Am I entitled to be compensated for travel time?

We occasionally get calls from potential clients with jobs that require them to travel a lot. For example, we received a call from an electrician whose job required him to travel to and from several clients’ homes per day. All of these potential clients, including the electrician, were not being paid for the time they spent traveling between job sites or traveling from one client to another. They all had the same question to ask, “Should I be getting paid for the time I spent traveling in my car?”

Under California wage and hour law, travel time to and from work, is generally not compensable. However, travel time during work or travel time at the employer’s direction is compensable as it counts as hours worked. This is pretty straight forward. If you spend three hours in a day driving between job sites, yet only spend five hours a day working at the various job sites, you are entitled to a full eight hours of pay for the day, not five.

Moreover, you may be entitled to mileage reimbursement if you are driving your own vehicle. If your job requires you to travel a lot, and you are not being compensated for it, give our law firm a call for a free consultation.