In its judgment of 22 October 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on a question that regularly arises in practice. Does the time that an employee spends travelling to a place of work other than his fixed place of work constitute working time? The Court answered in the affirmative, even where the employment contract provides for a fixed place of work and the travel takes place outside normal working hours.
The facts
An employee of a Romanian company active in road construction, whose employment contract provided for a fixed place of work, regularly had to inspect works on various sections of the Romanian road network. In June 2021, he covered more than 1,500 km over eight days on such assignments, using a vehicle provided by his employer. For one of the trips, a driver was made available to him. The employer refused to pay the 31.5 hours of travel time recorded on the employee’s timesheet as overtime.
A fixed place of work does not change the analysis
The situation is similar to the landmark Tyco case (CJEU 10 September 2015, nr. C-266/14) in which the Court stated that the travel time of mobile workers without a fixed place of work constitutes working time. However, the employer argued that the Tyco judgment was not relevant, because unlike the workers in that case, the employee did have a fixed place of work. Therefore, the travel time should not be regarded as working time. The Court disagrees. Carrying out inspections outside his fixed place of work forms an integral part of the employee’s usual function. Therefore, his trips are inherent to the exercise of his function, as described in his employment contract.
No intermediate category between working time and rest periods
The Court examined the elements of the concept of working time in Article 2(1) of the Working Time Directive: the employee must be working, at the employer’s disposal and carrying out his activity or duties. During the trips, the employee had to follow his employer’s instructions. He could change neither the date nor the destination of the trips, even when a vehicle with a driver was made available to him. Moreover, he could not freely dispose of his time or pursue his own interests during the trips. After all, the employee was separated from his family and social environment. In addition, he had little freedom to use the time during which no professional activity was required of him. Consequently, the employee was at his employer’s disposal. The fact that the employee is a passenger or does not actively work during the journey makes no difference. The intensity of the work performed or the employee’s output is not a characteristic of working time (Court of Justice, 30 October 2025, Ramavić, C-373/24). The Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC does not provide for an intermediate category between working time and rest periods, since those two categories are mutually exclusive (Court of Justice, 9 October 2025, STAS-IV, C-110/24). Therefore, the employee’s travel time constitutes working time.
What does this mean for employers?
The judgment offers two useful lessons.
Firstly, a fixed place of work in the employment contract does not prevent travel time from qualifying as working time. An employee may be instructed by the employer to travel to another place of work to carry out his duties there. In that case, the travel time constitutes working time. This also applies outside normal working hours.
Secondly, it does not matter whether the employee drives himself or is a passenger. Nor does it matter whether he actively works during the journey. Therefore, employers are well advised to take such travel time into account when organising business trips and assessing compliance with the working time rules.
Do you have questions about this judgment or the organisation of working time? Please do not hesitate to contact Van Olmen & Wynant. Van Olmen & Wynant would be pleased to advise you on the impact of this case law on your organisation.
The judgment: Court of Justice of the European Union, 22 October 2026, C-420/24, Sindicatul Drumarilor “Elie Radu”, available on eur-lex.europa.eu.
