Timesheet Rules for Field Crews: Travel Time, Breaks and Overtime (2026)
Which hours count for a field crew under the federal FLSA: shop time, drive time between sites, rest breaks, meal breaks, rounding and overtime, with a worked day and week.
Key Takeaways
- The day starts at the first real work, not at the first job site. If a crew member has to report to the shop to load tools or get instructions, the drive from the shop to the site is work time under 29 CFR 785.38.
- Site-to-site driving is always paid. The Department of Labor treats travel from job site to job site during the workday as part of the principal activity, so it counts as hours worked.
- Short breaks are paid; real meal breaks need not be. Federally, rest breaks of about 20 minutes or less are paid. A meal break of usually 30 minutes or more can be unpaid only if the worker is completely relieved of duty.
- Overtime is weekly under federal law, and each week stands alone. Hours over 40 in a workweek get time and a half. You can’t average a 50-hour week against a 30-hour week. Some states, such as California, also have daily overtime.
- Record times, not totals. Keep start, stop and break times per day. Rounding to the nearest 5, 6 or 15 minutes is allowed only if it doesn’t shortchange workers over time.
Quick-Start Prioritization Framework
| Situation | Paid under federal rules? | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Normal drive from home to the first job site | No (ordinary commute) | DOL Fact Sheet 22 |
| Required stop at the shop, then drive to the site | Yes, from the shop onward | 29 CFR 785.38 |
| Drive from one job site to the next | Yes | DOL Fact Sheet 22; 29 CFR 785.38 |
| Drive from the last site straight home | No | 29 CFR 785.38 |
| Required return to the shop to unload | Yes, until the work at the shop ends | 29 CFR 785.38 |
| Coffee or rest break of 20 minutes or less | Yes | DOL Fact Sheet 22 |
| Lunch of 30+ minutes, fully off duty | No | DOL Fact Sheet 22 |
| Lunch eaten while watching the site or the equipment | Yes | DOL Fact Sheet 22 |
Office staff work in one place from start to finish. Field crews don’t. They meet at the shop, load a truck, drive to a site, drive to another site, eat in the cab, and sometimes go straight home from the last job. Every one of those minutes is either paid time or not, and the answer is set by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and its regulations, plus whatever your state adds. This guide walks through the rules that trip up crew-based businesses most often, with the federal source for each, a worked day and a worked week. It is general information about US federal law, not legal advice. Your state may be stricter, and a wage-and-hour attorney or your state labor department can answer questions about your exact situation.
What counts as hours worked for a crew
The FLSA defines “employ” as to suffer or permit to work. In plain terms, if you know or should know someone is working, that time is paid, whether or not you asked for it. The Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet 22 is the short, readable summary of how this applies to breaks, waiting, travel, training and on-call time.
For crews, the practical question is when the workday starts and ends. The answer is usually the first and last principal activity of the day: the first task that is part of the job, and the last one.
Loading, fueling and picking up materials
If a crew member must come to the shop or yard to load the truck, pick up tools, get the day’s assignment or fuel the equipment, that work is part of the job. The clock starts there. The same goes for a required stop at the supply house on the way to the site.
Waiting on site
Fact Sheet 22 separates being “engaged to wait” from “waiting to be engaged.” A crew that is told to stand by on site until the concrete truck arrives is engaged to wait, and that time counts. A worker who is sent home and told to come back at 1 p.m., with the time free to use as they like, is generally not working in between.
Work you didn’t ask for
A foreman who finishes the punch list after everyone leaves, or a crew member who answers schedule texts at night, may be working. If you don’t want that time, the fix is a clear rule and a manager who enforces it, not leaving it off the timesheet.
Travel time: the six situations crews run into
Travel is where most crew timesheets go wrong, because it feels like driving, not working. The federal rule is set out in Fact Sheet 22 and in 29 CFR 785.35 through 785.41. Section 785.38, titled travel that is all in the day’s work, is the one that matters most for crews.
| Trip | Federal treatment | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Home to the regular job site or shop | Not work time | Ordinary commuting, even if the site changes week to week within your normal area |
| Home to the shop, then shop to site | The shop-to-site leg is work time | Applies when the stop is required: to load tools, get instructions or pick up the crew truck |
| Site to site during the day | Work time | Part of the principal activity; the most commonly missed entry |
| Last site to home | Not work time | Unless the worker is doing work on the way, such as a required material pickup |
| Last site back to the shop, as required | Work time | The day ends when the work at the shop ends |
| One-day job in another city, back the same day | Work time | You may subtract the worker’s normal commute time |
Overnight jobs
For out-of-town work that keeps the crew away overnight, Fact Sheet 22 says travel is work time when it cuts across the employee’s normal working hours, including those same hours on a Saturday or Sunday. As an enforcement policy, the DOL does not count time spent as a passenger outside normal working hours. Driving is different from riding: the person driving the crew truck is generally working.
Riding in the crew truck
When the crew meets at the shop and rides together to the site because they have to, the ride from the shop is work time for everyone in the truck, not only the driver. That follows from 785.38: once a worker must report to a meeting place to receive instructions or pick up tools, the travel from there to the work site is part of the day’s work.
Make travel its own entry type
Give travel its own line on the timesheet. That keeps it paid and lets you decide separately whether it is billed to a customer. Most crews bill on-site time to the customer and treat between-site travel as overhead, but that is a pricing choice. The pay rule doesn’t change.
Breaks: rest periods and meal periods
Federal law doesn’t require breaks at all. It only says how to count them if you give them. Many states do require them.
The federal rule
Fact Sheet 22: rest breaks of short duration, usually 20 minutes or less, are common and are paid as working time. A bona fide meal period, usually 30 minutes or more, need not be paid, but only if the worker is completely relieved from duty. An employee who has to keep an eye on the site, the equipment or the customer’s open house while eating is not relieved, and that time counts.
You can stop paying for a break that runs long without permission only if you’ve clearly told workers how long breaks are, that stretching them breaks the rules, and that it will be disciplined.
State rules you may be under
The Department of Labor keeps a state-by-state table. As of its latest revision (January 1, 2023), 21 states require meal periods for adult private-sector workers, and a smaller group require paid rest periods. A few examples from that table:
- California: a 30-minute meal period for workdays over 5 hours and a second one over 10 hours; a paid 10-minute rest break for every 4 hours or major fraction.
- Washington: a 30-minute meal period for work periods over 5 hours; a paid 10-minute rest break for each 4 hours, and no more than 3 hours without one.
- Oregon: a 30-minute meal period, fully relieved of duty, for work periods of 6 to 8 hours, with timing windows that depend on shift length; a paid 10-minute rest break for each 4-hour segment or major part of one.
- Colorado: a 30-minute meal period for shifts over 5 consecutive hours; a paid 10-minute rest break per 4 hours or major fraction.
How to record breaks
Record the unpaid meal break with a start and end time, not as a deduction typed in on Friday. Don’t make crews log every 10-minute rest break; those are paid anyway. If your state requires breaks, keep a record that they were offered and taken. That record is your defense if someone later says they never got one.
A worked day: one crew member’s timesheet
Here is a typical day for a landscaping or remodeling crew member who has to meet at the shop. The times are an example; the counting rules are the federal ones above.
| Time | Activity | Counted? | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6:10–6:30 | Drive from home to the shop | No | Ordinary commute |
| 6:30–7:00 | Load truck, get the day’s plan | Yes (0:30) | First principal activity of the day |
| 7:00–7:30 | Crew truck to Site A | Yes (0:30) | Travel from a required meeting place |
| 7:30–11:45 | Work at Site A, with a 10-minute rest break | Yes (4:15) | Short rest breaks are paid |
| 11:45–12:10 | Drive to Site B | Yes (0:25) | Site-to-site travel |
| 12:10–12:40 | Lunch, fully off duty | No | Bona fide meal period |
| 12:40–3:30 | Work at Site B | Yes (2:50) | On site |
| 3:30–4:00 | Drive back to the shop | Yes (0:30) | Required return |
| 4:00–4:15 | Unload, clean tools | Yes (0:15) | Last principal activity |
| 4:15–4:35 | Drive home | No | Ordinary commute |
The arithmetic
Paid time: 0:30 + 0:30 + 4:15 + 0:25 + 2:50 + 0:30 + 0:15 = 9 hours 15 minutes, or 9.25 hours. Of that, 7.08 hours were on site and 2.17 hours were shop and travel time. If you only paid “on-site hours,” you’d have underpaid this person by more than two hours for the day.
If the same worker had gone straight home from Site B at 3:30, the last 45 minutes would drop out and the paid day would be 8.5 hours. The drive home from the last site is a commute.
The same day in California
California’s Labor Commissioner says hours over 8 in a workday are paid at 1.5 times the regular rate, and hours over 12 at double time. So in California this 9.25-hour day includes 1.25 hours of daily overtime, even if the person works only four days that week.
Overtime: weekly, fixed workweek, no averaging
Under the FLSA, non-exempt employees get at least one and a half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. Three details matter for crews.
Pick a workweek and keep it
Your workweek is a fixed, recurring 168-hour period, and Fact Sheet 21 lists the time and day it begins among the records you must keep. Many crew businesses start it Sunday at 12:00 a.m. so a Saturday catch-up day lands in the same week as the jobs that caused it.
Each week stands alone
29 CFR 778.104 says hours can’t be averaged across two or more weeks. A crew member who works 30 hours in a rain week and 50 the next is owed 10 hours of overtime in the second week, even though the two-week average is 40.
A worked week
Say the crew member above works the same 9.25-hour day Monday through Friday at 24 dollars an hour. That is 46.25 hours. Regular pay: 40 × 24 = 960 dollars. Overtime: 6.25 × 36 = 225 dollars. Total: 1,185 dollars. Drop the shop and travel time from the timesheet and you’d pay 35.4 hours with no overtime at all, which is exactly the kind of gap a wage claim is built on.
Rounding, edits and records you must keep
A good timesheet is accurate, complete and hard to quietly change.
Rounding
29 CFR 785.48(b) allows recording start and stop times to the nearest 5 minutes, or the nearest tenth or quarter of an hour, as long as it averages out so workers are paid for all the time they actually worked. Rounding that always favors the employer, such as rounding every punch-in up and every punch-out down, does not meet that test. With phone-based time entry, the simplest answer is to not round at all.
Edits
People forget to clock in. Let them fix it, but require a note and keep the original time. Lock a week once the office approves it, and log who changed what afterward. If a foreman edits a crew member’s time, the crew member should be able to see it.
What to keep and for how long
Fact Sheet 21 lists the records for each non-exempt worker, including hours worked each day, total hours each workweek, the regular rate, overtime earnings and the day and time the workweek begins. Payroll records are kept for at least three years; time cards and other records used to compute wages for two. It also says any timekeeping method is fine, a time clock, a timekeeper or the worker’s own entries, as long as it is complete and accurate.
Common mistakes
Most crew wage problems come from habits, not bad intent. These are the ones to look for in your own timesheets.
- Paying “site to site” as a flat daily amount or not at all. Between-site driving is hours worked.
- Starting the clock at the first job site when crews are required to meet at the shop first.
- Auto-deducting 30 minutes for lunch every day, whether or not the crew actually got an uninterrupted break.
- Treating a lunch eaten in the truck while watching the trailer as an unpaid meal break.
- Averaging a short week against a long one to avoid overtime.
- Typing a daily total (“8”) instead of start, break and stop times.
- Rounding that always favors the company.
- Letting approved hours be changed without a record of who changed them and why.
- Assuming federal rules are the whole story in a state with daily overtime or required breaks.
Building these rules into how your crew logs time
Whatever tool you use, paper, a spreadsheet or an app, the same design works: entries tied to a date and a job, entry types for on-site, travel, shop and material pickup, a meal break with its own start and end, a daily approval by the foreman, and a weekly lock by the office. Show each person their week-to-date total so overtime is visible on Thursday, not discovered on payday.
If you’d rather not set this up from scratch, Floot can build a crew time app from a plain-English description of these rules, with your own entry types, approvals and exports. It is free to start, and your crew uses it in a phone browser or as a native app.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to pay my crew for driving between job sites?
Yes. Under the federal FLSA, travel from one job site to another during the workday is part of the day’s work and counts as hours worked. DOL Fact Sheet 22 and 29 CFR 785.38 both say so.
Is the drive from the shop to the job site paid?
It is when the crew is required to report to the shop first, for example to load tools, pick up the truck or get instructions. 29 CFR 785.38 treats travel from that required meeting place to the work site as hours worked.
Do I have to pay for my crew’s lunch break?
Not under federal law, if it is a bona fide meal period, usually 30 minutes or more, and the worker is completely relieved of duty. If they have to watch the site, the equipment or the phone while eating, the time is paid. Some states have their own meal break rules.
Are 10- or 15-minute breaks paid?
Yes. The Department of Labor says short rest breaks, usually 20 minutes or less, are counted as hours worked. Several states, including California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado, also require paid rest breaks.
Can I round my crew’s clock-in times to the nearest 15 minutes?
Federal rules allow rounding to the nearest 5 minutes, tenth or quarter hour, but only if it averages out so employees are paid for all the time they actually work (29 CFR 785.48). Rounding that consistently favors the employer is not allowed.
Is driving home from the last job site paid?
Generally no. Under 29 CFR 785.38, if the employee goes home from the last site instead of returning to the shop, that trip is ordinary home-to-work travel. If you require them to return to the shop, the trip back is paid.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked under the FLSA, 2008 https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked
- U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements under the FLSA https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/21-flsa-recordkeeping
- 29 CFR 785.38, Travel that is all in the day’s work (Cornell LII) https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/785.38
- 29 CFR 785.48, Use of time clocks and rounding (Cornell LII) https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/785.48
- 29 CFR 778.104, Each workweek stands alone (Cornell LII) https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/778.104
- U.S. Department of Labor, Minimum Length of Meal Period Required under State Law, 2023 https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks
- U.S. Department of Labor, Minimum Paid Rest Period Requirements under State Law, 2023 https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/rest-periods
- California Labor Commissioner, Overtime FAQ https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtime.htm