The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) concluded in Opinion Letter FLSA2026-11 that an uncompensated 60-minute unpaid meal period remains a bona fide, noncompensable meal period under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) even when employees must spend a portion of that meal period walking to and from a designated break area.
The opinion arose from a detention facility employee’s challenge to a policy requiring certain employees to travel to a separate location to eat because food was prohibited in their work areas. Although the required travel (3 to 7 minutes each way) reduced the time available in the break area to approximately 46 to 54 minutes, the WHD determined that employees remained relieved of duty and retained ample uninterrupted time to eat a meal and engage in personal activities. As a result, the entire 60-minute meal period qualified as a bona fide meal period and did not constitute compensable work time under the FLSA.
For employers, the opinion is significant because it rejects the argument that required travel during a meal period automatically renders the travel time compensable. Instead, the WHD emphasized that the central inquiry is whether employees are relieved from work duties and have sufficient time to use the break for its intended purpose. The agency reaffirmed that the FLSA generally does not require employers to provide meal periods at all, and that the Department of Labor and most courts analyze meal-break claims under the “...
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