Travel between home and the first job of the day does not count as minimum-wage work but travel between jobs might.
Scenario
You manage staff who travel to multiple sites. Care workers travelling between patients’ homes, cleaners covering multiple office blocks or security guards posted at different venues. Do you need to pay them for all that travel time?
The Court of Appeal has answered.
What happened?
In HMRC v Taylors Services, poultry workers were ferried by minibus from their homes to farms nationwide. Some days they spent up to eight hours travelling. HMRC argued that time should count towards the National Minimum Wage (NMW). The ET agreed. The EAT overturned that. The Court of Appeal has now upheld the EAT’s decision.
What did the court decide and why?
The Court of Appeal upheld the EAT’s decision and held that the workers were not entitled to the NMW for their travelling time.
The crux was how to correctly interpret regulations 30 and 34 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015. Regulation 30 defines ‘time work’ and regulation 34 is a ‘deeming provision’—meaning the law pretends something is work even if it does not look like it
- ‘Time work’ = tasks paid by the hour. Sitting in a van is not ‘actual work’.
- Regulation 34’s general rule: travel counts as work if it is for work and at a time when the worker ‘would otherwise be working’.
- Exception: travel from home to the first site (or back again) does not count, even if the trip is four hours long. That is ‘ordinary commuting’, however grim.
- But: travel between assignments, say, a domiciliary care visit followed by another across town, does count.
- Borderline cases: if the job is driving (lorry drivers, some security patrols), or the worker does actual duties en route (such as calls or administration while travelling), that may flip the analysis.
The judges admitted the outcome feels harsh. Employers can, in effect, dodge NMW obligations by collecting workers from home rather than a depot. But the court said: if the law is broken, it is for Parliament to fix, not the court.
What should you do?
Audit your workforce: who travels, when, and why?
Separate home-to-first-site travel (not paid) from between-assignment travel (may be payable).
Train managers to spot when travel tips into ‘work’, especially for drivers or staff members doing duties on the move.
Clarify contracts and policies on paid versus unpaid travel time.
Record journeys consistently in rotas, timesheets or apps.
Manager checklist
- Log between-assignment travel separately.
- Build schedules that allow fair rest breaks around travel.
- Keep evidence (rotas, GPS logs, mileage records) in case HMRC calls.
What is the takeaway?
For care, cleaning, security and field sales, the risk is in the ‘gaps’ between jobs, not the first trek from home. Get this wrong and the penalties can be steep.
Question
Are your travel-time records sufficiently tight to show HMRC which miles you pay for and which you do not?
Source: HMRC v Taylors Services Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 956
