Commute time cost calculator

How the commute calculation works

The yearly commute is one-way minutes × 2 × office days per week × commuting weeks per year, divided by 60 for hours. Dividing by 8 converts it into full workdays, multiplying by the value of your hour gives the cost of the time, and the daily travel cost × days × weeks gives the money spent on fares, fuel and parking.

Example: 35 minutes each way, 5 days a week, 46 weeks a year is 70 minutes a day and 5 h 50 min a week, or 268 hours a year. That is 33.5 eight-hour days. At $25 an hour the time is worth $6,708, and $8 a day in fares adds $1,840, so the commute costs about $8,548 a year.

The table assumes 5 office days a week and 46 commuting weeks, which leaves room for holidays and leave. The US Census Bureau's American Community Survey puts the average one-way commute in the United States at roughly 27 minutes.

Using the result

Compare the commute with things you can change. Moving closer, switching to a faster route or dropping one office day a week all show up directly here: going from 5 to 4 days cuts the default example by 54 hours a year. The same numbers help when weighing a job offer, since a higher salary with a 60-minute commute can be worth less per hour than a lower one ten minutes away.

Be careful with the hourly value. Time on a train where you can read or answer email is not fully lost, so you might value it at half your rate, while stressful driving in traffic is worth counting in full. Commuting time is usually unpaid, so it effectively lowers your real hourly wage: divide your pay by work hours plus commute hours to see it.

Leave the travel cost at zero if you walk or cycle, and include parking and tolls if you drive, since those are often larger than fuel.