Last updated: September 2026

Donning and Doffing: When Gear Up Time Is Paid Under the FLSA

Time spent putting on and taking off required gear is paid time when the gear is integral and indispensable to the job. Those minutes then count toward the 40 hour threshold, so for a worker already near it they carry the overtime premium as well. The exposure is small on any single shift and repeats on every shift, which is what makes it a payroll problem rather than a scheduling one.

The integral and indispensable test

The Portal to Portal Act of 1947, at 29 U.S.C. 254, removed ordinary commuting and preliminary or postliminary activities from compensable hours. It did not reach activities that are part of the principal work itself.

In Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247 (1956), the Supreme Court held that changing clothes and showering at a battery plant were compensable because they were integral and indispensable to the principal activities. In IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21 (2005), the Court held that any activity that is integral and indispensable is itself a principal activity, which means walking between the first and the last principal activity of the day is compensable. The Court also held that waiting to don the first piece of gear is not.

The Wage and Hour Division set out its own reading of Alvarez in Advisory Memorandum 2006-2, which remains the Department's published guidance on the subject.

The test turns on the work, not on the item. Gear that a worker can reasonably put on at home and carry to the site tends to fall outside it. Gear that must stay on site for safety, contamination or sanitation reasons tends to fall inside it, because leaving with it is not an option the worker has.

Classification still governs the pay consequence. Only nonexempt employees earn overtime, so the same gear up minute that pushes a nonexempt worker past 40 hours does nothing to an exempt employee's pay.

The continuous workday rule

Once the first compensable activity of the day begins, the workday runs until the last principal activity ends. Walking, waiting and short transitions inside that window are paid. The rule is at 29 CFR 790, and it is where most of the money sits, because it captures far more than the changing time itself.

A worker who dons required respirator gear at 7:00 and reaches the work station at 7:12 is owed all twelve minutes. Doffing at the end of the shift, the walk back, and any required post shift hygiene step sit on the same side of the line.

Meal periods break the workday only where the worker is fully relieved of duty. Rest breaks of twenty minutes or less stay inside it and stay paid.

Where timekeeping creates the exposure

Rounding punches is permitted under 29 CFR 785.48, but only where it is neutral over time. A rounding practice that consistently moves in the employer's favor fails that test, and gear up time is where it fails most often, because the punch clock is rarely at the point where the workday actually starts.

An employer whose time clock sits inside the plant, past the locker room where required gear goes on, is recording a start time later than the one the FLSA uses.

Recordkeeping under 29 CFR 516 requires the employer to capture actual hours worked, the regular rate, straight time pay and overtime pay for each pay period. A system that logs scheduled shift times rather than actual punches does not satisfy it. Where the employer's records are missing or unreliable, the employer is in a substantially weaker position in a wage claim than one that can produce them.

The section 203(o) exclusion and what Sandifer actually held

Section 203(o) of the FLSA allows a collective bargaining agreement to exclude time spent changing clothes from compensable hours. The scope of that exclusion turns on what counts as clothes.

In Sandifer v. United States Steel Corp., 571 U.S. 220 (2014), steelworkers argued that their flame retardant jackets, pants, hoods, gloves, boots and hardhats were protective equipment rather than clothing, and so fell outside section 203(o). The Court held that the items were clothes within the ordinary meaning of the word, so the time was excludable under the agreement. The decision rested on the meaning of the statutory term, not on the employer's payroll history.

Two limits follow from that. The exclusion reaches changing clothes, so time spent on items that are not clothes in the ordinary sense is a different question. And section 203(o) operates only where a collective bargaining agreement exists and covers the practice, which leaves every non-union employer outside it entirely.

Gear that tends to pay

The pattern is consistent. Required, specialized, and impractical to handle off site. Chemical suits and respirators in industrial settings. Sanitation gear in food processing that must remain in the facility for contamination control. Infection control gowning in acute care, which also sits under OSHA's bloodborne pathogen standard at 29 CFR 1910.1030. Body armor and duty gear at a law enforcement facility.

Public safety agencies compute overtime on a 7 to 28 day work period under FLSA section 207(k) rather than a standard workweek. That changes when the overtime threshold is crossed. It does not change whether gear up time counts as hours worked.

Items that travel home with the worker, such as ordinary uniforms, safety glasses and steel toed boots, generally fall outside the test. The line is not the item itself but whether the worker has a practical alternative to changing on site.

California does not apply the federal de minimis rule the same way

In Troester v. Starbucks Corp., 5 Cal.5th 829 (2018), the California Supreme Court held that the wage order and Labor Code did not permit the employer to disregard several minutes of required off the clock work at the end of each shift.

The Court expressly reserved the broader question. It wrote that it was not deciding whether there are circumstances where compensable time is so minute or irregular that it is unreasonable to expect it to be recorded. So Troester does not establish that every brief activity must be paid in California. It establishes that a regular, required few minutes per shift must be.

California also applies a daily overtime threshold at 8 hours and double time past 12, so reclassifying gear up time in California can move a shift across a daily line rather than only a weekly one.

What to check

Find where the workday actually starts. Compare the location of the time clock against the point where required gear goes on. If they are not the same place, the recorded start time and the legal start time differ.

List the required gear and ask, item by item, whether a worker could reasonably put it on at home. That question decides more cases than any other.

If you rely on section 203(o), confirm a collective bargaining agreement exists and that it addresses the practice. The exclusion is unavailable without one.

Check whether rounding is neutral in both directions over a full period rather than in policy alone.

The DOL Fact Sheet 22 sets out the federal hours worked definition. See regular rate of pay for how added minutes change the overtime math, compensable time for the wider category this sits inside, and how overtime is calculated for the underlying formula. Employers sorting classification should see salaried nonexempt overtime. The overtime hub maps the full framework, and multi state employers should also read the multi-state payroll hub.

This is not legal or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional for your specific situation.