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APA travel days and travel time: what are you actually owed?
The short answer. Travel time is always paid at single time, whatever the day of the week. A travel day pays your basic hourly rate with a minimum 5 hour call, and the weekend multipliers never apply to it. Travel on a working day is only payable if travel plus work reaches 11 hours, and the first hour of each journey is deducted.
Travel is the part of the APA terms crew most often undercharge, because it's really three separate things with three separate rules: travel days, travel time on a working day, and mileage. Mileage is money for your car and we've covered it separately. This article covers the other two, which are money for your time. The clauses below are from the APA Recommended Terms for Engaging Crew on the Production of Commercials, effective 1 September 2026.
What is a travel day worth?
A travel day pays your basic hourly rate for the hours travelled, with a minimum 5 hour call. It is a non shooting day spent moving to or from location, and it's always single time, regardless of the day of the week: a Sunday travel day pays exactly the same as a Tuesday one. The weekend multipliers never apply to travel.
One useful knock on rule: after a travel day where the crew stays in a hotel, the next working day is calculated base to base, hotel to hotel. Your day starts when you leave the hotel and ends when you're back, not when you reach set. This applies to all location shoots where crew are put up overnight.
When is travel on a working day payable?
If you travel to a shoot and back on the same day you work, travel time is payable at your basic hourly rate, with two big qualifications:
- Nothing is payable at all unless your travel time plus working time comes to at least 11 hours. A 9 hour day with 45 minutes each way doesn't reach the threshold, so the travel is unpaid.
- The first hour of the outward journey and the first hour of the homeward journey are deducted. You're charging for travel beyond an hour each way, not door to door.
For London based production companies, the starting point for measuring travel is the APA's address in W1F 9SE, not your home.
A worked example: a Lighting Technician on the 2026 card maximum, basic hourly rate £46, works a full 11 hour shoot day with 1.5 hours of travel each way. Total time is 14 hours, comfortably over the threshold. Deduct the first hour of each journey and 0.5 hours each way is payable: 1 hour at £46. Not a fortune on one day, but across a week on a distant location it adds up, and it's yours under the terms.
Do you get paid for collecting kit?
Usually yes. If production asks you to collect equipment or other crew from any address other than your home, that time counts as working time on a base to base basis. Picking up a genny, collecting kit from a rental house, or driving another crew member in: all working time.
From 1 September 2026 there is one new exclusion: base to base does not apply to equipment hired from the crew member. If production is hiring the kit from you, driving your own kit to set no longer automatically counts as working time under this clause, and the terms don't provide a replacement formula. If you supply your own kit, agree collection and delivery terms as part of the kit deal up front. Full details in our September 2026 changes article.
Do you have to shoot on the day you fly?
Not if the flight is long enough. If your flight time is over 4 hours, there's no shooting on the day of the flight. If the scheduled flight time is over 8 hours, there's no shooting until 24 hours after arrival. Both are subject to exceptional circumstances, but the default is rest before you work.
Who do the travel clauses not apply to?
The travel clauses don't apply to Production Managers, Production Assistants or Runners.
What we built
TimeMachine handles travel days automatically: single time on any day of the week, with the 5 hour minimum applied for you. Set the day type and the day adds itself up, ready for the invoice.
TimeMachine is an independent tool for UK film and television crew. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Advertising Producers Association (APA). It references the publicly available APA Recommended Crew Terms as a rate reference only. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice.