What does the EU ruling on commuting within working hours mean for you?

Last year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that, in certain circumstances, employers must compensate employees for their commute to work. What does the ruling mean for you, and when is the deadline to apply for backdated pay?

EU ruling on commuting to work

On October 9, 2025, the European Court of Justice issued a ruling in a Spanish case. It concerned employees of a public sector company who worked in various nature reserves. 

The employees had no fixed place of work; every morning, they met at a designated point and were taken in the company vehicle to wherever they were working on that day.

The employer considered this outward journey working time, but not the return journey. Last year, the ECJ ruled that both journeys count as working time. 

This is because EU law only distinguishes between working time and rest time, and on the return journey, employees did not have free disposal of their time.

What does the ruling mean for people in Germany?

The ruling mainly benefits people without a fixed place of work, e.g., construction workers, delivery drivers, or those in technical customer service. 

Commuting to an office or a factory doesn’t count. In this case, you are free to organise your commute to work how you please, and your workday begins when you arrive at your fixed workplace.

Anyone who thinks the ruling might benefit them can ask themselves a series of questions:

• Does my boss set the meeting point and departure time?
• Do I travel in a company car or collectively with colleagues?
• Does my place of work regularly change?
• Am I compensated for these journeys?

Another important point is that the ECJ ruling did not determine how much employees should be compensated for these hours. Your work contract, any applicable collective agreements, and German labour law determine that.

Employers may pay employees less for commute time than for working hours, but the Minimum Wage Act still applies. The minimum wage is currently 13,90 euros per hour and will rise to 14,60 euros per hour in January 2027.

Why is the ruling relevant now?

So if the ECJ issued this ruling in October last year, why is it relevant now? When the ECJ issued its ruling, the court set a three-year deadline for claims, counted from the end of the year in which they arose. 

The deadline to claim backdated pay for 2023 runs to December 31, 2026. If you think you may be entitled to backdated pay, you have until December 31 to claim it through an employment tribunal or by obtaining a court order for payment (Mahnbescheid), which you can do online. You can find more information here.

Note that simply notifying your employer or previous employer from 2023 that you are entitled to backdated pay by December 31, 2026, is not enough. Instead, you must take steps to initiate the tribunal or obtain the court order for payment by this date.