understand that skipping it would hurt their working conditions or their job (29 CFR 785.28).
3. Not directly related to the job. Training is directly related when it is designed to help the employee do their current job more effectively. A course meant in good faith to prepare the employee for a higher skill or another job is not directly related, even if it incidentally helps with current work (29 CFR 785.29).
4. No productive work. If the employee does any real work during the session, the time counts.

If even one condition fails, the time is hours worked. A required safety meeting after the shift or a mandatory evening class on a new system both count.

Three specific exceptions apply to certain education and apprenticeship programs, even when the instruction relates to the employee's work:

• Independent schooling. When an employee chooses on their own to attend an independent school, college, or trade school after hours, the time is not hours worked, even if the courses relate to the job (29 CFR 785.30).
• Courses that match outside institutions. When an employer offers a program that corresponds to courses at independent bona fide institutions, and the employee attends voluntarily outside working hours, the time is not hours worked, even if it is job related or the employer pays for it (29 CFR 785.31).
• Apprenticeship instruction. Related instruction under a written apprenticeship agreement that meets federal standards may be excluded if it involves no productive work, unless the agreement says it is hours worked (29 CFR 785.32).

Voluntary training during an employee's regular working hours generally counts as hours worked, even when the employee chooses to attend. Employers may prohibit voluntary training during scheduled work hours. The Department of Labor addressed both points in Opinion Letter FLSA2020-15.

Travel time

Travel rules turn on the kind of trip (29 CFR 785.33).

The ordinary commute is not paid time. Travel from home before the workday and back after it is ordinary home to work travel, at one location or at different job sites (29 CFR 785.35). The statute behind this is the Portal to Portal Act (29 U.S.C. 254(a)). It also treats commuting in an employer's vehicle as unpaid when the use stays within the normal commuting area and is covered by an agreement with the employee or their representative. A contract or established custom can make some other travel compensable (29 U.S.C. 254(b)), but ordinary home to work travel does not have to be counted as hours worked even if the employer agrees to pay for it (29 CFR 785.34).

Travel during the day is paid time. Travel that is part of the employee's principal activity, such as driving from one job site to another during the workday, is hours worked. When an employee must report to a meeting place to get instructions, do other work, or pick up tools, travel from that place to the work site counts (29 CFR 785.38).

Emergency call outs and one day trips. When an employee who has gone home for the day is called out at night to travel a substantial distance to an emergency job for a customer, the travel is working time. The Department of Labor takes no position on travel for an emergency call back to the employee's regular place of work (29 CFR 785.36). A required same day trip to another city also counts as working time, excluding the employee's normal commute and usual meal period (29 CFR 785.37).

Overnight travel. Travel that keeps the employee away from home overnight counts when it cuts across the employee's normal working hours, on workdays and during the same hours on days off. An employee who normally works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, is working while traveling between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on a Sunday. Regular meal periods do not count. As an enforcement policy, the Department of Labor does not count travel outside regular working hours when the employee rides as a passenger on a plane, train, boat, bus, or car (29 CFR 785.39). This is the Department's enforcement position, and a state may count this time anyway.

Driving and working on the road. Required work done while traveling is hours worked. An employee required to drive or perform work while traveling is generally working during that time. The same applies to an employee required to ride as a helper. Bona fide meal periods and qualifying sleep periods may be excluded (29 CFR 785.41). If the employee turns down offered public transportation to drive their own car, the employer may count either the driving time or the time the public option would have counted (29 CFR 785.40).

Two opinion letters apply these rules to common cases. In FLSA2020-16, once employees were staying at a hotel near a remote construction site, daily travel between the hotel and the site was ordinary home to work travel. In FLSA2020-15, travel to a voluntary conference that was not itself hours worked was treated as personal travel.

Irregular schedules. The overnight rule depends on "normal working hours." For employees without a fixed schedule, the Department of Labor has described several ways to set normal working hours in Opinion Letter FLSA2018-18, as two law firm summaries report: review time records from a recent month of regular work, average the start and end times, or, in rare cases, agree on a reasonable timeframe. Decide the method before the trip and apply it the same way each time.

Worked example

Example with made up figures.

An hourly employee earns $22.00 per hour. Their normal schedule is Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an unpaid 30 minute lunch from 12:00 to 12:30. That is 8 paid hours a day and 40 a week.

Why each part counts or not:

• Tuesday course: 3 hours count. It was required and it is directly related to the job. Either reason alone makes it hours worked.
• Thursday travel: 4 of 6.5 hours count. Travel from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. cuts across the normal workday, so it counts. Travel from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. is outside normal hours and the employee is a passenger, so under the federal enforcement policy it does not count.
• Friday travel: 0 hours count. The flight home falls after 4:30 p.m. and the employee is a passenger.

Pay for the week:

• Straight time for all hours: 43.0 × $22.00 = $946.00
• Overtime premium: 3.0 × ($22.00 × 0.5) = $33.00
• Total: $979.00, the same as 40 × $22.00 plus 3 × $33.00.

The required course alone moved this employee into overtime.

Two changes to the same example:

• A Saturday return flight. Suppose the employee flies home Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. instead. Those hours match the normal weekday schedule, so the flight counts except for the usual 12:00 to 12:30 lunch. That adds 3.5 hours, for 46.5 hours and 6.5 overtime hours.
• Driving instead of flying. If the employer required the employee to drive a company car to the customer site, the driving time counts even outside normal hours, because the driver is working (29 CFR 785.41). If the employer offered the flight and the employee chose to drive instead, the employer may count only the time the flight would have counted (29 CFR 785.40).

To run your own figures, including nondiscretionary bonuses that change the regular rate, use the Overtime Pay Calculator.

What varies by state

State law can count time as hours worked that federal law leaves out. Check the law of the state where the employee works before relying on the federal rules alone.

California is one example. In a 2002 opinion letter, the California Labor Commissioner took the position that travel to a required out of town event is hours worked whether or not it happens during regular working hours and whether or not the trip includes an overnight stay. California counts time when the employee is subject to the employer's control, and the Labor Commissioner described the federal passenger exclusion as inconsistent with state law. Bona fide meal periods, qualifying sleep periods, and time spent on personal activities may be excluded, depending on whether the employee remains subject to the employer's control. California generally treats required travel to an out of town assignment as working time, including passenger travel outside normal working hours, and a 2023 Lathrop GPM review reaches the same view. Required travel from a designated reporting location to a remote job site can also count. Under that view, the passenger hours in the example (2.5 hours Thursday and 4.5 hours Friday) would also count for a California employee, and California's own overtime rules would apply.

Common mistakes

• Calling required training "optional." If employees understand that skipping it would affect their job, it is not voluntary (29 CFR 785.28).
• Leaving paid training off the timesheet. Training that counts belongs in the weekly total that decides overtime.
• Skipping weekend travel hours. Overnight travel during the hours that match the normal schedule counts on Saturday and Sunday too (29 CFR 785.39).
• Applying the passenger rule to the driver. The passenger exclusion does not cover an employee who is required to drive or who must work while traveling (29 CFR 785.41). An employee who chooses to drive instead of taking offered public transportation falls under 29 CFR 785.40.
• Missing travel between sites. Travel from a required meeting point or between job sites during the day counts (29 CFR 785.38).
• Deciding "normal hours" after the trip. For employees with irregular schedules, set the method before travel and keep the records that support it. Our note on federal HR records retention periods covers how long to keep time records.

This note is general information, not legal advice. For an unusual arrangement, a collective bargaining agreement, or a state with its own hours worked rules, check with employment counsel.