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The customer’s billable hours are not the whole working day
A cleaning or maintenance employee may finish one customer’s job and drive to the next. Under the Department of Labor’s federal hours-worked interpretation, travel that is part of the principal work—including job-to-job travel during the day—must be counted. Whether you charge the customer for that journey is a separate commercial choice.
This guide concerns employees covered by federal wage law, with the pay-budget example aimed at employees who are not exempt from overtime. It does not classify a contractor or decide an exemption.
What changes when work begins at the depot?
Ordinary home-to-work travel is generally not working time, whether the employee works at one fixed location or different jobsites. But if the employer requires reporting at a meeting place to receive instructions, do other work, or pick up and carry tools, travel from there to the worksite is part of the day’s work.
Fictional example: an employee reports to the depot for required instructions, drives to the first customer, completes two hours of service, drives 45 minutes to the second customer and performs another two hours there. The 45 minutes between customers counts; the four customer-service hours are not the complete total. The required depot activity and onward journey also need to be included under the stated rule. No particular home journey is decided by this example.
Use a different answer for a different kind of trip
Emergency call-outs, an unusual one-day assignment in another city and overnight travel have separate provisions. Work actually required while travelling must also be counted; a rule about being a passenger does not make required work disappear. Do not apply an ordinary-commute label to all of them.
Scope
- Federal agency interpretation only. State rules, governing court law, contracts/custom and actual travel facts can matter. This gives no mileage-reimbursement rate or complete overnight/call-out calculation.
Next step
Include qualifying travel and depot work in labour hours before pricing the route or calculating the week’s pay.
Sources & review notes
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division
Passage, dates and research notes
primary · §§785.1–.3,.7; complete §§785.27–.41
travel from job site to job site during the workday
Read the general interpretation/court-status provisions and all training/travel sections, including special training, apprenticeships, emergency/special one-day/overnight travel and work while travelling. The public guides address ordinary covered nonexempt employment, not every court or state-law question.
Detailed rule records (1)
Count travel from customer job to customer job during the workday. Where an employee must report to receive instructions, perform other work, or pick up and carry tools, travel from that designated place to the worksite is working time.
29 CFR Part 785: hours worked, training and travelKeep this reading in your learning library.
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