I was asked the following question from a local entrepreneur in Central Illinois: What is the law with regard to reimbursing employees for mileage?
To begin, Illinois has no laws regarding whether an employer must pay for mileage for business travel. However, if an employer chooses to reimburse for mileage, they should use the rate used by the IRS (currently $.545) but can always do more or less.
In terms of the federal law, per the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), an employee must make minimum wage after any business-related expenses are paid by the employer. Thus, the employer does not have to pay for mileage, but cannot violate the minimum wage law either by the employee having to put in gas money that would then make their hourly wage below minimum wage.
As a last note, traveling to and from work is not something that should be reimbursed; only travel between clients/customers.