A Midday Home-to-Office Trip May Still Be an Unpaid Commute

A non-exempt hybrid employee’s midday trip between home and the regular office is not automatically paid work time. Under the federal interpretation, it can remain an ordinary unpaid commute when the employee voluntarily chooses the split day for personal convenience and is fully relieved of duties while traveling.

The result changes when the employee performs work during the journey or the travel is principally for the employer’s benefit. The inquiry is factual: working at home before the trip does not by itself make the journey compensable, but calling a client, moving between required worksites or undertaking a special assignment may place some or all of the travel within paid time.

The federal interpretation covers a narrow arrangement

The Labor Department’s July 22 release identifies Opinion Letter FLSA2026-9 as addressing voluntary midday travel offered instead of an unpaid commute that would otherwise occur before or after the workday. Opinion letters apply the Wage and Hour Division’s interpretation to specified facts; this one does not declare all travel between a home workspace and an office unpaid.

The letter considered three employee-driven arrangements: shifting travel away from rush hour, volunteering to perform additional early work at home before going to the regular office, and taking the last available bus home before completing assigned work there. In each scenario, the employee requested the arrangement and was fully relieved of duties during the journey. A Littler analysis of the scenarios explains that the department treated the trips as ordinary commuting because they principally accommodated the employee’s preference or need.

The work performed at home and at the office remained compensable. Only the duty-free travel interval was excluded, so an employer still has to record the employee’s actual working time at both locations.

Use four questions to classify the trip

1. Was the employee actually working while traveling? Time spent performing required job duties is compensable. A substantive client call or assignment coordination is different from merely carrying a phone or receiving information incidental to a commute. Whether that work also changes the treatment of the remaining journey depends on the surrounding facts.
2. Was the employee traveling between required worksites? Movement from one job site to another as part of the day’s work is generally compensable. A home workspace used at the employee’s election does not automatically become an employer-directed job site for this rule.
3. Was this a voluntary, duty-free trip to the regular office? If the employee requested the split schedule, the journey primarily accommodates the employee and the employee remains free from duties, FLSA2026-9 supports treating the interval as an ordinary commute even though paid work occurred earlier at home.
4. Was the destination a special assignment? Travel to a one-day assignment in another city is analyzed separately. The employer generally may subtract the employee’s normal commuting time, but the remaining same-day travel can be work time.

These distinctions also appear in the Labor Department’s broader guidance on hours worked, which separates ordinary home-to-work commuting from travel between job sites and travel to a special one-day assignment in another city.

How common hybrid scenarios fit the framework

• Employee-requested split day: An employee asks to work at home before traveling to the regular office to avoid traffic and performs no duties during the trip. On the opinion letter’s facts, the home work is paid while the journey can remain unpaid.
• Employer-directed worksite travel: A manager directs an employee to leave one required business location and report to another during the day. That is ordinarily travel forming part of the employee’s work, not a home-to-work commute.
• Work during the journey: An employee conducts a required client call on a train. At minimum, the time spent on that duty is work time; the treatment of the rest of the trip requires a separate look at when the workday began and whose interests the travel primarily served.
• Required pre-trip duties and controlled travel: The employer requires substantial work at home, dictates when and how the employee must travel, and requires principal work immediately upon arrival. Those combined facts can make the following journey compensable.
• Special one-day assignment: An employee who normally reports to one fixed location is sent to another city and returns the same day. The special-assignment rule can require payment for the travel after deducting the ordinary commute.

Policy labels do not decide the result. Calling an interval “flex time” or a “commute” cannot make actual duties disappear, while placing home-based work before a genuinely voluntary and duty-free journey does not automatically convert that journey into travel between job sites.

Employer control matters, but there is no numeric threshold

The companion Opinion Letter FLSA2026-10 addressed a different employee: a field engineer who performed client scheduling and coordination before or during travel. An Ogletree Deakins analysis of both letters explains that substantial required calls, employer control over the timing and manner of travel, and required work on arrival together caused the journey to lose the freedom of an ordinary commute.

That companion result should not be reduced to a rule that any instruction about arrival time makes a commute paid. The department did not set a precise number of calls, minutes of work or degree of control that changes the classification. The relevant comparison is between the employee-selected, duty-free travel in FLSA2026-9 and travel constrained by integral work and employer requirements.

Federal treatment is not the whole answer

FLSA2026-9 addresses federal law. State wage orders may use a broader definition of working time; for example, California’s rule for professional, technical and clerical occupations defines hours worked as employer-controlled time as well as time the employee is permitted to work. The applicable state rule therefore needs its own analysis rather than an automatic copy of the federal result.

A collective bargaining agreement, employment contract or company policy may also promise more pay than the federal minimum. For a particular trip, the decisive record is who requested the arrangement, whether the employee was fully relieved of duties, what work occurred before or during travel, whether the destination was the regular office and how the employer constrained the journey.

Also read:

• Where Hybrid Workers Live Changes How Often They Stay Home
• The Development of the Hybrid Workforce is reshaping the Office Space
• Essential Pre-Trip Checklist for Long Travel