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When are workers entitled to be paid for time spent travelling to and from work?
September 2, 2025
Following the verdict of HMRC v Taylors Services Ltd (dissolved), our expert, Harriette Loveluck-Edwards, considers the implications for employers whose staff travel as part of their role.
The National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 set out detailed provisions for determining what hours count as work for the purpose of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) or National Living Wage (NLW). You can read our article about the current NMW / NLW rates here.
Is travelling time normally treated as work?
Regulation 34 of the Regulations states that the hours when a worker is travelling for the purposes of work, and where the worker would otherwise be working if they were not travelling, are treated as working time unless the travelling is between:
In other words, workers’ normal commutes to and from work each day are not treated as ‘working time’ and workers are not entitled to be paid the minimum wage for them.
What happened in the case?
Taylors Services Ltd (TSL) employed workers on zero-hours contracts to perform tasks like injecting, grading, loading and unloading poultry. TSL provided a minibus to transport workers from home to their first job site and back, with travel times sometimes up to eight hours. Workers were contractually entitled to hourly pay for travel, but only at £2.50 per hour. They were then entitled to the relevant minimum wage from the time they started their first job until the end of their last job of the day.
In 2020, HMRC ruled that the workers’ travel time to and from their homes should also be paid at the NMW, issuing underpayment notices totalling around £62,000.
TSL challenged the notices under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, but an employment tribunal dismissed the challenge. The dispute made its way through the Employment Appeal Tribunal and up to the Court of Appeal.
HMRC argued (on behalf of the workers) that because of the length of the travel involved and the fact that the workers were required to travel together on a minibus, the travel was an inherent part of the workers’ jobs, not just an ordinary commute – so it should be treated as working time.
What was the Court’s decision?
The Court found that regulation 34 of the 2015 regulations applied, so the travel here did not qualify as working time because:
This meant that TSL had been entitled to limit the workers’ pay for time spent on the minibus at the start and end of each day to £2.50 an hour, and hadn’t been required to pay the NMW or NLW.
Lessons for employers
This case shows how important it is for employers to carefully consider their staff’s travel as part of their role.
Not all travel time counts as work – for example, travel between home and the first place of work, or back home after the last assignment, is not considered “working time”. Only certain types of travel, between assignments or during working hours, may count as working time if they meet specific conditions.
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