Does travelling for work count as working time?

If your job has you on the road, in the air, or driving between client sites, you’ve probably wondered whether any of that time counts towards your legal hours. The answer isn’t the same for everyone, and getting it wrong in either direction matters.

The test the law actually applies

Working time needs three things to be true at once. You’re working. You’re at your employer’s disposal. You’re carrying out your duties. Travel only counts if all three are genuinely true for that stretch of time, not just one or two.

This matters because it rules out a lot of what people assume should count, and it rules in some things people assume shouldn’t.

Ordinary commuting doesn’t count, but “no fixed base” travel does

If you have a fixed workplace and you travel between home and that workplace, that’s ordinary commuting. It doesn’t count as working time, no matter how long the journey.

The picture changes if you don’t have a fixed workplace at all. The Court of Justice of the European Union settled this in Federación de Servicios Privados del Sindicato Comisiones Obreras v Tyco Integrated Security SL (Case C-266/14). After the company’s regional offices closed, workers were assigned straight from home to client sites each day, with no base to report to. The court held that daily travel from home to the first client, and from the last client back home, counted as working time for these workers, because the itinerary and timing were dictated entirely by the employer.

Working time isn’t the same as paid time

Even when travel counts as working time, your employer isn’t automatically required to pay you for it as ordinary hours. Working time and paid time are two separate questions, governed by different rules.

A support worker made exactly this argument after Tyco was decided, claiming his first and last daily journeys should count as paid time off in lieu (Thera East v Valentine, UKEAT/0325/16/DM). The Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the Working Time Regulations only decide whether time counts towards your working time and rest entitlements. Whether that time is paid, and how much, is a matter for your contract and the National Minimum WageThe legal minimum hourly rate for workers under 21. From 1 April 2026, it's £10.85 for 18 to 20-year-olds, and £8.00 for under-18s and apprentices. Tips, in any form, do not count towards it. These ... rules, which are separate regimes with their own tests. His contract validly excluded pay for that travel, even though the travel itself was working time.

The grey areas

Working during a flight or train journey. If you’re expected to prepare a presentation, review documents, or take calls during transit, that time looks like working time even if you’re not formally rostered to work it. The test is whether your employer’s actual expectations placed you at their disposal, not what your itinerary says on paper.

Evenings on a business trip. Work done in a hotel room counts if you were expected to do it, in the same way it would if you’d done it from home.

Staying contactable during transit. If you have to remain reachable and respond within a short window while travelling, that draws on the same on-call principles established in Sindicato de Médicos de Asistencia Pública (SIMAP) v Conselleria de Sanidad (Case C-303/98). Genuinely being on call, even without doing active work, can itself be working time.

Waiting time and personal time. Time where you’re genuinely free to rest, sleep, or do as you please, with no expectation of availability, doesn’t count, even if it happens during a work trip.

A different regime worth knowing about: minimum wage

Separately from all of this, some travel has been found to count as paid “time work” for National Minimum Wage purposes specifically, which is a different question from whether it’s working time under the WTR. A care worker’s travel between client visits during the working day was held to count for NMW purposes (Whittlestone v BJP Home Support Ltd, UKEAT/0128/13/BA). More recently, the Court of Appeal held that long, employer-organised travel from home to a first work site still does not count as NMW “time work”, even when workers were collected by minibus at unsociable hours (HMRC v Taylors Services Ltd, EWCA Civ 956, 2025).

These are NMW cases, not Working Time Regulations authority. Don’t rely on them to work out whether your travel counts towards your 48-hour week or your rest entitlements. They answer a pay question, not an hours question.

What to do if you think your travel time isn’t being counted properly

Work out first which question you actually have: is this about your hours (WTR) or your pay (NMW and your contract)? The two can point in different directions, as Thera East shows.

Keep a record of a typical travelling week: when you left home, when you reached your first and last stops, and whether you were expected to work or stay contactable during transit. This is what any conversation with your employer, or any tribunal claim, will actually turn on.

If you don’t have a fixed base and your employer isn’t counting your first and last daily journeys towards your 48-hour average, this guide on the 48-hour week and the opt-out explains your rights there. Book a call if your situation is more complicated than a straightforward home-to-client pattern.