DOL Opinion Letter Confirms Voluntary Off-Site Travel Does Not Make Meal Periods Compensable

On May 28, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued Opinion Letter FLSA2026-7, confirming that an employee’s choice to leave the worksite during an otherwise bona fide meal period does not convert the meal period into compensable work time under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), even if it reduces the employee’s available time to eat.

The opinion letter involved an employee who worked at a large facility with controlled access points and parking located a significant distance from work areas. The employer provided a 30-minute unpaid meal period and allowed employees to either remain on site or leave the premises. Employees who chose to leave the facility reportedly spent so much time walking to parking areas and going through security that they only had about 10 to 15 minutes to eat a meal. The employee, who believed the meal break under these circumstances created a “coercive dynamic” discouraging employees from taking meal breaks off site, questioned whether these constraints rendered the meal period compensable. The DOL answered with a resounding “no.”

The DOL has long recognized that a bona fide meal period is not compensable worktime under the FLSA. A meal period is “bona fide” if the employee is completely relieved from duty for the purpose of eating a regular meal. The DOL has expressed that ordinarily, a period of 30 minutes or more is long enough to constitute a bona fide meal period. 

The DOL has emphasized that an employee is not completely relieved from duty if they are required to perform any duties during their meal period. To evaluate whether an employee is relieved from duty during a meal period, courts generally use the “predominant benefit” test. That is, a meal period is non-compensable work time if the time is predominantly for the employee’s benefit and compensable if it is predominantly for the employer’s benefit.

Critically, however, the applicable DOL regulation emphasizes that employers are not required to permit employees to leave the premises during a bona fide meal period as long as the employees are otherwise completely free from duties during the meal period.[1]

Based on the foregoing legal principles, the DOL concluded that the 30-minute meal period the employer provided was a bona fide meal period because the employee was relieved from work duties with sufficient time to eat. The DOL reiterated employers can lawfully require employees to remain on the premises for a meal period. Thus, the difficulty an employee might experience voluntarily undertaking an off-site meal during the authorized meal period time does not affect whether the meal period is bona fide.

The DOL’s guidance underscores that the compensability of meal periods under the FLSA turns on whether the employee is relieved from duty rather than how the employee chooses to spend the time. When an employer provides an uninterrupted, 30-minute meal period for the employee’s benefit, voluntary off-site travel that reduces the amount of time available to eat does not transform the time into compensable worktime.

The DOL concluded its opinion letter by reminding employers that state laws may impose requirements that are more stringent than the FLSA. For example, some states require that employers provide meal periods and impose strict requirements about the timing and length of such meal periods. Others may require that mandatory on-site meal periods must be treated as work time. Employers should review the requirements of federal and state law regarding meal periods to ensure that their policies are aligned with all applicable laws.