Why travel time is risky
A care worker can appear to earn above minimum wage on paid visit hours, but the effective hourly rate can fall once travel between clients is included in minimum-wage hours.
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Live risk result
Estimated shortfall against £12.71/hr
Planning estimate only. Confirm compliance across the worker's actual pay reference period and payroll records.
Effective hourly rate
£10.17/hr
Weekly top-up needed
£91.56
Annual exposure
£57.13k
Across 12 workers
Shareable result
Turn the calculation into something a director, payroll lead, or registered manager can act on.
Want a full workforce compliance review?
Uploading rota, mileage, and payroll data makes the risk much clearer than averages. Workmax connects scheduled visits, verified time, travel, mileage, exceptions, and payroll-ready records.
Book a care payroll reviewVisit-to-payroll workflow
From rota to approved payroll input
A rota shows what should happen. Payroll needs an approved record of what did happen, which time is payable, and which expenses should remain separate. Use this evidence chain before entering figures into the minimum-wage check.
Rota
Start with planned visits, expected contact time, locations, and the worker assigned.
Visit or clock record
Confirm attendance, actual start and finish times, and what changed during delivery.
Timesheet
Bring together submitted hours, additions, corrections, and the worker's declaration.
Travel and mileage
Keep working time between assignments separate from journey distance and expense reimbursement.
Manager approval
Resolve exceptions, apply the correct rates, and authorise the totals before payroll cut-off.
Payroll result
Calculate pay, check minimum wage, and reconcile the result to the approved inputs.
Exception checks
When the records disagree
No record automatically wins. Investigate the difference and approve the payroll treatment from evidence of the work that actually happened.
- Missing or cancelled visits
- Planned and actual duration differences
- Overlapping visits or shifts
- Travel time omitted between assignments
- Mileage without journey evidence
- Late timesheets or mileage claims
- Duplicate entries or manual changes
- Missing or outdated pay rates
Preserve the original value, correction reason, supporting evidence, approver, approval date, and whether the correction belongs in the current or next payroll.
UK care payroll compliance
Use approved figures in the minimum-wage check
Test the worker's actual pay and working time for the relevant pay reference period. A headline visit rate cannot show whether travel, expenses, or deductions create a shortfall.
Why mileage matters
Mileage is usually an expense reimbursement rather than minimum-wage pay. Unreimbursed employment costs can reduce the pay counted in the check.
Keep one approval trail from visit to payslip
Workmax keeps planned visits, verified time, travel, mileage, exceptions, manager approvals, and payroll-ready timesheets connected. Payroll receives authorised inputs, while every correction remains traceable to its operational evidence.
CARE TRAVEL PAY FAQ
Care Worker Travel Time & Mileage FAQ
Common questions about care worker travel time, mileage, and minimum wage risk.
For minimum wage purposes, travel from one work assignment to another can count as working time. GOV.UK gives the example of a care worker driving from one client to another between appointments.
Travel between home and the first or last appointment is generally treated differently from travel between assignments. This checker focuses on travel between client visits during the working pattern.
Mileage reimbursement is normally a repayment of an expense and does not count as minimum wage pay. If a worker is left with unreimbursed employment costs, those costs can reduce pay for minimum wage purposes.
The checker uses the April 2026 rates: £12.71 for workers aged 21 and over, £10.85 for workers aged 18 to 20, and £8 for under-18s. The £8 apprentice rate applies to apprentices under 19 and those aged 19 or over who are still in the first year of their apprenticeship; older apprentices who have completed the first year use their age rate.
From 6 April 2026, HMRC's approved amount for the first 10,000 business miles in a car or van is 55p per mile. This is a tax benchmark, not proof of a worker's actual vehicle cost and not an automatic minimum-wage deduction. Replace the model assumption with evidence of the worker's employment-related cost where available.
No. It is a planning checker for care operators. Actual compliance can depend on the pay reference period, contracts, premium pay, deductions, uniforms, live-in care, sleep-ins, and payroll setup.
A rota records what was planned. It can support a timesheet, but it should not automatically replace evidence of what actually happened. Compare the rota with visit or clock records, travel, changes, and manager-approved exceptions before creating payroll inputs.
No single record should win automatically. Investigate the difference, preserve the original records, use evidence of the work actually completed, record the correction reason, and have an authorised manager approve the payroll treatment.
No. Paid travel time may enter gross pay, while mileage reimbursement follows a separate expense treatment. Keep the hours, rate, journey, distance, reimbursement, and approval evidence separately identifiable.
Keep the published rota, actual visit or clock records, timesheets, travel and mileage evidence, pay rates and policy versions, exception reasons, manager approvals, payroll input totals, deductions, and the resulting minimum-wage calculation for each relevant pay reference period.
