Do I Have to Pay Prevailing Wage for Travel Time?

On a Davis-Bacon job, you owe the prevailing wage for travel time only when the travel takes place on the “site of the work” or involves covered construction duties. Travel that is compensable under federal wage-hour rules but happens off site is generally paid at the worker’s regular hourly rate. Ordinary home-to-jobsite commuting is not paid at all. Sorting a given trip into the right bucket is what keeps you out of back-pay trouble.

The Three Buckets for Travel Time

Every trip a worker takes for you lands in one of three categories:

Not compensable at all (ordinary commuting).
Compensable at the regular hourly rate (off-site travel that FLSA rules treat as hours worked).
Compensable at the prevailing wage rate (travel on the site of the work, or travel spent performing covered duties).

The Davis-Bacon Act itself requires prevailing wages for laborers and mechanics “employed directly on the site of the work.”¹ That statutory phrase is what pushes off-site travel out of the prevailing wage rate even when the hours themselves must be paid.

When Commuting Is Not Paid

Under the Portal-to-Portal Act, the trip from home to the jobsite and back is not compensable, even when the assigned project changes from day to day.² The Department of Labor draws the same line in its hours-worked guidance: ordinary home-to-work travel falls on the non-compensable side every time.³

The Company Vehicle Exception

Commuting in an employer-provided vehicle stays non-compensable only when all of the following are true:²

The travel stays within the employer’s normal commuting area.
The employer and the employee (or their representative) have agreed to the arrangement.
The vehicle does not create substantially greater driving difficulty than a normal commuter vehicle. Cars, pickup trucks, vans, and minivans qualify even when modified for tools; concrete trucks, truck-mounted cranes, drilling rigs, and 18-wheelers do not.
The worker bears no out-of-pocket costs like gas or tolls.

One DOL opinion letter warns that if the vehicle forces the worker onto a different route because of weight limits, tunnel size restrictions, or hazmat rules, the vehicle is treated as substantially more difficult and the exemption fails.⁴ Loaded work trucks sometimes trip those restrictions without the employer realizing it.

When Travel Is Paid at the Regular Rate

Several everyday scenarios convert travel from a personal commute into compensable hours worked, but keep it off the prevailing rate because the travel does not happen on the site of the work.

Requiring workers to report to your shop or yard first to pick up tools, equipment, or a company vehicle. Travel from that meeting point to the project is on the clock.⁵
Travel between two jobsites during the workday.⁵
Special one-day assignments to a different city. The full travel time is compensable, though you may deduct the equivalent of the worker’s normal daily commute.³
Overnight travel. Any travel hours that fall within the worker’s normal working hours are compensable, even on a non-working day. A worker who normally clocks in from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and rides to a distant project on Sunday must be paid for those hours.³

These hours must be paid, but they do not automatically carry the prevailing wage rate. The worker’s regular hourly rate satisfies the FLSA obligation on off-site travel of this kind.

When Travel Triggers the Prevailing Wage Rate

The rate question turns on the federal definition of “site of the work,” which covers the primary construction location, qualifying secondary sites, and adjacent dedicated support areas like tool yards and batch plants.⁶ Travel within that footprint, or travel spent doing covered work, is paid at the prevailing wage rate. Typical examples:

Driving materials from an adjacent, dedicated tool yard to the primary construction site. Both locations sit within the site of the work.⁶
Transporting prefabricated modules from a qualifying secondary construction site to the primary project.
Performing work-related duties during transit, such as loading or unloading equipment or driving crew members as a required part of the job.

A secondary site only qualifies when the work there produces a significant portion of the building (an entire room or structural module, for example) specifically for that project, and the site is dedicated almost entirely to the contract for weeks or months. A regular fabrication shop turning out interchangeable parts for multiple jobs does not count, and travel to and from it stays off the prevailing wage rate.⁶

Travel Pay Does Not Count Toward Fringe Benefits

Some contractors try to credit travel payments against the fringe benefit portion of the wage determination. Federal regulations reject this. Payments for travel and subsistence are not bona fide fringe benefits under the Davis-Bacon Act.⁷ If the wage determination lists $38.50 basic plus $15.20 fringe, paying $38.50 cash and pointing to $15.20 in travel reimbursements will not satisfy the fringe obligation. That has to be met through actual benefit plans or a separate cash payment in lieu of benefits.

How Compensable Travel Affects Overtime

The Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act requires that every hour over 40 in a workweek on a covered federal contract be paid at no less than one and one-half times the basic rate.⁸ Compensable travel counts toward those 40 hours. A laborer who works 38 hours on the jobsite and spends 4 compensable hours traveling between sites has 42 total hours, and the last 2 hit the overtime premium. Leaving travel out of the weekly total is one of the more common overtime violations on government projects.

What Happens If You Get It Wrong

Miscalculating travel pay on a prevailing wage project carries consequences well beyond a back-pay check.

The contracting agency can withhold enough from accrued contract payments to cover the shortfall.¹
A violation of the Davis-Bacon labor standards clauses can be grounds for terminating the contract.⁹
Contractors who disregard their wage obligations can be barred from all federal and D.C. contract work for three years from the date their name is published on the ineligible list.¹⁰
Under the FLSA, a court can award liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages, effectively doubling the employer’s exposure.

State Rules Can Require More

Federal law sets the floor. Many states run their own prevailing wage schemes for state-funded projects, and some of them treat travel more generously than the Davis-Bacon framework does, sometimes requiring the prevailing rate for all compensable hours without the federal on-site distinction. Where federal and state rules overlap, you follow whichever gives the worker more.¹¹ Check your state department of labor before you set travel pay rates on any public works project.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 U.S. Code 3142 – Rate of Wages for Laborers and Mechanics
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 254 – Relief From Liability and Punishment Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 22 – Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
4
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA2001-11 – Opinion Letter on Employee Commuting Flexibility Act
5
eCFR. 29 CFR 785.38 – Travel That Is All in the Days Work
6
eCFR. 29 CFR 5.2 – Definitions
7
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 5 Subpart B – Interpretation of the Fringe Benefits Provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 USC 3702 – Work Hours
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Investigative Procedures and Remedies on Davis-Bacon Contracts
10
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 5 – Labor Standards Provisions Applicable to Contracts Covering Federally Financed and Assisted Construction
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 7 – State and Local Governments Under the Fair Labor Standards Act