Is travel time work time in New Zealand?

The test: what counts as work

The Minimum Wage Act 1983 does not define "work". It entitles you to at least the minimum rate for your work, which for adults is $23.95 an hour from 1 April 2026, and the courts decide what that includes.

The leading case is Idea Services v Dickson [2011] NZCA 14, about a support worker on overnight sleepovers in a community home. The Court of Appeal approved the three factors the Employment Court had used: the constraints on your freedom, the responsibilities placed on you, and the benefit to your employer. The Employment Court said the greater the constraints and the heavier the responsibilities, the more likely the time is work. In Law v Board of Trustees of Woodford House [2014] NZEmpC 25, the same factors made boarding-house matrons' sleepovers work. Employment New Zealand adds that an activity is generally work if it is an integral part of the main job.

Your commute versus travel for work

Employment New Zealand's guidance does not deal with the commute, but on the three factors, getting from home to your usual workplace is unlikely to be work: you choose the route and what you do on the way, and nothing is asked of you until you arrive. Its advice is that you and your employer should agree how work-related travel is paid, and there is no general legal requirement to pay a travel allowance.

The answer changes when your employer controls the journey. In A Labour Inspector v Silviculture Solutions Ltd [2018] NZERA Auckland 402, forestry workers rode the company's van into remote blocks not necessarily reachable by private transport, and were not paid for the trip. The Employment Relations Authority found the travel was more likely than not work: it constrained the workers' freedom, and it got labour where the company needed it. Setting up equipment and the safety briefing on arrival were work too.

So ask: who decides when and how you travel, are you responsible for tools, a vehicle or workmates on the way, and is the trip part of how the job gets done?

Travelling between clients or sites

Employment New Zealand says that if you have agreed with your employer that travel during working hours is part of your normal work, you should be paid for the travel time, for example from one worksite to another.

Home and community support workers have their own law, the Home and Community Support (Payment for Travel Between Clients) Settlement Act 2016, which put into law the settlement of a 2013 claim that this travel was work. It covers support workers, other than salaried staff, employed by the employers it lists or their subcontractors. For travel between clients, the employer must pay at least 8 minutes 30 seconds for each visit after the first in a day, at the minimum wage rate, and 50 cents a kilometre for 3.7 kilometres a visit towards costs. Trips over 15 kilometres are paid on the time and distance of the most efficient route. The trip to the first client and home from the last are not covered unless that client is more than 15 kilometres from home. The Act says it does not affect travel pay for anyone else.

Overnight and out-of-town travel

A trip away raises two questions: the travel, judged on the same three factors, and the hours in between.

The hours off are a different matter. In E tū Inc v Mount Cook Airline Ltd [2022] NZEmpC 48, the union argued that part-time cabin crew were working on rostered nights away from home. The Employment Court disagreed: once the day's last flight was on blocks, the crew had no duties and could do as they pleased, and being away from home was not enough by itself. The airline did benefit from having crew in place for the next morning, but that one factor was far outweighed.

The answer can differ if you have duties overnight or must stay ready to respond. Costs are separate again: an accommodation or transport allowance depends on your agreement and workplace policies, not the law.

Contractors: billing travel time

Contractors are outside the minimum wage rules. Employment New Zealand notes that a contractor can be paid whatever rate is agreed, so whether you bill travel is a matter for your contract and your quote: by the hour, as a call-out fee, built into a fixed price, or as mileage.

Check that you really are a contractor. Since 21 February 2026, the Employment Relations Act has a gateway test: you are not an employee if your written agreement says you are a contractor, you are free to work for others, you are not required to be available at set times or you can subcontract, you can turn down extra work without losing the contract, and you had a reasonable chance to get independent advice. If you do not meet every part, the Authority or the court looks at the real nature of the relationship, and a label in the contract does not decide it.

With the Career and Timesheets plan or On the Move, Your Timesheets can keep travel as its own project or task under a client, billable or not, and bill a trip on at Inland Revenue's rate a kilometre, so it goes on the client's next invoice.

Logging travel so it is counted

Write the travel as its own entry, with the start and finish times, where from and where to, and who asked you to go. Note anything that made it work: driving the company van, carrying workmates or tools, taking calls on the way. Our guide to keeping your own timesheet covers what else to record.

If you are salaried, add the travel that counts as work to your hours before you check your pay against the minimum wage, as our article on unpaid overtime and your real hourly rate explains. A claim for unpaid wages can go back six years.

In Your Timesheets, free on every plan, a day can hold more than one entry, each with a start, a finish, an unpaid break and a note, and every change is kept in the entry's history.

Keep your travel on record