The Portal-to-Portal Act is a 1947 federal law that limits which minutes count as paid work under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In plain terms: your commute to and from work is unpaid, and so are most small tasks you do before your shift starts or after it ends. The law then carves out two important exceptions. If a pre-shift or post-shift task is essential to the job itself, or if your employer has agreed to pay for it through a contract or an established workplace custom, the time is compensable.
What the Act Keeps Off the Clock
The statute excludes two categories of time from paid hours. The first is ordinary travel to and from the place where you actually do your job. The second is any activity that is “preliminary” or “postliminary” to your principal work duties, meaning something you do before those duties begin or after they end.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 254 – Relief From Liability and Punishment
Familiar examples fall on the unpaid side of that line: standing in line to punch a time clock, walking from the parking lot to your work area, changing into street clothes at the end of the day when the change is just for your own convenience, and waiting for a company shuttle after your shift.2eCFR. 29 CFR 790.5 – Effect of Portal-to-Portal Act on Determination of Hours Worked
The operative phrase is “principal activity.” If your job is running an assembly line, walking from the break room to that line is getting to your principal activity, not performing it, and the Act says your employer does not owe you for the walk.
When a Pre-Shift or Post-Shift Task Must Be Paid
Integral and Indispensable Activities
If a task is so closely tied to your main job that you cannot practically or legally do the job without it, that task counts as part of your principal activity and must be paid. The clearest example is a worker who handles toxic chemicals and must put on specialized protective equipment before starting and shower afterward. The gear-up and clean-up are not conveniences; they are safety requirements without which the work cannot be done.3eCFR. 29 CFR Part 790 – General Statement as to the Effect of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947
By contrast, if changing clothes or washing up is a matter of personal preference and the job itself does not require it, that time stays unpaid. Most disputes come down to which side of that line a particular task falls on.
Contract, Custom, or Established Practice
Even a genuinely preliminary or postliminary activity becomes paid time if your employer has agreed to pay for it, whether by written contract, a collective bargaining agreement, or a long-standing workplace custom. A mining company that has always paid workers for travel from the mine entrance to the underground work face cannot suddenly stop paying for that travel just because the Act would otherwise let it.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 254 – Relief From Liability and Punishment
The contract or custom covers only the specific portion of the day it addresses. If a mining agreement pays for the trip in but says nothing about the trip out, only the inbound travel counts as paid time.2eCFR. 29 CFR 790.5 – Effect of Portal-to-Portal Act on Determination of Hours Worked
Once the Workday Starts, the Clock Keeps Running
The Act stops applying the moment your first principal activity of the day begins, and does not apply again until your last principal activity ends. Everything in between is part of the workday and counts as hours worked.4eCFR. 29 CFR 790.6 – Periods Within the Workday Unaffected
This has a bigger effect than it first appears. If putting on required safety gear is integral and indispensable, that gear-up is itself a principal activity, and it starts the workday. From that point, any walking, waiting, or transitioning before you reach your workstation is compensable because it falls inside the continuous workday. The Supreme Court applied that framework in IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, holding that walking time after donning required protective gear was paid because the workday had already begun.5Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21 (2005)
Two Supreme Court Cases That Show Where the Line Falls
IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez (2005)
Meatpacking workers at an IBP plant had to put on hard hats, hairnets, earplugs, gloves, and steel-toed boots before entering the production floor. The Court held that donning this required gear was integral and indispensable to the workers’ jobs, which made it a principal activity in its own right. Once that started, the continuous workday started, and the subsequent walking time was paid.5Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21 (2005)
Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk (2014)
Warehouse workers at an Amazon fulfillment center had to pass through anti-theft security screenings at the end of every shift, sometimes waiting 25 minutes in line. The Court unanimously held that time was not compensable. The workers were hired to fill orders, not to be screened, and the employer could have eliminated the screenings entirely without affecting the workers’ ability to do their actual jobs.6Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014)
The practical test the two cases produce: ask whether the activity exists because the job itself demands it, or because the employer requires it for a separate business reason. Required safety gear that lets you do dangerous work is integral to the job. A theft-prevention checkpoint is not.
Driving a Company Vehicle Home
A 1996 amendment, often called the Employee Commuting Flexibility Act, answered a specific question: does taking a company vehicle home turn your commute into paid time? The answer is generally no, as long as three conditions are met. The commute must be within the employer’s normal commuting area, it must be covered by an agreement between the employer and the employee, and the vehicle cannot be substantially harder to operate than a normal car or pickup truck.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 254 – Relief From Liability and Punishment
An ordinary pickup or van qualifies, even one loaded with tools or wrapped in company logos. But if you are required to commute in an 18-wheeler, a truck-mounted crane, or a concrete mixer, the commute can become compensable because those vehicles impose difficulties well beyond normal driving.7U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA2001-11 Opinion Letter
Computer Login and Remote Work
One of the most contested modern questions is whether time spent turning on a computer, logging into a VPN, and clearing security prompts counts as paid work. Federal courts have not settled it.
The Ninth and Tenth Circuits have ruled that pre-shift computer login can be compensable, and a Department of Labor fact sheet has taken the same view. In September 2025, a federal district court in Ohio went the other way, holding that booting up a computer and entering credentials is not integral to an employee’s principal activities because a computer opens up many possible uses, most of them unrelated to the job. That court treated the workday as starting when the employee opens a program actually used for job duties.
For remote workers, the uncertainty runs deeper. When the workday begins for someone who walks from the kitchen to a home office and opens a laptop is genuinely unresolved at the federal level. If you work from home and regularly spend real time on pre-work login steps, pay attention to how your employer tracks that time and what your employment agreement says.
How Long You Have to Sue
The Act also sets the deadline for FLSA wage claims. You have two years from the date of the violation to file a lawsuit. If the employer’s violation was willful, meaning it knew or showed reckless disregard for whether its conduct broke the law, the deadline extends to three years.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations
Because underpayment usually repeats with every paycheck, each paycheck that shorts you starts a fresh limitations period. Wages from many years ago may be out of reach, but the two most recent years, or three for willful violations, are typically recoverable.
What You Can Recover, and What Can Block It
The exposure for employers who get this wrong is significant. Under the FLSA, an employer who fails to pay required minimum wages or overtime owes the unpaid amount plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, which doubles the bill.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 216 – Penalties
Two defenses in the Portal-to-Portal Act can reduce or eliminate that recovery. Under the good faith defense, an employer who shows it acted in good faith with reasonable grounds to believe its pay practices were legal can persuade a court to reduce or wipe out the liquidated damages; the unpaid wages themselves still have to be paid.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 260 – Liquidated Damages Under the reliance defense, an employer that followed written guidance from the Wage and Hour Division, such as an opinion letter, regulation, or published interpretation, can avoid liability entirely, and that shield holds even if the guidance is later overturned or withdrawn.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 259 – Reliance in Future on Administrative Rulings
The reliance defense is worth knowing about from a worker’s side because it can block a claim outright. If your employer can point to a DOL opinion letter or regulation that supported its pay practices at the time, you may have no federal remedy no matter how the law is later read.
State Law Can Give You More
The FLSA and the Portal-to-Portal Act set a federal floor, not a ceiling. Federal law preserves state wage and hour rules that are more generous to workers. Some states require pay for activities the federal Act treats as non-compensable, including time spent putting on and removing work gear. Where the state rule is broader, it applies on top of the federal rules, and the employer has to follow whichever standard is more favorable to you.