US Department of Labor issues a pair of opinion letters addressing commuter travel, remote work under FLSA

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued two opinion letters that quietly redraw the line between compensated and uncompensated time for hybrid workers. The mechanics matter more than the press release language suggests.

Opinion letter FLSA2026-9 addresses a narrow but increasingly common scenario: an employee works from home in the morning, travels to the office midday, and returns home in the evening. The question is whether that midday leg counts as hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The letter treats the midday travel as a voluntary alternative to unpaid commuting, which means employers are not required to pay for it, provided the arrangement is genuinely optional and the employee would otherwise have commuted without compensation. The distinction is structural. Once the travel is framed as a substitute for unpaid commuting rather than an extension of work duties, the FLSA's "hours worked" definition does not attach.

Opinion letter FLSA2026-10 tackles a different boundary. It asks whether time spent at home receiving pages, calling clients to schedule appointments, and then driving to the first appointment constitutes compensable worktime. The implication is that preparatory activity performed before the physical journey begins can pull the entire trip into paid status. The trigger is not the act of driving; it is the nature of what precedes it. If the employee is already performing work-related tasks at home, the commute becomes a continuation of the workday rather than a personal journey.

Taken together, the two letters establish a principle that employers and remote workers should understand clearly. The FLSA does not treat the home-to-office drive as inherently compensable or non-compensable. It depends on what else is happening. A worker who logs on, answers calls, and then drives to a client site is on the clock. A worker who simply commutes at midday, with no work performed at either end, is not. The Department of Labor is not expanding or contracting remote work rights here; it is clarifying where the existing statute already draws its lines.

The relaunch of the opinion letter program, announced in June 2025, provides the institutional context. Opinion letters carry the weight of official agency interpretation. They are not binding regulations, but they signal how the Wage and Hour Division would likely evaluate compliance in an investigation. For employers structuring hybrid schedules, the letters function as a compliance map. For workers, they define what they can reasonably expect to be paid for and what they cannot.

The practical takeaway is straightforward. Midday commuting between a home office and a workplace, when voluntary and unaccompanied by work tasks, is not compensable time. But the moment an employee performs work duties at home before or after such travel, the entire sequence, including the drive, becomes hours worked. The Department of Labor has now put that distinction in writing.