Unpaid Travel Time in Minnesota: When Travel Must Be Paid

Under federal law, ordinary travel between home and work is generally not paid time, while travel that is part of the workday, including travel from one job site to another, generally is hours worked. Minnesota separately requires payment for time spent performing duties in connection with employment under Minn. R. 5200.0120.

The detailed commute and travel categories below come from the federal FLSA regulations. They govern employees covered by federal law and are useful for analyzing common travel arrangements, but they should not be treated as replacing Minnesota’s separate hours-worked rule where a claim arises only under state law.

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The Commute Is the Baseline

Section 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act removed ordinary commuting from compensable time, and 29 CFR 785.34 explains its effect. Travel to and from the actual place of performance of the employee’s principal activity, before the workday begins or after it ends, need not be counted as working time unless it is compensable by express contract or by custom or practice not inconsistent with an express contract.

Section 785.35 states the ordinary case. 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, which is a normal incident of employment and is not worktime. The regulation adds a point that matters for field workers: this is true whether the employee works at a fixed location or at different job sites.

The Portal-to-Portal Act also addresses employer vehicles. Use of an employer’s vehicle for commuting, and activities incidental to that use, are not principal activities where the use is within the normal commuting area for the employer’s business and is subject to an agreement between the employer and the employee or the employee’s representative.

Travel That Is All in the Day’s Work

Once the workday has started, travel is generally part of it.

Under 29 CFR 785.38, time spent traveling as part of the employee’s principal activity, such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, must be counted as hours worked. The regulation adds a second situation with the same result. Where an employee is required to report to a meeting place to receive instructions, to perform other work there, or to pick up and carry tools, the travel from that designated place to the work place is part of the day’s work and must be counted regardless of contract, custom or practice.

The regulation’s own example is worth following. An employee who normally finishes at 5 p.m., is sent to another job finishing at 8 p.m., and is required to return to the employer’s premises arriving at 9 p.m., is working the whole time. If instead the employee goes home after the 8 p.m. job, the travel after 8 p.m. is home to work travel and is not hours worked.

That distinction turns on the requirement to return. Being required to bring a vehicle, tools or paperwork back to the yard is different from being released at the last site.

The Special One-Day Assignment

A one-day trip to another city is treated differently from a commute.

Under 29 CFR 785.37, where an employee who regularly works at a fixed location in one city is given a special one-day assignment in another city, the travel cannot be regarded as ordinary home to work travel occasioned merely by the fact of employment. It was performed for the employer’s benefit and at the employer’s special request to meet the needs of a particular and unusual assignment, so it qualifies as an integral part of the principal activity for that workday.

The regulation limits what is counted. Since the employee would have had to report to the regular work site anyway, the travel between home and the departure point may be deducted as home to work travel, and the usual meal time is deductible as well.

Situation	Treatment	Regulation
Ordinary home-to-first-site travel, and ordinary travel from the last site home	Not hours worked, whether the regular work location is fixed or changes	29 CFR 785.35
Reporting to a shop or yard first for instructions, work or tools, then traveling to the site	Hours worked from the reporting place onward, regardless of contract, custom or practice	29 CFR 785.38
Travel between job sites during the workday	Hours worked	29 CFR 785.38
Required to return to the employer’s premises at the end of the day	Hours worked through the return	29 CFR 785.38
Special one-day assignment in another city	Hours worked, less ordinary home-to-departure-point travel and the usual meal time	29 CFR 785.37
Called out at night to travel a substantial distance for an emergency job for a customer	Hours worked	29 CFR 785.36
Overnight travel during the hours you normally work, including corresponding hours on days off	Hours worked, less regular meal periods	29 CFR 785.39
Overnight travel as a passenger outside your regular working hours	Not treated as worktime under the Divisions’ enforcement policy	29 CFR 785.39
Any work performed while traveling	Hours worked	29 CFR 785.41

Source: 29 CFR 785.33 to 785.41. Verified September 6, 2026.

Emergency Call-Outs

Travel back to work outside your hours can be compensable depending on where you are called to.

Under 29 CFR 785.36, where an employee who has gone home after completing the day’s work is called out at night to travel a substantial distance to perform an emergency job for one of the employer’s customers, all the time spent on that travel is working time. The regulation expressly takes no position on travel to and from the employee’s own regular place of business on an emergency call, which leaves that situation to the particular facts.

Overnight Travel Away From Home

Travel that keeps you away overnight has its own framework, and it can be more generous than people expect.

Under 29 CFR 785.39, travel away from home is worktime when it cuts across the employee’s workday, because the employee is simply substituting travel for other duties. The regulation then extends that beyond ordinary working days: the time counts during normal working hours on regular working days and also during the corresponding hours on nonworking days. An employee who regularly works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday is working during those hours while traveling on a Saturday or Sunday.

Two limits apply. Regular meal period time is not counted. And as an enforcement policy, time spent traveling away from home outside regular working hours as a passenger on an airplane, train, boat, bus or automobile is not treated as worktime.

Section 785.40 covers the employee who is offered public transportation and asks to drive instead. The employer may count either the time spent driving or the time it would have had to count had the employee used the public conveyance.

Work Performed While Traveling

Travel time and work time can overlap, and where they do the work controls.

Under 29 CFR 785.41, any work an employee is required to perform while traveling must be counted as hours worked. An employee who drives a truck, bus, automobile, boat or airplane, or who is required to ride in one 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.

The practical consequence for a passenger is that answering calls, completing reports or handling dispatch during a trip is work regardless of the enforcement position on passive passenger travel.

Travel Pay and Mileage Reimbursement Are Different

Two payments are easily conflated, and they behave differently.

Reimbursement for expenses incurred on the employer’s behalf is excluded from the regular rate under Minn. R. 5200.0140, item A. Mileage paid at a per-mile rate compensates the cost of running a vehicle rather than the time spent driving it, so receiving mileage does not answer whether the driving time was paid.

Minnesota’s deduction rules point the same way from the other direction. Minn. R. 5200.0090 prohibits deductions from the minimum wage for travel expenses, defined as receipted out-of-pocket expenses for transportation, meals and lodging, or an agreed allowance, whichever is greater.

If Your Travel Time Was Not Paid

What resolves a travel question is the shape of the day rather than the total mileage.

Record where the day started, where you were required to report first, every stop in between, and where you were released. Whether you were required to return to a yard, office or shop at the end matters, as does whether you were carrying tools, materials or a company vehicle at someone’s direction. Dispatch records, GPS logs, route sheets, fuel receipts and timestamps on work orders all reconstruct this.

Travel hours count toward the overtime threshold and enter the regular rate calculation under Minn. R. 5200.0130, so unpaid travel in a long week can carry a premium as well as straight time. The broader state-law question is what counts as hours worked in Minnesota under Minn. R. 5200.0120.

Work that moves between sites is where this comes up. Our page on unpaid wages for Minneapolis construction workers covers that setting, and our pages on unpaid wages in Minneapolis and unpaid wage claims in St. Paul cover what a claim involves.

Frequently Asked Questions

I drive to a different job site every day. Is that commute paid?

Section 785.35 states that ordinary home to work travel is not worktime whether the employee works at a fixed location or at different job sites, so the first trip of the day and the last one home are generally not paid. Travel between sites during the day is hours worked under 29 CFR 785.38.

My employer makes me stop at the shop first to pick up tools. Does that change anything?

It can. Under 29 CFR 785.38, where an employee is required to report to a meeting place to receive instructions, perform work or pick up and carry tools, travel from that place to the work site is part of the day’s work and must be counted regardless of contract, custom or practice.

I drive a company van home. Am I paid for that?

The Portal-to-Portal Act provides that use of an employer’s vehicle for commuting, and activities incidental to that use, are not principal activities where the use is within the normal commuting area for the employer’s business and is subject to an agreement between the employer and the employee or their representative. Whether those conditions are met on your facts is the question.

I traveled to a conference over a weekend. Is any of that paid?

Under 29 CFR 785.39, travel away from home is worktime when it cuts across your workday, including the corresponding hours on nonworking days. Time as a passenger outside your regular working hours is treated as noncompensable under the Divisions’ enforcement policy, and any work you were required to perform while traveling is hours worked under 29 CFR 785.41.

My employer pays mileage. Doesn’t that cover the driving time?

Mileage reimburses the expense of operating a vehicle. It is excluded from the regular rate as an expense reimbursement under Minn. R. 5200.0140, item A, and it does not answer whether the time spent driving was compensable, which is a separate question decided by the travel rules above.

This article provides general information about travel time under Minnesota and federal law and is not legal advice. Whether particular travel is compensable depends on how your workday was structured and what your employer required. Confirm current requirements with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, the U.S. Department of Labor or an attorney.