When a rider never comes out, is the driver still owed pay for that pickup?

An employee is owed pay for that time, even though the trip earns you nothing. Federal rules treat driving to the address and standing by outside as hours worked, and a week's earnings spread over every hour on the clock cannot fall under minimum wage. How that time is paid, by the hour, through an hourly floor, or with a flat dry-run amount, is your choice, as long as the week clears the minimum.

Can I pay drivers only for completed trips?

You can set trip pay that way, but it does not end your wage duty. A week with several no-shows can push a per-trip driver below minimum wage, and you owe the difference for that week. Each workweek stands alone, so a busy week cannot make up for a slow one. In California, piece-rate employers must also pay nonproductive time separately at no less than minimum wage.

Does a dry-run payment count toward overtime?

Yes. Under 29 CFR 778.111, a pieceworker's regular rate includes everything paid for the week, including sums paid for waiting time and other hours worked. A dry-run amount raises the regular rate, so it also raises the overtime premium in any week over 40 hours.

What if every morning rider cancels and I send the driver home?

Some states require minimum pay for showing up. California pays half the scheduled shift, at least two hours and at most four, at the regular rate. New York pays at least four hours, or the scheduled shift if shorter, at the basic minimum wage. New Hampshire owes two hours, but not if you honestly tried to reach the driver first. Rhode Island owes three times the hourly rate when the shift offers under three hours.

Are 1099 drivers covered by these pay rules?

Minimum wage and overtime rules cover employees, not true independent contractors. Paying per trip does not make a driver a contractor, though. Federal and state tests look at how the work is controlled, and a driver who follows your schedule, drives your van, and takes your dispatch calls is often treated as an employee.

Pay Drivers for No-Shows: Wage Rules and Dry-Run Pay

A no-show pays the company nothing and still costs driver time

Medicaid and the brokers almost never pay for a pickup where the rider never appears. Illinois’s transportation handbook, for example, puts “No Show” trips on its list of things the department will not reimburse. The no-show billing guide walks through the state manuals and broker rules behind that. The driver’s time is a different matter. An employee who drove 20 minutes to the address and waited 15 more at the door worked those 35 minutes, and wage law cares about hours, not whether the trip was billable.

Per-trip and per-mile pay plans run into trouble here. Paying solely for finished rides quietly shifts the cost of every dry run onto the driver. Federal law stops that shift at the minimum wage, and several states set the bar higher. The rules below apply to employees. A driver paid on a 1099 who is really an employee is owed the same, and the classification guide explains how the tests work.

Driving to the address and standing by both count as hours

Federal rules treat both parts of a no-show as hours worked.

The wait. 29 CFR 785.15 says a worker kept ready through brief, unpredictable gaps is “engaged to wait,” so the employer owns that time. Among its examples is a repairman held up until a customer has the premises ready, which looks a lot like a driver outside a rider’s house. Idle time drops off the clock only when 29 CFR 785.16’s conditions are all met: the driver is completely relieved of duty for a stretch long enough to use as their own, is told in advance they may leave, and has a set time to come back.
The drive. 29 CFR 785.38 counts travel between job sites during the workday as work. Heading to an address where nobody comes out is the same travel as heading to one where somebody does.

Broker rules lengthen the wait, so the time is not trivial. New York’s Medicaid transportation manual, for example, makes providers hold on for 15 minutes or longer after the booked pickup time before calling it a no-show, and each one has to be documented. Counting the drive, a single missed pickup can eat 30 minutes or more of paid driver time that nobody will reimburse.

Checking the workweek on a per-trip plan

Minimum wage under federal law is tested one workweek at a time. The Department of Labor’s workweek rule (29 CFR 776.4) makes the week the unit, and 29 CFR 778.104 says hours cannot be averaged across two or more weeks. For a per-trip driver the check is one division: total earnings for the week over total hours, no-show time included, has to land at or above the applicable minimum.

Take a made-up driver paid $18 per completed trip, working where the state minimum is $15.00 an hour.

A busy week. The driver works 44 hours and completes 40 trips, with two no-shows. Trip pay is $720, or about $16.36 an hour across 44 hours. That clears $15.00. Overtime for the 4 hours over 40 is half the regular rate per hour, about $32.73, for $752.73.
A slow week. The driver works 44 hours but completes only 33 trips, with six no-shows and several long waits. Trip pay is $594, or $13.50 an hour. That is short of $15.00. You owe $660 for the 44 hours ($66 more), plus overtime at half of $15.00 for 4 hours ($30), for $690.

In the slow week you pay $96 more than the trip rate alone would, and that gap is the no-show time. A written hourly floor makes this automatic. Under 29 CFR 778.111(b), when a pieceworker has a guaranteed hourly minimum and trip pay falls short, the employee gets the difference and the guaranteed rate becomes the regular rate for that week. Plug your own rates into the driver pay calculator to test them, and the driver pay guide compares the main pay structures.

California pays piece-rate dead time separately

California does not let a per-trip plan absorb unpaid time, even in a good week. Labor Code 226.2 reaches anyone earning piece pay for any work during a pay period, and it requires three things:

Separate pay for nonproductive time. “Other nonproductive time” means time under the employer’s control that is not directly related to the activity paid by the piece. It must be paid separately, at no less than the applicable minimum wage, which the statute defines as the highest of the federal, state, or local minimum.
Separate pay for rest and recovery periods. Rest breaks are paid at the higher of the minimum wage or the driver’s average hourly rate for the week.
A detailed pay stub. The wage statement lists the hours, rate, and pay for rest periods and, in most cases, for nonproductive time.

A trip that ends in a no-show earns no piece rate, so the safest reading is to treat the drive and the wait as nonproductive time and pay them by the hour. The statute lets an employer measure that time from actual records or a reasonable estimate. A good-faith error in the estimate still leaves you owing the wages, though it can spare you some penalties.

When the whole shift falls apart

Some states add pay when a driver reports for a shift and gets little or no work. In NEMT terms, picture a dawn run where each standing rider cancels or misses the pickup and dispatch tells the driver to go home.

California. If a worker shows up and is given under half of the scheduled hours, the employer pays for half of them, with a floor of 2 hours and a ceiling of 4, at the regular rate. Being called back a second time that day for under 2 hours of work earns 2 hours. The Labor Commissioner’s exceptions include threats to people or property, failed utilities, and acts of God or similar events the employer cannot control.
New York. Under 12 NYCRR 142-2.3, an employee who reports at the employer’s request or with its permission is paid at least 4 hours, or the hours of the regular shift if fewer, at the basic minimum wage. The order covers workers not under another New York wage order.
New Hampshire. RSA 275:43-a guarantees 2 hours at the regular rate to an employee who comes in because the employer asked. An honest attempt to reach the employee beforehand and call off the shift ends that duty.
Rhode Island. Under G.L. 28-12-3.2, a shift that starts with the worker on site but delivers under 3 hours of work costs the employer a minimum of three hours’ worth of the hourly rate, unless both sides agreed in advance to a shorter shift.

As an example, take a California driver scheduled for an 8-hour shift whose first three riders cancel. Dispatch sends the driver home after 90 minutes. Unless an exception applies, the driver is owed 4 hours of pay for the day: the 90 minutes worked plus 2.5 hours of reporting-time pay. Calling the driver before they leave home avoids the question in every state above, so confirm morning riders the evening before. The no-show reduction guide covers reminder calls and texts.

Three ways to pay for a no-show

How you pay for no-show time is a policy choice, as long as every week clears the wage floor. These are the three common setups:

Setup	What the driver gets for a no-show	Effect on overtime
Hourly pay	The time at the normal hourly rate	None beyond the hours themselves
Per trip with an hourly floor	Nothing per trip, but the floor covers slow weeks	The floor becomes the regular rate in short weeks
Per trip plus a flat dry-run amount	A set amount per no-show, such as half the trip rate	Raises the regular rate in every week it is paid

The third setup puts a figure for each no-show on the pay stub, so the driver can see the missed pickup was not their loss. Under 29 CFR 778.111, though, sums paid for waiting time go into the regular rate, so a dry-run payment also raises the overtime premium in any week past 40 hours. In California, the statute calls for an hourly rate on nonproductive time, so a flat amount alone may not satisfy it.

Put the rule in writing before the first paycheck and use it for every driver alike. Define a payable no-show (the broker’s wait window has passed and dispatch has approved leaving), name who records the wait, and say when the amount is paid. The no-show policy template covers the rider side of the same rule.

The no-show record protects the paycheck and the claim

One record does two jobs. Under 29 CFR 516.2 you keep every employee’s daily and weekly hours along with how they are paid, so no-show minutes belong on the timecard. The same trip needs proof for the broker. New York’s manual, for example, has the driver’s trip record show a no-show when no ride took place.

A useful no-show entry has four parts:

Arrival time at the pickup address, from GPS rather than memory.
Wait start and end, matching the broker’s window.
Contact attempts: calls or texts to the rider and any call to dispatch.
Dispatch approval to leave, with the time.

That entry settles a pay question from the driver and a dispute from the broker with the same facts. Riders who keep missing pickups are a separate problem, and the repeat no-show guide covers what providers can and cannot do. To put a monthly dollar figure on the lost trips and driver time, use the no-show cost calculator.

No-show records in HealthRide

HealthRide records wait times on no-shows, and its trip records keep GPS-recorded miles and timestamps for each leg. Drivers clock in and out on the driver app, so you can check a driver’s timecard against the no-show records for the same day.

Paying drivers when a rider no-shows or cancels at the door