Travel Pay in 2026: Rules, Compliance, and Best Practices

Overview

Travel pay can be one of the more confusing areas for payroll because the rules change depending on why the employee is traveling, when the travel takes place, and whether the employee is exempt or non-exempt. Something that looks like ordinary travel to a manager may still create a pay obligation for payroll, especially when the travel adds hours to the employee’s workweek and overtime comes into the picture.

Problems often start with situations that seem routine. An employee travels to another city for a meeting, spends part of the day moving between work locations, or travels outside normal working hours. Payroll then has to decide which hours are payable, how those hours should be recorded, and whether state law requires something different from the federal rules. For employers with employees traveling in more than one state, that can make a standard travel policy much harder to apply consistently.

There is also a separate issue involving travel expenses. Employers may reimburse actual expenses, pay a per diem, or use an accountable plan, but those payments have to be handled correctly under IRS rules. If the requirements are not followed, amounts that were meant to be reimbursements may have to be treated as taxable wages. That creates another area where payroll and HR need to be working from the same policy and using the same rules.

The difficulty is that travel pay and travel expenses are often handled together even though they raise different compliance questions. An employer may reimburse the trip correctly but still miss compensable travel time. In another case, the employee may be paid correctly for the hours spent traveling, but the reimbursement itself may be handled incorrectly for tax purposes.

This webinar will review what employers need to pay for when employees travel on business, when travel time becomes compensable, how travel pay affects overtime, and how federal and state requirements may differ. It will also cover per diems, taxable travel payments, accountable and nonaccountable plans, and some of the special situations that can create problems if the rules are applied incorrectly.

Areas covered in the session:

• Travel pay requirements, What you must pay for and why
• Best practices for paying travel pay correctly
• Which employees have to be paid…and when
• Payroll Compliance and travel pay issues keeping wage and hour claims at bay
• What to do when federal and state laws conflict, and handling multiple state conflict issues
• How travel pay affects overtime calculations travel pay differences for exempt and non-exempt employees
• Special circumstances that may require travel payment
• What are per diems
• When travel payments are taxable
• Accountable and nonaccountable plans

To support implementation of the concepts discussed during the webinar, attendees will receive the following handouts:

• Travel Pay in Practice — 15 Real-World Payroll Scenarios & Answers
• Travel Pay Across the States — 50-State Pay & Reimbursement Quick Reference

Why should you attend?

Travel pay can look straightforward until a routine business trip creates questions about compensable time, overtime, state requirements, or tax treatment. This session will help you understand where those problems usually begin and what payroll and HR should be looking for.

You will learn how to handle common situations involving exempt and non-exempt employees, travel outside normal working hours, multi-state travel, per diems, and reimbursement practices that may create wage-and-hour or tax issues if handled incorrectly.

The goal is to give you a clearer way to review your current travel-pay practices, spot areas that may need attention, and make more consistent decisions before a small payroll issue turns into a larger compliance problem

Who will benefit?

This webinar is designed for professionals responsible for payroll, wage-and-hour compliance, employee travel policies, and business expense reimbursement. It is especially useful for those who need to make or oversee decisions about compensable travel time, overtime, and taxable travel payments. These include:

• Payroll Managers
• Payroll Directors
• Payroll Administrators
• Payroll Specialists
• HR Managers
• HR Directors
• HR Business Partners
• Compensation Managers
• Total Rewards Managers
• Wage and Hour Compliance Managers
• Employment Compliance Managers
• Finance Managers
• Controllers
• Accounts Payable Managers
• Travel and Expense Managers
• HR/Payroll Compliance Specialists