Hybrid schedules can put a commute in the middle of a day that contains work on both sides. A new Labor Department opinion says that travel can remain unpaid when the employee voluntarily chooses the split, controls the arrangement and is fully off duty while moving between home and the office. The result protects flexibility, but it also means workers should not assume that every midday drive becomes compensable merely because morning work has already occurred.
The voluntary arrangement drives the unpaid result
The employee in the presented scenario could choose to work at home and at the office as an alternative to the ordinary commute that otherwise would occur before or after the workday. The employer did not require the midday travel for a business assignment. The employee was free from duties during the trip.
The Department of Labor’s July 22 release identifies the analysis as FLSA2026-9. It asks whether mid-day home-to-office travel must be recorded and paid when work occurs at both locations and the split is offered as a voluntary alternative to normal commuting. That wording preserves the conditions that make the headline true.
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Work performed during the trip changes the facts
An employee who is required to take calls, answer messages or complete another task while traveling is not fully off duty in the same way. Employer-directed travel to a client, job site or special assignment can also fall under different rules. The letter does not authorize an employer to label active work as an unpaid commute.
A current analysis of the opinion emphasizes the established categories Labor used: bona fide meal periods, off-duty periods and ordinary home-to-work commuting can be unpaid even when placed within a broader day. The worker’s freedom to use the time for personal purposes helps distinguish a commute from travel controlled for the employer’s benefit.
Choice must be real rather than written on paper
A policy may call an arrangement voluntary while workplace expectations effectively force the trip. Evidence can include required in-person meetings, a manager’s direction, discipline for declining or a schedule that leaves no practical alternative. The actual operation matters more than a label in the handbook.
Employees using a split day should save the approved schedule and any instruction about where and when work must occur. A calendar that shows a personally chosen office arrival supports the unpaid-commute treatment; an order to leave home for a customer emergency points the other way. Clear records protect both sides from turning a flexible arrangement into a later wage dispute.
Being fully relieved also means the employee can use the travel period for personal purposes without monitoring a work channel. If the employer expects immediate responses or assigns a call during the trip, the facts need a new analysis. A nominally voluntary commute should not hide a continuing duty to work.
Unpaid travel still affects a household’s cost of work
Even lawful unpaid commuting consumes fuel, transit fares, vehicle wear and time. A worker deciding whether to split the day should compare those costs with the value of the flexibility. An extra round trip can make a schedule less attractive even when it complies with federal pay rules.
The Labor Department’s wage-and-hour resource center links federal hours-worked guidance and complaint information. State law or a union contract may treat travel more generously, so the federal opinion does not settle every payroll system. Nonexempt status also matters because the FLSA’s minimum-wage and overtime protections focus on covered employees.
Households considering the schedule can ask the employer to confirm in writing whether the trip is unpaid and whether any mileage or transit reimbursement is offered. Reimbursement does not necessarily make time compensable, and compensability does not automatically decide expense repayment. Separating those questions avoids assuming that one benefit answers the other.
This opinion does not erase the continuous-workday rule
The agency did not announce that all travel between two work periods is unpaid. It applied exceptions for off-duty time and ordinary commuting to an employee-controlled arrangement. In the companion opinion issued the same day, required client calls could begin a compensable day and change the status of later travel, underscoring how different facts produce different results.
The current guidance therefore offers a checklist, not a slogan: who chose the split, who benefited from the trip, whether the employee was relieved of duties and whether any required work happened during travel. When those facts show a voluntary, duty-free home-to-office commute, Labor says the time can remain unpaid despite work before and after it.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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