Europe's Top Court Rules That Staff Sent to Off-Site Jobs Are on the Clock From the Moment They Leave Home

Employees who are ordered by their employer to travel to an external site can count the journey as full working time — even when they normally work at a fixed desk. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) reached that finding in its ruling of 22 October 2026 in the Elie Radu case (C-420/24).

Three conditions drive the classification: the travel is necessary to carry out contractual duties, the staff involved are subject to the management's instructions, and they cannot freely dispose of their personal time during the trip.

What lay behind the dispute

A Romanian employee of a state road infrastructure company brought the case. His contract set his place of work in La?i, yet the firm repeatedly sent him to construction sites far from the city.

Some of the outward and return journeys fell outside normal working hours. He sought payment for 31.5 hours of travel time; his employer refused.

The judges found that the trips were inseparably linked to his contractual obligations. The company had determined both the destinations and the conditions of the assignments, and the journeys were indispensable to completing the work.

Where the line falls

Under the ruling, both the outbound and the return leg count as working time once the employer orders a posting to a different site. The clock starts when the employee leaves home.

It makes no difference whether the worker travels as a passenger rather than driving, or whether the transport takes place outside the usual schedule. Nor does it matter if duties such as business calls are performed along the way.

The ordinary commute between home and a fixed workplace remains expressly outside this treatment.

A construction-sector example shows how far the logic reaches. Take a company with head offices in ?ód? that sends staff to sites more than 500 kilometres away. With standard office hours of 9:00 to 17:00, the preceding journeys between 6:00 and 9:00 and the return trips between 17:00 and 23:00 both fall under the EU-law concept of working time.

What it means for employers in Germany

The ECJ's reading of the EU working-time definition binds beyond the individual dispute and applies to German companies too. Employment-law specialists are advising firms to review thoroughly how they record and organise working hours.

Once travel counts as working time, overtime can accrue. How it is offset depends on the relevant contractual or company arrangements — for instance irregular distribution, flexible scheduling or paid time off in lieu.

Clashes with statutory rest periods are another risk. Early departures and late returns put the 11-hour minimum rest period in particular under strain. Where 12 hours of rest between working days is required, employers must adjust their deployment planning strictly. Records of working-time registration must also be kept for four years.