Watch Out Illinois Employers — The Illinois Wage Law Does NOT Exclude Preliminary or Postliminary Activities from Compensable Work

Things just got much more expensive for Illinois employers! On Thursday, March 19, 2026, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the Illinois Minimum Wage Law does not incorporate the federal Portal-to-Portal Act’s preliminary and postliminary exceptions to compensable work requirements. That is, even if employees undertake activities before their shift start time (or after their shift end time) that are neither necessary nor indispensable to their work duties and responsibilities, the time spent conducting these pre- and post-shift activities must be included as “work time” and compensated so long as the employee is “required” to be on the employer’s premises.

As a quick refresher, the Portal-to-Portal Act (PPA), which amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), excludes from “compensable” work time so-called “preliminary or postliminary” activities that employees may be required to perform before clocking-in for the start of their shift or after clocking-out at the end of their shift. Such preliminary or postliminary activities often include things like commuting (walking from the facility entrance to the time clock), changing clothes, security screenings, and donning and doffing certain work-related protective equipment. These kinds of activities, although ancillary to performing compensable duties, are not compensable under the PPA (and therefore under the FLSA) unless they are “integral and indispensable” to the employee’s principal duties. 

The Illinois Wage Law (Wage Law) and its applicable regulations take a different approach. The Wage Law specifically requires that “all the time an employee is required to be on duty, or on the employer’s premises, or at other prescribed places of work, and any additional time the employee is required or permitted to work for the employer” is compensable time. Unlike its federal counterpart, the Wage Law does not contain express exceptions for preliminary or postliminary activities. The Illinois Supreme Court’s close reading of the Wage Law, its regulations, and its legislative history led it to conclude that, while Illinois courts may look to the FLSA and the PPA for interpretive guidance where those laws are “parallel” to the Wage Law, where there are “marked differences in their respective statements and exceptions,” the Wage Law and its regulations stand on their own.

For Illinois employers, this distinction is critically important, because certain activities that may not be compensable under the FLSA will, by contrast, be compensable under the Wage Law. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the Wage Law “explicitly encompass[es] all time that an employee is required to be on an employer’s premises.” This maxim holds true irrespective of the reason for needing to be on the premises. As one can imagine, this interpretation of the Wage Law opens the proverbial flood gates of wage and overtime claims related to security checks, logging in to computers, donning/doffing, walking from the entrance to the time clock, and the like, unless the Illinois legislature undertakes some “corrective” action with respect to this determination.¹

Employers should make efforts now to review their timekeeping procedures to ensure they know exactly when non-exempt employees may arguably be required to be on premises before or after a shift so that they are appropriately compensated for time spent performing any preliminary or postliminary activities. The Illinois Wage Law has a three-year statute of limitations, so fixing any existing problems now will help reduce liability going forward.

Footnote

1. It was a similar “flood” of these sorts of claims, which in fact, led the United States Congress to enact the Portal-to-Portal Act in 1947.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.