Hours Worked: What It Means for Employers

What it means in practice

The Fair Labor Standards Act requires covered employees to receive at least the minimum wage ($7.25 an hour federally, per DOL in October 2026) and overtime pay, and DOL's regulation puts it plainly: "The amount of money an employee should receive cannot be determined without knowing the number of hours worked" (29 CFR 785.1). The concept matters most for non-exempt employees, since exempt employees are outside the minimum wage and overtime rules. As a general rule, hours worked include all time an employee is required to be on duty, on the employer's premises or at a prescribed workplace, and all time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to (29 CFR 778.223). These principles apply even if a custom, contract or agreement says the time will not be paid, apart from narrow statutory exceptions (29 CFR 785.8).

The workday and the Portal-to-Portal Act. The Portal-to-Portal Act relieves employers of minimum wage and overtime liability for walking, riding or traveling to and from the actual place of the principal activity, and for activities "preliminary to or postliminary to" it that occur before the first or after the last principal activity of the day (29 U.S.C. 254(a)). The exception does not apply if the activity is made compensable by an express contract or by a custom or practice not inconsistent with one (254(b)). Using an employer's vehicle to commute within the normal commuting area, under an agreement, is not a principal activity (254(a)). Inside the "workday", roughly "from whistle to whistle", the Act has no effect: all time between the first and last principal activity counts as it would without it (29 CFR 790.6).

Integral and indispensable tasks. Principal activities include tasks that are an integral part of them, such as oiling or cleaning a machine or installing a new cutting tool at the start of the day. Changing clothes on the premises counts if the job cannot be done without it, as in a chemical plant, but checking in and out and waiting in line to do so ordinarily do not (29 CFR 785.24). The Supreme Court found showering and changing in a battery plant using toxic materials, and knife sharpening by meatpacking knifemen, integral and indispensable (29 CFR 785.25). A bona fide collective bargaining agreement may exclude clothes-changing or washing time at the start or end of the day (29 U.S.C. 203(o)).

Work that is "suffered or permitted". Work not requested but suffered or permitted is work time, such as an employee who stays after the shift to finish a task or correct errors; "the reason is immaterial" if the employer knows or has reason to believe the work is being done (29 CFR 785.11). The same applies to work done away from the job site or at home (785.12). A rule against such work is "not enough"; management must make every effort to enforce it (785.13). Fact Sheet #23 adds that a rule requiring advance authorization does not remove the right to pay for overtime actually worked.

Waiting and on-call time. DOL distinguishes employees "engaged to wait", whose time counts, from those "waiting to be engaged", whose time does not (Fact Sheet #22). A messenger doing a crossword between assignments or a repair worker waiting for a customer to ready the premises is working (29 CFR 785.15). Off-duty periods are not hours worked only if the employee is completely relieved, told in advance that they may leave, and told the definite time they must return, and the period is long enough to use for their own purposes (785.16). An employee required to stay on call on or so close to the premises that they cannot use the time effectively is working; one who only has to leave word where they can be reached is not (785.17), although Fact Sheet #22 notes that additional constraints on freedom could make on-call time compensable.

Rest and meal periods. Short rest periods "must be counted as hours worked" and may not be offset against other working time (29 CFR 785.18). Fact Sheet #22 says unauthorized extensions of a break need not be counted when the employer has expressly communicated the break length, that extensions are against its rules, and that they will be punished. A bona fide meal period requires complete relief from duty; an office worker required to eat at the desk is working (785.19(a)), but an employee otherwise freed from duties need not be allowed to leave the premises (785.19(b)). Breaks to pump breast milk must be either completely relieved from duty or paid, and paid like other breaks if those are paid (DOL Fact Sheet #73).

Sleep time and residential employees. An employee on duty for less than 24 hours is working even if allowed to sleep when not busy (29 CFR 785.21). For duty of 24 hours or more, the parties may agree to exclude bona fide meal periods and a regularly scheduled sleep period of up to 8 hours, if the employer furnishes adequate sleeping facilities and the employee usually gets an uninterrupted night's sleep; without an agreement the time counts. Interruptions for calls to duty are hours worked, and if the employee cannot get at least 5 hours of sleep, the entire period counts (785.22).

Training, meetings and lectures. Attendance need not be counted only if all four criteria are met: it is outside regular working hours, voluntary in fact, not directly related to the employee's job, and no productive work is performed (29 CFR 785.27). Attendance is not voluntary if required, or if the employee is led to believe that not attending would affect their job (785.28). Training is directly related if it is designed to make the employee handle the current job more effectively (785.29). After-hours courses at an independent school on the employee's own initiative are not hours worked (785.30).

Travel time. Normal home-to-work travel is not worktime, whether the employee works at a fixed location or at different sites (29 CFR 785.35). Travel during the workday, including from a required meeting place to the work site, counts regardless of contract or custom (785.38). For overnight travel, time that cuts across the employee's normal working hours counts, including the corresponding hours on nonworking days, but as an enforcement policy DOL does not count time spent as a passenger outside regular hours (785.39). Work an employee is required to do while traveling counts, and a driver or required helper is working while riding, except during meal periods or permitted sleep in adequate facilities (785.41).

Rounding, time clocks and de minimis time. Time clocks are not required. Early or late punches by employees who do no work may be disregarded (29 CFR 785.48(a)). Rounding start and stop times to the nearest 5 minutes, tenth or quarter of an hour is accepted for enforcement only if it does not, over a period of time, fail to pay employees for all time actually worked (785.48(b)). Insignificant periods of a few seconds or minutes that cannot practically be recorded may be disregarded, but an employer may not fail to count any part of fixed or regular working time; the regulation cites a court holding that 10 minutes a day is not de minimis (785.47).

Paid time that is not hours worked. Pay for occasional absences due to vacation, holiday, illness or similar causes is not compensation for hours of employment (29 CFR 778.218), so paid time off need not be counted toward the 40-hour threshold. Paying for a bona fide meal period also does not make it hours worked unless the parties have treated it that way (778.320).

Example 1: a desk lunch. Remindax illustration with assumed numbers: an employee scheduled 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, with a one-hour unpaid lunch, is recorded at 35 hours. Fact Sheet #22 says an employee who eats at the desk and regularly answers the phone is working, so if that happens daily the week is 40 hours. If the employee also stays 15 minutes each day finishing tasks and the manager knows, the week is 41.25 hours. At $20 an hour, pay is $800 for 40 hours plus 1.25 hours at $30, or $837.50.

Example 2: a one-day trip. Using the regulation's facts, an employee who normally works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. leaves Washington at 8 a.m. for New York, works until 3 p.m. and is back at 7 p.m. The travel counts, but home-to-depot travel and the usual meal time may be deducted (29 CFR 785.37). Assuming a one-hour usual meal, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. is 11 hours, less 1 hour, for 10 hours worked.

Example 3: a 24-hour shift. Remindax illustration: under a valid agreement excluding an 8-hour sleep period and 1 hour of meals, a 24-hour shift is 15 hours worked. If two calls during the night take 2 hours and the employee still sleeps at least 5 hours, the day is 17 hours. If interruptions leave only 4 hours of sleep, the full 8 hours count, for 23 hours (29 CFR 785.22).

Where states differ. State law can add to the federal baseline. Two examples from the California Labor Commissioner (DIR): California requires overtime after 8 hours in a workday as well as 40 in a workweek, and double time after 12 hours in a day; a 30-minute meal period is required for a work period of more than five hours; and if the employer requires the employee to stay on site during the meal period, it must be paid even if the employee is relieved of duties, unlike the federal rule in 29 CFR 785.19(b). California also requires a paid net 10-minute rest period per four hours worked or major fraction, with one extra hour of pay for each workday a meal or rest period is not provided; DIR says that premium hour and reporting time pay are not counted as hours worked for overtime. Check each state where employees work through the DOL directory of state labor offices.

Recordkeeping. For each non-exempt employee, records must show the time and day the workweek begins, hours worked each workday and total hours each workweek, along with straight-time and overtime earnings (29 CFR 516.2(a)). For employees on fixed schedules, the employer may record the schedule and note that it was followed, recording exact hours in weeks that differ (516.2(c)). Fact Sheet #21 accepts any timekeeping method that is "complete and accurate". Payroll records are kept at least 3 years and time cards and wage rate tables at least 2 years (516.5, 516.6).

Interacting rules. Hours worked feed the regular rate and overtime calculation each pay period; Fact Sheet #23 shows that a fixed salary for a 45-hour week still requires half-time overtime for 5 hours, the situation of many salaried non-exempt staff. For the Affordable Care Act, the IRS uses a different measure, "hours of service", which includes paid vacation, holiday and sick hours, and treats 30 hours a week or 130 a month as full-time. Hours worked but not paid are owed as back pay, and public agencies that grant compensatory time off instead of overtime pay give at least 1.5 hours for each overtime hour (29 U.S.C. 207(o)).

Can we agree to count only scheduled hours? No. Fact Sheet #23 says an agreement that only 8 hours a day or 40 a week will be counted fails FLSA compliance. Do paid holidays count toward overtime? Not under federal rules (778.218), and DIR says the same for California. Is a required Saturday training paid? Yes; required attendance fails the voluntariness test (785.28).

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