Four distinct legal tests apply inside a single day’s timesheet, and each works differently. On-call time is working time when the restriction on the employee is tight enough that they cannot use the time effectively for personal purposes — required to stay on the employer’s premises, or so close to it that the effect is the same. An employee who is merely told to leave word at home or with the office about how to be reached, without a stay-put restriction, is not working while on call. Short rest breaks are a separate, simpler test: any break running from 5 to about 20 minutes is customarily paid and must be counted as hours worked, and an employer can’t offset that paid time against other working time, such as on-call minutes logged the same day.

Meal periods run on a stricter standard again: a bona fide meal period is unpaid only if the employee is completely relieved from duty for the purpose of eating a regular meal. Ordinarily that means 30 minutes or more, though a shorter period can qualify under special conditions (the regulation doesn’t say what those conditions are — it’s a fact-specific call, not a fixed shorter threshold, so no particular shorter number should be treated as a safe harbor). Coffee breaks and time for snacks are never bona fide meal periods — they’re rest periods, and rest periods are paid. The test is real relief from duty, not location: an employee doesn’t have to be allowed to leave the premises, but an office employee required to eat at a desk or a factory worker required to stay at a machine is working through the meal, whether the duties performed are active or merely inactive.

The same on-call and meal-period questions shift shape on longer shifts. An employee on duty for less than 24 hours is working the whole shift even if allowed to sleep or otherwise occupy downtime when not busy — the time still belongs to the employer. On duty of 24 hours or more, the employer and employee may agree to exclude bona fide meal periods and a bona fide, regularly scheduled sleep period of up to 8 hours from hours worked (§ 785.22), but only if adequate sleeping facilities are furnished (facilities sufficient for the employee to usually get an uninterrupted night’s sleep). A longer scheduled sleep period is still credited at only 8 hours, and without such an agreement the sleep and meal time both count as hours worked. Interruptions matter too: a call to duty during the sleep period counts as hours worked, and if interruptions leave the employee with less than 5 hours of sleep during the scheduled period, the entire period counts as working time.