Travel time pay for construction workers trips up more contractors than almost any line on the timesheet. The rule is usually clear. The hard part is proving what happened: which employee drove where, when the workday started, and how many hours belong on the check.
This guide is for specialty and self-perform contractors tracking their own construction workers across multiple jobsites, not general contractors managing subs. If your electricians, concrete crews, or mechanical teams move between jobsites during the day, travel pay is already part of your labor cost, whether the employer is measuring it or not.
Get travel time pay for construction workers wrong and the employer either underpays an employee and invites a wage claim, or overpays on every project. Both come from one gap: guessing instead of recording travel time.
Do Contractors Get Paid For Travel Time?
Construction workers get paid for travel time whenever that travel is part of the workday, and generally not for the ordinary commute from home to a single jobsite. The trouble is that a construction day rarely looks like one location and a single drive.
A crew reports to the shop, loads tools and equipment, then drives to a site. A foreman sends two employees from jobsite to jobsite at noon. A worker takes a one-day assignment in another town. Each is a different travel time question, and federal regulations treat them differently.
Commute vs. Compensable Travel Time: Where Paid Travel Time Begins
The boundary between an unpaid commute and compensable time is the worker’s principal activity. Ordinary home-to-work travel, the daily drive to a regular work site during normal work hours, is not paid, and the employer owes no wages for it. Once the workday begins, travel tied to the job is compensable, and the worker is compensated for time spent traveling that is counted as work.
A few triggers move a trip into compensable travel. When an employee must report to the shop to pick up tools or instructions, the workday starts there, and travel from that location to the jobsite is paid. Time spent traveling from jobsite to jobsite during the day is work time and counts as hours worked.
Sending an employee to a distant city for one day’s work and back is compensable, though the employer may subtract the worker’s usual home-to-work drive. For example, a two-hour trip to a one-day assignment, minus a 30-minute commute, leaves 90 paid minutes each way.
What The Fair Labor Standards Act Counts As Hours Worked
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that construction workers be paid for all hours worked, and travel covered by the worker’s principal activity counts. The FLSA, enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, sorts travel into a few buckets. Travel between jobsites is paid, and a one-day assignment out of town is paid minus the normal commute. Overnight travel counts when it cuts across the workday. The table below maps each trip for each employee.
Overnight trips are where compensation gets muddy. When a construction worker drives to another town, checks into a hotel away from home overnight, and works a multi-day project, the employee is generally compensated for time spent traveling during normal work hours, even on an off day.
The morning drive from the hotel to the site is treated as commuting, and passenger time outside normal work hours, resting in the hotel, usually is not paid. These hotel rules are covered in Department of Labor guidance, worth checking against the facts of a specific trip before payroll runs.
Two details catch contractors off guard. First, travel counted as work time also counts toward the 40-hour overtime threshold, so a week heavy with between-site travel can push a crew into overtime and time-and-a-half the business did not budget. Second, a company vehicle does not automatically make the drive paid. An employer-provided vehicle used for the normal home commute, under an agreement, is generally not counted.
A Trip-By-Trip Guide To Travel Pay On Construction Jobsites
So, do contractors get paid for travel time? Most confusion clears up when the question is asked trip by trip instead of in general. For example, a drive to grab materials before the shift starts the clock.
|
The trip |
Typically paid |
Why |
What to capture |
|
Home to first jobsite |
No |
Ordinary commute |
Shift start at the site |
|
Shop first, then the site |
Yes |
The work starts at the shop |
Time in and out at the shop |
|
Jobsite to jobsite midday |
Yes |
Travel is the principal activity |
Departure and arrival at each location |
|
One-day trip to another city |
Yes, less the daily drive |
Special assignment |
Total drive, less the home leg |
|
Overnight travel in normal work hours |
Yes |
It falls in the paid day |
Hours inside the workday |
|
Driving the crew as the assigned driver |
Yes |
Driving is work |
All drive time on the clock |
Once the first task begins, the clock runs through job-related travel until the last task ends. The rule is rarely the problem. The record is.
See how verified check-in and check-out capture site-to-site travel automatically. Request a SmartBarrel demo.
Travel Time Pay Vs. Mileage Reimbursement
Travel time pay and mileage reimbursement are two different things. An employee can be owed one, both, or neither on the same trip. Travel time pay covers the worker’s hours on the clock. Mileage reimbursement covers the cost of running personal vehicles for business, a job cost, not wages. A worker using personal vehicles between jobsites can be owed travel time pay and mileage at once.
Federal law does not require the employer to reimburse mileage unless not paying it would drop an employee below minimum wage, though several states do. Many employers reimburse at the IRS standard mileage rate, 72.5 cents per mile for business use in 2026, because it is clean and tax-friendly under an accountable plan.
Whichever pay rate the business chooses, mileage belongs in the business’s job costing. Left untracked, it hides in overhead and distorts margins, like misread labor hours and other soft costs. If you are unsure where these dollars land, this breakdown of hard costs vs. soft costs is a useful primer.
On overnight or out-of-town work, a third item enters the picture: per diem, a daily allowance for lodging and meals. Per diem is neither wages nor a vehicle cost, so it sits outside both travel time pay and mileage, and it follows its own IRS and GSA rate rules for tax-free treatment.
Like mileage, it belongs in job costing, and it holds up best when it is tied to the days a worker was actually on the job rather than the days they were scheduled. For rates, tax treatment, and eligibility, this guide to per diem in construction covers the details.
Where State Regulations Change Travel Time Pay For Construction Workers
State regulations can require more than the federal floor, and prevailing-wage work adds another layer. California, Illinois, and Massachusetts, for example, require employers to reimburse business mileage, while other states set separate travel-pay rules or require travel to be paid at the same rate as normal work hours.
On prevailing-wage or Davis-Bacon projects, the rules are stricter, and the employer’s documentation bar is higher, because certified payroll must hold up to audit in front of clients and a state labor office. When the rate rules are unclear, consult the state agency or contact a labor attorney before payroll runs.
The takeaway is not to memorize 50 sets of regulations. It is to capture travel time accurately enough to apply whatever rule the state and contract require for each employee, then prove it later.
What Employers Must Track To Get Travel Pay Right
Employers are responsible for recording and paying construction workers for compensable travel time on every jobsite, and federal regulations expect those records to be accurate and on file in the office.
That responsibility does not shift to the worker or foreman. When travel time is disputed, the burden of proof sits with the employer, and a clean record is the difference between a five-minute answer and a costly claim against the business. Getting travel time pay for construction workers right comes down to that record.
Why Manual Timesheets Lose Travel Time
Manual timesheets lose travel time because they were never built to catch it. A paper sheet or a week’s-end entry from memory captures a rough shift, not the noon drive between two jobsites or the 30 minutes an employee spent loading tools at the shop before crews arrive on site.
That gap is built into the process. Ask a foreman to lead a crew and also rebuild a week of travel from memory, and some of it falls through. Those misses compound across a large crew, which is how direct labor cost drifts from reality.
Capturing Travel Time As Verified Field Data
The fix is to capture time at the source, on the jobsite, as it happens. Contractors who use SmartBarrel check in with facial verification on a rugged, LTE-connected device or the app with geofencing, so each punch ties to a verified employee, a timestamp, and a location.
When a crew moves between sites, the check-in and check-out mark the travel window, not a guess. Foremen assign cost codes from a dashboard instead of rebuilding timesheets, which keeps their attention on the crew and gives the office the most accurate time from the field. That record is also the backup that settles T&M and prevailing-wage disputes with clients, and it feeds cleaner cost control on every project.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a contractor do if travel time has not been paid correctly?
Correct it fast: identify the affected trips, recalculate the hours, and pay the difference, including any overtime the added travel time triggers. Travel time that goes unpaid is a common source of wage claims, so fixing it early and documenting the correction protects the business. Going forward, a record of each employee’s trips is the best defense.
Can contractors pay a lower rate for travel time than for regular work hours?
Yes, in many states an employer may set a separate, lower rate as compensation for travel time, as long as it stays at or above minimum wage and the employee is told in advance. The travel rate still factors into the regular rate used for overtime, so the payroll math gets trickier. Some states require travel to be paid at the regular rate, so the employer should confirm the rule before splitting rates.
How long do employers need to keep travel time records?
The employer keeps payroll records that document travel time and hours for at least three years under federal regulations, and the underlying time records for at least two years. Prevailing-wage and certified-payroll jobs often require longer retention. Verified, timestamped records make that retention effortless and audit-ready.
Stop guessing at travel time. See how SmartBarrel captures the most accurate time from the field, then book your demo.
