Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, counting hours of work starts with a single test: if your employer knows or has reason to know you are doing the job, that time is on the clock. That covers your scheduled shift and a lot more — prep work before the shift, short rest breaks, travel between job sites, certain on-call time, and email you answer after dinner. Once your counted hours pass 40 in a workweek, each additional hour must be paid at no less than one-and-a-half times your regular rate.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 207 – Maximum Hours
The “Suffer or Permit” Standard
The regulation says work your employer “suffers or permits” is compensable. In plain terms, your employer cannot avoid paying you by saying no one told you to work.2eCFR. 29 CFR 785.11 – General Staying late to fix errors, coming in early to catch up, or logging back on at night all count if your employer knows or should know you are doing it. Your reason for working is beside the point.
Time Before and After Your Shift
Tasks that are part of your core job duties are paid, even when they happen before or after the main shift. Setting up a workstation, oiling equipment, distributing materials, shutting down machinery, or finishing end-of-day reports are treated as “integral” to your principal work, so the clock runs from the moment you start them.3eCFR. 29 CFR 785.24 – Principles Noted in Portal-to-Portal Bulletin
Required gear works the same way. If your job or your employer requires you to change into protective equipment on the premises, putting it on and taking it off is a principal activity that starts the continuous workday. Walking or waiting time between gearing up and reaching your work area is also paid.4U.S. Department of Labor. Wage and Hour Advisory Memorandum No. 2006-2 If you have the option to change at home and choose to change at work, that time is not compensable.
Post-shift security screenings are the notable exception. The Supreme Court held unanimously in Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk that mandatory bag checks and anti-theft screenings after work are not “integral and indispensable” to a worker’s principal activities, so they are not paid time under federal law.5Justia Law. Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014)
Breaks and Meal Periods
Short rest breaks of roughly 5 to 20 minutes count as hours worked. Federal regulations treat them as compensable time and do not let employers offset them against other working time like on-call hours.6eCFR. 29 CFR 785.18 – Rest
Meal periods follow a different rule. A genuine meal break is unpaid only if it runs at least 30 minutes and you are completely relieved from duty. You do not have to be free to leave the building, but you do have to be free from tasks. Eating at your desk while monitoring a phone, or staying at your station in case something needs attention, turns the whole break into paid time.7eCFR. 29 CFR 785.19 – Meal
Pumping Breaks for Nursing Employees
Under the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, most employees may take reasonable breaks to express breast milk for up to one year after a child’s birth. If you are completely relieved from duty and the break falls outside your normal paid break time, it does not have to be paid. If you do any work during the break, the whole break becomes compensable. Employers must also provide a private space that is not a bathroom, shielded from view and free from intrusion; for remote workers, that includes freedom from employer-provided cameras or video platforms. Employers with fewer than 50 employees may be exempt if compliance would cause undue hardship.8U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #73: FLSA Protections for Employees to Pump Breast Milk at Work
Waiting Time and On-Call Hours
The regulation splits idle time in two. When you are “engaged to wait,” you are working. A messenger doing a crossword between deliveries, a factory worker whose machine is being repaired, or a repair technician sitting in a customer’s lobby all fit here: the stretches are short, unpredictable, and controlled by the employer. When you are “waiting to be engaged,” you are not. A truck driver who arrives in another city at noon and is told to report back at 6 p.m. is off the clock for those six hours.9eCFR. 29 CFR Part 785 – Hours Worked – Section 785.16
On-call time falls between the two. If you must stay at the workplace or so close that you cannot use the time for your own purposes, it counts as work. If you only need to leave a number where you can be reached and face minimal restrictions, it does not.10eCFR. 29 CFR 785.17 – On-Call Time Very short response windows and tight geographic limits can push on-call time into the paid category. The more your personal freedom is restricted, the more likely the time is compensable.
Travel Time
Your normal commute is not paid, even if the destination changes from day to day. Once you reach your first work site, travel between locations during the workday is compensable. A field technician driving between four customer sites between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. is on the clock for that driving time.11eCFR. 29 CFR Part 785 Subpart C – Traveltime – Section 785.38
A one-day assignment in another city is treated differently from ordinary commuting. Your employer may subtract the time equivalent of your usual home-to-work commute and your normal meal period, but the remaining travel time is paid.12eCFR. 29 CFR 785.37 – Home to Work on Special One-Day Assignment in Another City If your usual drive is 20 minutes and the trip to a distant client site takes two hours, about an hour and 40 minutes of that drive is compensable.
For overnight travel, any travel that falls within your regular working hours counts as work, even on days you would not normally work. If you usually work 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and fly out on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., those five hours are paid. Travel outside your regular hours as a passenger is generally not.13eCFR. 29 CFR 785.39 – Travel Away from Home Community
Training, Meetings, and Lectures
Training time is paid unless all four of these conditions are met: it falls outside your regular working hours, attendance is truly voluntary, the content is not directly related to your job, and you do not do any productive work during the session.14eCFR. 29 CFR 785.27 – General Every part has to hold. “Optional” training that quietly affects promotions or discipline is not truly voluntary. Training on skills you use at work is directly job-related. Miss one condition and the entire session is compensable.
Remote Work and After-Hours Communication
The “suffer or permit” rule reaches into your kitchen. If your employer knows or has reason to know you are checking email, answering messages, or finishing tasks outside your scheduled hours, that time must be counted and paid.15U.S. Department of Labor. Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2020-5
What your employer “should have known” is the practical question. The Department of Labor considers an employer to be exercising reasonable diligence when it gives you a clear way to report unscheduled work time. Fail to use that system and the employer generally does not have to comb through server logs to find your unreported hours. Discourage you from reporting, and the system does not count as reasonable diligence.15U.S. Department of Labor. Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2020-5 Use whatever tool your employer provides. Quietly working an extra hour without logging it can cost you the ability to claim back pay for it later.
How Hours Get Rounded and Recorded
Employers are allowed to round clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest 5 minutes, 6 minutes (a tenth of an hour), or 15 minutes. The rounding must average out fairly so you are fully paid for the hours you actually worked.16eCFR. 29 CFR 785.48 – Use of Time Clocks Fifteen-minute rounding is the most common: 1 through 7 minutes past the quarter-hour rounds down, 8 through 14 rounds up. Clocking in at 8:07 posts as 8:00; at 8:08, as 8:15. A system that consistently rounds against employees violates the standard because it fails the balancing test.
Your employer must keep payroll records for at least three years from the last date of entry.17eCFR. 29 CFR 516.5 – Records to Be Preserved 3 Years The records have to include identifying information along with hours worked and wages paid, though the FLSA does not prescribe a particular format.18U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
Employees Who Are Not Owed Overtime
None of the overtime math applies if you are properly classified as exempt. The FLSA carves out certain executive, administrative, professional, computer, and outside sales employees from minimum wage and overtime protections. Exempt status turns on both a salary test and a duties test, and the Department of Labor is currently enforcing a minimum salary of $684 per week, or $35,568 per year.19U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption Job titles do not decide the question; actual duties do. Blue-collar workers and manual laborers are never exempt, no matter what they earn.20U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #17A: Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees Under the FLSA
What Happens When Hours Are Miscounted
An employer that violates the minimum wage or overtime rules owes the full amount of unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, effectively doubling the liability, along with reasonable attorney’s fees.21Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 216 – Penalties Because damages are counted per employee, a company that trims 10 minutes off every shift can accumulate substantial back pay across its workforce.
You have two years from the date of the violation to file a claim, or three years if the violation was willful, meaning the employer knew it was breaking the law or showed reckless disregard.22Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations
Federal law also shields you from retaliation. Filing a complaint, cooperating with a Wage and Hour Division investigation, or raising the issue internally with your employer is protected activity. An employer that fires or disciplines you for doing so can be liable for reinstatement, lost wages, and additional liquidated damages. The protection covers oral and written complaints, and most courts extend it to complaints made directly to a supervisor.23U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #77A: Prohibiting Retaliation Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)