Is Travel Time Considered Work Time in California?

In California, travel time is considered work time whenever your employer is controlling where you are, which is a broader test than federal law uses. Your ordinary drive from home to a regular workplace is not paid. But once you’re moving between job sites, driving to a distant one-day assignment, riding in a required company vehicle, or traveling under your employer’s direction, the clock is running. The state’s definition of “hours worked” under the Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders covers all time you are “subject to the control of an employer,” and that phrase does a lot of the work in these disputes.¹

You don’t have to be actively performing a task to be on the clock. If your employer dictates where you need to be, what vehicle you’re in, or when you leave, that time can be compensable even if you’re sitting in traffic. That’s the frame to keep in mind for everything below.

Your Regular Commute Is Not Paid

Driving from home to your usual workplace and back is not compensable, whether the trip takes ten minutes or an hour. You choose where to live, and your employer doesn’t direct the route or timing, so the drive falls outside “hours worked.”

The commute changes character when your employer adds a requirement to it. If you’re told to pick up tools, supplies, or materials from a specific location on the way, and that detour adds meaningful time beyond your normal drive, the extra time becomes paid work.² The same is true if you’re required to perform a work task at the start or end of the trip. At that point your employer is directing your activity, and the drive stops being purely personal.

One narrow carve-out sits in California Labor Code Section 510(b): time spent commuting in an employer-owned or employer-subsidized vehicle used for ridesharing is not part of the workday.³ That exclusion is limited to rideshare arrangements and does not extend to other uses of a company vehicle.

Travel Between Job Sites During the Workday

Once you’ve reached your first work location of the day, any travel your employer requires after that is paid time. Driving from one job site to another, visiting a client, running a work errand, returning to the office from an outside meeting — all of it counts as hours worked.²

You’re paid at your regular hourly rate for this travel. If you’re paid on a piece-rate basis, travel between sites is treated as “other nonproductive time” under Labor Code Section 226.2 and must be compensated separately at no less than the applicable minimum wage, which is $16.90 per hour in 2026.⁴

One-Day Assignments Far From Your Usual Workplace

When your employer sends you to a job site much farther away than your normal workplace for a single day, you don’t absorb all of the extra driving unpaid. The compensable portion is the difference between the time it takes to reach the distant location and the time your normal commute would have taken.²

If your usual commute is 30 minutes and the assignment requires a 90-minute drive, you’re owed pay for the additional 60 minutes each direction. The practical challenge is documentation, so track both the normal commute time and the extended drive time in case there’s a dispute later.

Overnight and Out-of-Town Travel

Overnight trips split the analysis in a way that catches many workers off guard. Travel that falls within your normal working hours is paid, even on a day you wouldn’t normally work. If your regular shift is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and you fly to a conference on a Saturday, the hours of that flight between 9 and 5 are compensable.²

Outside your normal working hours, what you’re doing matters:

Driving is always paid. If you’re behind the wheel for a work trip at any hour, that time is compensable, because a driver is performing work.
Riding as a passenger is treated differently. Under federal enforcement policy, passenger travel outside normal working hours is not compensable unless you’re working during the ride. California can reach a different result when the employer exercises real control over the travel, so the answer depends on how tightly your employer directs the trip.⁵
Personal activities on the trip — eating on your own, sleeping, sightseeing — are not paid.

The line between “riding as a passenger” and “under the employer’s control” is where most disputes land. Employer-booked flights, a mandated itinerary, and required check-ins at specific times strengthen the argument that passenger travel is compensable outside normal hours. Real freedom to choose how and when you travel weakens it.

Employer-Provided or Required Transportation

When your employer requires you to report to a central location and ride a company vehicle to the actual job site, that ride is generally paid. The employer is dictating where you go, how you get there, and when you leave.²

If the transportation is optional — a shuttle you’re free to skip in favor of driving yourself — choosing to use it doesn’t automatically make the ride paid time. Mandatory transportation is compensable; optional transportation generally is not.

How Unpaid Travel Time Creates Overtime

This is where missed travel hours get expensive. California requires overtime after eight hours in a workday and after 40 hours in a workweek, with double time after 12 hours in a day.³ Compensable travel time counts toward those thresholds.

Work a full eight-hour shift and then spend 90 minutes driving between job sites during the day, and your compensable time for the day is nine and a half hours. That last hour and a half is owed at time-and-a-half. Employers who leave travel out of their overtime math face exposure for both the missing straight time and the resulting overtime differential, and across weeks and months those hours accumulate.

Mileage and Expense Reimbursement Are Separate

Paying you for travel time and reimbursing your travel costs are two different obligations. Under Labor Code Section 2802, your employer must reimburse all necessary expenses you incur in performing your job, including fuel and wear and tear when you use your personal vehicle for work.⁶

Most employers use the IRS standard mileage rate as their benchmark. For 2026 that rate is 72.5 cents per mile for business travel.⁷ California law doesn’t mandate that specific rate, but the reimbursement has to reasonably cover your actual costs. A flat per-mile figure that falls well below what you’re spending may not satisfy Section 2802, and reimbursement can’t be bundled into your hourly wage and called even.

Recovering Unpaid Travel Time

If your employer isn’t paying for compensable travel, you can file a wage claim with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, also known as the Labor Commissioner’s Office. You have three years to file a claim for unpaid minimum wage, overtime, or unreimbursed expenses, and four years if the claim rests on a written employment contract.⁸

The penalties for nonpayment can be significant. If you leave a job or are terminated and your employer willfully fails to pay all wages owed, including unpaid travel time, you may be entitled to waiting time penalties under Labor Code Section 203. The penalty accrues at your daily rate of pay for each day you go unpaid, up to 30 calendar days.⁹ A genuine “good faith dispute” about whether wages are owed can block the penalty, but simply ignoring the obligation does not qualify.¹⁰

Section 2802 claims for unreimbursed expenses also allow recovery of reasonable attorney’s fees.⁶ That fee-shifting provision makes it easier to find an attorney willing to take the case on contingency, because the employer pays the legal bill if you win.

1
Department of Industrial Relations. IWC Wage Order 5-2001 – Public Housekeeping Industry
2
Department of Industrial Relations. Wages – Section: Travel Time
3
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 510
4
Department of Industrial Relations. Minimum Wage
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
6
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 2802
7
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents Per Mile, Up 2.5 Cents
8
Department of Industrial Relations. Recover Your Unpaid Wages With the California Labor Commissioner’s Office
9
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 203
10
Department of Industrial Relations. Waiting Time Penalties