Unpaid travel time may violate the FLSA and result in unpaid wages being owed.

Whether travel time must be treated as paid time under the Fair Labor Standards Act (" FLSA") overtime pay law depends on the particular situation. If your employer is not accurately treating certain types of travel time as paid time, that may result in you being underpaid overtime wages if you are a non-exempt employee (i.e., overtime eligible).

Generally, travel from home to work and work back to home is not considered paid time under the FLSA. This is also typically the case even if you are driving from home to a customer's location to begin your work (except for travel that requires an overnight stay away from home that is discussed below).

However, if you perform work that is integral and indispensable to your primary job duties before leaving home or while traveling from home to the first worksite, your paid workday might begin at that time and continue until the completion of your workday (other than meal breaks of at least 30 minutes in length in which you are relieved from all work). Examples include reviewing emails from your employer about work assignments before leaving your home to drive to work. Your workday begins when you read those emails. 

Under the FLSA’s Continuous Workday Rule, periods of time between the commencement of the employee's first principal activity and the completion of his/her last principal activity on any workday must be included in the computation of hours worked. 

Travel during the workday from one jobsite to another jobsite is generally considered paid time under the FLSA. For example, after you arrive to your office, shop, or first work location, all time spent traveling between that location and other locations during the workday, other than your travel back home at the end of the workday, is generally considered paid time under the FLSA. 

If your travel for work requires an overnight stay away from your home, that travel time from home and back may be considered paid time under the FLSA if the travel: (1) cuts into the employee's normal workday, or (2) occurs on what would otherwise be a day off but happens during hours that would be normal working hours if it were a workday. This may sound complicated, so here are some examples.

• Assume your normal work schedule is Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you leave your home at 7 a.m. on a Monday to travel to a work location which requires you to stay overnight at a hotel, and do not arrive there until 11 a.m., then the travel time between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. is generally considered paid time under the FLSA in addition to any other work performed that day after you arrive at the location.

• Assume your normal work schedule is Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and you leave your home at 9 a.m. on a Sunday to travel away from home to a work location which requires you to stay overnight. You to drive from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. that Sunday to get to the location. That Sunday travel time is generally considered paid time under the FLSA.

Common examples of employees being underpaid overtime wages due to unpaid travel time include oilfield or construction workers who work for days or weeks away from their home. The travel time from their home to the work location or lodging at the beginning of a hitch and the return travel home at the end of a hitch must generally be counted as hours worked.

Unpaid travel time can equal unpaid overtime. Contact Dallas attorney Allen Vaught to learn more about your travel pay issues.