Travel Time Pay Calculator
Find out what your employer owes for job-site travel and overnight trips, plus how paid travel hours push your workweek into FLSA overtime.
Travel Time Pay Calculator
What Kind of Travel Was It?
Hours This Week
Clock hours spent traveling, before any FLSA filtering.
Working time only. Travel goes in the field above.
On a one-day assignment out of town, your employer may deduct the commute you would have driven anyway.
Count hours on any day, including weekends, that fall inside your usual shift window (9am to 5pm, for example).
Pay Rates
A separate travel rate has to be agreed in advance.
That matches your hourly rate, so the result is ordinary time and a half.
Estimates only, based on federal FLSA rules. Your state may require more. This isn't tax or legal advice.
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Hours Tracker: Time + Pay
Count Travel Time in Your Logged Hours
Travel time is easy to forget and hard to prove. Log it in ClockWage44 as part of the day's hours, note where you went, and see your pay after taxes.
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Which travel time your employer has to pay for
The FLSA splits travel into a few categories, and the category decides whether the hours are paid at all. Getting that sort right is the whole game. Unpaid hours come off your check, and they also drop out of the 40-hour overtime test.
Between job sites (29 CFR 785.38). Travel that is part of your principal activity counts as hours worked. An HVAC tech who drives from one house to the next to the next is being paid for every minute behind the wheel between the first stop and the last. Only the drive from home to the first job and from the last job back home falls outside.
One-day trip out of town (29 CFR 785.37). A special one-day assignment in another city is performed for your employer's benefit, so the travel is paid. Your employer may deduct the time your ordinary home-to-work commute would have taken, since you would have driven that anyway. The deduction is permitted, not required.
Overnight travel (29 CFR 785.39). Travel away from home is worktime when it cuts across your workday, and that includes the corresponding hours on days you do not normally work. A trainee who usually works 9 to 5 and flies out Sunday from 3pm to 9pm has two paid hours, not six. As an enforcement policy, the Wage and Hour Division doesn't count after-hours travel as worktime when you're riding as a passenger on a plane, train, bus, or car.
Ordinary commuting (29 CFR 785.35). Home to work at the start of the day and work to home at the end is not compensable under the Portal-to-Portal Act. That holds even when the job site moves week to week.
One line cuts across all four: any work you're required to perform while traveling counts as hours worked, and a person who drives, or who rides as a required assistant or helper, is working while riding (29 CFR 785.41). The passenger carve-out that leaves after-hours overnight travel unpaid doesn't reach the driver.
How travel hours push you into overtime
Compensable travel hours are hours worked, so they stack onto your weekly total and can carry you past 40. Unpaid hours don't: a five-hour weekly commute never counts toward the 40 no matter how long the drive is. Sort first, then test for overtime.
Say you work 40 hours at $20 an hour and drive 8 hours between job sites, and your employer pays $15 an hour for travel. Straight-time pay is (40 × $20) + (8 × $15) = $920, spread across 48 paid hours. Your regular rate for the week is $920 / 48 = $19.1667. The 8 hours past 40 earn an extra half of that rate: 0.5 × $19.1667 × 8 = $76.67. Total gross is $996.67.
When you work at two rates in one workweek, 29 CFR 778.115 says the regular rate is the weighted average of those rates, not whichever one you feel like using. A generic overtime calculator applying 1.5 times the $20 hourly rate reports an $80 premium and a $1,000 total: $3.33 too high, and the wrong method. The premium is half the regular rate rather than 1.5 times it because straight-time pay already covers every hour once, including the hours past 40.
When travel pays the same as regular work, the weighted average simply equals your hourly rate and the math collapses back to ordinary time and a half. One formula covers both cases. If your two rates come from two different jobs rather than work versus travel, the blended overtime calculator handles that shape. For a plain single-rate week with no travel, the overtime calculator is quicker.
Can your employer pay a different rate for travel?
Yes, on two conditions. The rate has to be agreed in advance, and it has to be at or above the applicable minimum wage: $7.25 an hour federally, and often higher where you live. Then comes the trap. A lower travel rate doesn't let an employer compute overtime off the lower number, because once two rates are in play the weighted average governs.
State law can be stricter than the FLSA and controls wherever it's more generous. California in particular treats employer-controlled travel more broadly than the federal rules do, and several states have their own tests for when a commute becomes compensable. Check your state labor agency before you conclude that a category of travel is unpaid.
Travel pay is also a separate entitlement from mileage. Being reimbursed a set rate per mile says nothing about whether the hours behind the wheel were paid, and being paid for the hours says nothing about the vehicle costs. The mileage reimbursement calculator covers the other half.
Keeping a travel-time record that holds up
Write down the date, the start and end time, the purpose, the destination, and the rate you agreed for travel. Do it the same day. Contemporaneous records carry real weight in a wage claim, while a log you rebuild from memory months later usually doesn't. If your employer's records are incomplete, your own notes can become the evidence the claim rests on.
If you're starting from raw punch times, add up the week with the timesheet calculator first, and turn hours and minutes into decimals with the decimal hours converter before entering them here. To keep the record going week after week, log travel hours alongside your shifts in ClockWage44, which stores the rate on each entry and works out the week's pay on your device.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about travel time pay calculator
Do I get paid for driving between job sites?
Yes. Travel from one job site to another during your workday is hours worked under the FLSA and has to be paid (29 CFR 785.38). Only the first drive from home and the last drive home are unpaid. Those paid hours also count toward your weekly total, so run them through the overtime calculator if they push you past 40.
Is my normal commute to work paid time?
No. Ordinary home-to-work travel at the start and end of your workday isn't compensable under the Portal-to-Portal Act (29 CFR 785.35), even if the job site changes from week to week, and even in a company vehicle under an ordinary commuting arrangement.
Does travel time count toward overtime?
Yes. Compensable travel hours are hours worked, so they add to your weekly total and can push you past 40. Non-compensable hours such as your normal commute don't count toward the 40 at all. That's why this calculator sorts the two before it looks at overtime.
Can my employer pay a lower rate for travel time than for regular work?
Yes, if it's agreed to in advance and the travel rate is at least the applicable minimum wage: $7.25 an hour federally, and higher in many states and cities. But your employer can't pay overtime at 1.5 times the lower rate. Once you work at two rates in a week, overtime is based on the weighted average of the two (29 CFR 778.115). If your two rates come from two different jobs rather than work versus travel, use the blended overtime calculator.
How is overtime calculated when travel pays a different rate?
Add up everything you earned at both rates, divide by your total paid hours, and that's your regular rate for the week. You are owed an extra half of that rate on every hour past 40, because the straight time is already covered by the two rates. Example: 40 hours at $20 plus 8 travel hours at $15 is $920 over 48 hours, a $19.1667 regular rate, so the overtime premium is 0.5 × $19.1667 × 8 = $76.67, for $996.67 total.
Do I get paid for a one-day trip to another city?
Generally yes. A special one-day assignment out of town isn't ordinary commuting, because it's done for your employer's benefit (29 CFR 785.37). Your employer may deduct the time your usual home-to-work commute would have taken, plus your regular meal break.
Am I paid for overnight business travel on a weekend?
You are paid for travel that falls inside your normal working hours, and that includes the same hours on days you don't normally work. If you usually work 9 to 5, a Sunday flight from 3pm to 9pm gives you two paid hours (3 to 5), not six (29 CFR 785.39). Hours outside that window, riding as a passenger, generally are not paid.
Does it matter whether I'm driving or riding along?
It does. Any work you're required to perform while traveling counts as hours worked, and someone who drives, or rides as a required assistant or helper, is working while riding (29 CFR 785.41). The passenger exception that leaves after-hours travel unpaid doesn't cover the person behind the wheel.