The average commute time in the United States is 27.2 minutes one way, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey, the newest official figure. That is about 54 minutes a day and roughly 204 hours a year for someone who commutes 225 days, which is about five full working weeks. In England the average commuting trip takes 32 minutes (National Travel Survey 2025), in Germany 70% of employees get to work in under 30 minutes (Mikrozensus 2024), and the EU average was 25 minutes in Eurostat's most recent survey (2019).
It is 7:42 and the train is late again, or the brake lights on the interstate have turned into one long red ribbon, and you do the maths you always do: how much of my life goes into this? We wanted a real answer, built only on official statistics, with the year next to every number.
This page is the data chapter of our long commute guide. It covers the US in detail (trend, states, metro areas, travel modes, distance), then the UK, Germany and the rest of Europe, and ends with the yearly hours calculation and a method you can check.
What is the average commute time in the US?
The average one-way commute to work in the United States was 27.2 minutes in 2024 (margin of error plus or minus 0.1 minutes), according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates, table S0801. In 2023 it was 26.8 minutes, so the average work commute grew by about 24 seconds in a year.
What "mean travel time to work" means: the Census Bureau asks people how many minutes it usually took them to get from home to work in the previous week, door to door, one way. The average only counts the 143.3 million workers aged 16 and over who did not work from home, so remote workers do not pull it down.
A note on timing: the Census Bureau will publish the 2025 American Community Survey 1-year estimates on October 29, 2026, according to its release schedule. Until then, 2024 is the newest official year, and we will update this page once the new figures are out.
| US commuting, 2024 | Value |
|---|---|
| Average one-way commute | 27.2 minutes |
| Average commute per workday (there and back) | 54.4 minutes |
| Workers who commute (not working from home) | 143.3 million |
| Commute under 30 minutes | about 61% |
| Commute of 60 minutes or more | 9.3% |
| Commute of 90 minutes or more | 3.0% (about 4.3 million workers) |
| Worked from home | 13.3% of all workers (22.0 million) |
Source: ACS 2024 1-year, tables S0801 and B08303. The 90-minute share is our calculation from B08303 (4,277,010 of 143,334,079 commuters).
How has the average commute changed over the years?
The average American commute crept up for a decade, peaked in 2019, dropped when the pandemic sent millions of people home, and has climbed back almost to its record since. The table uses the same ACS table, S0801, for every year.
| Year | Average one-way commute | Commute 60+ minutes | Worked from home |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 25.3 min | 8.0% | 4.3% |
| 2011 | 25.5 min | 8.1% | 4.3% |
| 2012 | 25.7 min | 8.3% | 4.4% |
| 2013 | 25.8 min | 8.4% | 4.4% |
| 2014 | 26.0 min | 8.6% | 4.5% |
| 2015 | 26.4 min | 9.0% | 4.6% |
| 2016 | 26.6 min | 9.1% | 5.0% |
| 2017 | 26.9 min | 9.3% | 5.2% |
| 2018 | 27.1 min | 9.5% | 5.3% |
| 2019 | 27.6 min | 9.8% | 5.7% |
| 2020 | No standard 1-year estimates (pandemic data collection problems) | ||
| 2021 | 25.6 min | 7.7% | 17.9% |
| 2022 | 26.4 min | 8.5% | 15.2% |
| 2023 | 26.8 min | 8.9% | 13.8% |
| 2024 | 27.2 min | 9.3% | 13.3% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 1-year estimates, table S0801, 2010 to 2024. For 2020 the Bureau only released experimental estimates, so we leave that year out.
Two things stand out. Working from home is still more than twice as common as in 2019 (13.3% against 5.7%), yet the people who do commute are travelling almost as long as before the pandemic. Fewer trips, in other words, but not shorter ones.
Which states have the longest and shortest commutes?
New York has the longest average commute of any state at 33.2 minutes, and North Dakota the shortest at 17.5 minutes, according to the ACS 2024 1-year state estimates. The District of Columbia, which is not a state, comes in at 31.0 minutes.
| Rank | Longest average commute | Minutes (2024) | Shortest average commute | Minutes (2024) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | 33.2 | North Dakota | 17.5 |
| 2 | Maryland | 32.3 | South Dakota | 18.5 |
| 3 | New Jersey | 31.9 | Montana | 19.5 |
| 4 | Massachusetts | 30.6 | Wyoming | 19.7 |
| 5 | California | 29.7 | Alaska | 19.8 |
| 6 | Georgia | 29.4 | Nebraska | 19.9 |
| 7 | Florida | 28.9 | Kansas | 20.0 |
| 8 | Illinois | 28.3 | Iowa | 20.4 |
| 9 | Virginia | 28.3 | Idaho | 22.2 |
| 10 | New Hampshire, Texas (tie) | 27.5 | Arkansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Wisconsin (tie) | 22.7 |
Source: ACS 2024 1-year, table S0801, all 50 states. Margins of error range from 0.1 to 1.0 minutes, so states less than about a minute apart may not really differ.
Long commutes cluster around big job markets. In New York, 17.2% of commuters spend an hour or more getting to work each way, and in New Jersey 15.2% do. In North Dakota the figure is 4.3%.
Which cities have the longest commutes?
Among the 36 US metro areas with at least one million workers, the New York metro area has the longest average commute at 36.5 minutes, and Kansas City the shortest at 23.7 minutes (ACS 2024 1-year, metropolitan areas). One in five New York metro commuters (20.9%) travels an hour or more each way.
| Metro area (2024) | Average one-way commute | Commute 60+ minutes |
|---|---|---|
| New York-Newark-Jersey City | 36.5 min | 20.9% |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario | 34.2 min | 18.5% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria | 33.8 min | 15.7% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont | 32.7 min | 16.0% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell | 32.4 min | 13.8% |
| Shortest among the large metros | ||
| Cincinnati | 25.1 min | 5.3% |
| Columbus, Ohio | 24.1 min | 4.6% |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington | 24.1 min | 4.4% |
| Cleveland | 24.0 min | 4.1% |
| Kansas City | 23.7 min | 4.1% |
How long is the commute by car, transit, walking and bike?
Most Americans drive, and driving is close to the national average: a car commute takes about 26.6 minutes one way. Public transit takes almost twice as long, at about 49.5 minutes, because it includes walking to the stop, waiting and transfers. Walkers have the shortest trips, at about 12.9 minutes.
| How people get to work (2024) | Share of all workers | Average one-way time |
|---|---|---|
| Car, truck or van (all) | 78.4% | 26.6 min |
| Drove alone | 69.2% | 26.5 min |
| Carpooled | 9.2% | 27.5 min |
| Public transportation (all) | 3.7% | 49.5 min |
| Bus | 1.7% | 45.5 min |
| Commuter rail or ferry | 0.5% | 71.0 min |
| Walked | 2.4% | 12.9 min |
| Bicycle | 0.5% | not published separately |
| Worked from home | 13.3% | none |
Source: shares from ACS 2024 1-year tables S0801 and B08301. Average times are our calculation: aggregate minutes by mode in B08136 divided by the number of workers using that mode in B08301. The Census Bureau groups bicycle time together with taxis, motorcycles and other means, so there is no separate bike average.
How many miles is the average commute?
The average commute trip in the US is 13.4 miles one way, according to the Federal Highway Administration's Summary of Travel Trends: 2022 National Household Travel Survey (table 7-4). That puts the average daily commute at about 27 miles there and back, and about 6,000 miles a year over 225 workdays.
Commutes got longer in distance: the same survey measured 11.5 miles in 2017 and 13.4 miles in 2022. The report suggests that people may be making fewer short trips and that some moved further out because they can telework more. In 2022, a commute by private vehicle averaged 13.6 miles and 26.9 minutes, a transit commute 7.5 miles and 43.1 minutes, and the average commute speed across all modes was 25.5 miles per hour. The NHTS is a travel diary survey, so its times differ slightly from the ACS.
How many hours a year do you spend commuting?
An average American commuter spends about 204 hours a year getting to work and back. Here is the calculation, so you can check it or redo it with your own numbers:
The commute-hours formula
27.2 minutes one way × 2 trips a day × 225 workdays a year = 12,240 minutes = 204 hours
Our assumption: 5 workdays a week for 45 weeks, which leaves room for vacation, public holidays and sick days. At 40 hours a week, 204 hours is roughly five working weeks.
| Your one-way commute | Hours per year (225 workdays) | Working weeks (40 h) |
|---|---|---|
| 15 minutes | 112.5 hours | 2.8 |
| 20 minutes | 150 hours | 3.8 |
| 27.2 minutes (US average) | 204 hours | 5.1 |
| 30 minutes | 225 hours | 5.6 |
| 45 minutes | 337.5 hours | 8.4 |
| 60 minutes | 450 hours | 11.3 |
| 90 minutes | 675 hours | 16.9 |
If you work from home two days a week, multiply by 0.6. Someone with an hour each way who goes in three days a week still spends 270 hours a year on the road or the rails.
What could you do with 204 hours?
Time is easier to feel when you turn it into something concrete. A short NerdSip course takes about 5 minutes from first lesson to last, so 12,240 minutes is enough for about 2,400 of them. Even if you only used one leg of the trip, a single course a day would add up to 225 courses a year, on 225 different topics. If audiobooks are more your thing, 204 hours is about twenty books of 10 hours each.
We are not suggesting that every commuting minute must be productive. Some mornings call for silence or music. But even a slice of that time adds up to more learning than most adults fit in on purpose.
What is the average commute time in the UK?
The average commuting trip in England took 32 minutes in 2025 and covered 9.2 miles, according to the Department for Transport's National Travel Survey, table NTS0403. The time is door to door and includes waiting, for example on a station platform. It is the longest commuting trip time in the series, which starts in 2002 at 27 minutes.
| Year (England) | Average commuting trip time | Average commuting trip length |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 27 min | 8.5 miles |
| 2010 | 29 min | 9.0 miles |
| 2015 | 30 min | 9.1 miles |
| 2019 | 31 min | 9.1 miles |
| 2021 | 27 min | 8.2 miles |
| 2023 | 30 min | 9.0 miles |
| 2024 | 31 min | 9.0 miles |
| 2025 | 32 min | 9.2 miles |
Source: DfT National Travel Survey, table NTS0403 (published September 2026). The DfT notes that 2020 to 2022 were affected by pandemic changes in data collection.
According to the NTS 2025 main findings, commuting was the second most common trip purpose in 2025, with 112 commuting trips per person, and the purpose with the longest distance travelled, at 1,031 miles per person. Those per-person averages include everyone in the survey, not only workers. With the same formula as above, a 32-minute commute comes to 240 hours a year. The survey covers England, not the whole UK.
What is the average commute in Germany?
Most Germans have fairly short commutes. In 2024, 70% of employees needed less than 30 minutes to get to work, 23% needed 30 minutes to an hour and 6% an hour or more, according to the Federal Statistical Office's Destatis press release of 26 May 2025 (Mikrozensus 2024). By distance, 27% lived less than 5 km from work and 5% travelled 50 km or more. The car still dominates at 65%, followed by public transport at 16%, the bicycle at 10% and walking at 7%.
The Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR) adds the distance: based on Federal Employment Agency data, the average one-way commute was 17.3 km in 2025 (about 10.7 miles), and 20.64 million employees subject to social insurance, 60% of them, worked outside the municipality they live in. Working from home is also common: 25% of all workers in Germany worked from home at least occasionally in 2025, against 13% in 2019.
We have a separate, German-language deep dive on der durchschnittliche Arbeitsweg in Deutschland with more detail on distances, commuter numbers and Austria and Switzerland.
How does the US compare with Europe?
The average one-way commute in the EU was 25 minutes in 2019, according to Eurostat. That is the latest Europe-wide comparison, from a special module of the EU Labour Force Survey (dataset lfso_19plwk28), and it predates the pandemic. Latvia had the longest commutes and Cyprus the shortest.
| Country (2019) | Average one-way commute |
|---|---|
| Latvia | 33 min |
| United Kingdom | 30 min |
| Hungary, Luxembourg | 29 min |
| Belgium, Ireland | 28 min |
| Netherlands | 27 min |
| Germany, France, Switzerland | 26 min |
| EU average | 25 min |
| Spain | 25 min |
| Austria, Poland | 24 min |
| Italy, Portugal | 21 min |
| Greece | 20 min |
| Cyprus | 19 min |
Source: Eurostat, lfso_19plwk28, employed persons aged 15 to 74 who commute, 2019. For a newer national number, Switzerland's Federal Statistical Office reports that the average commute in 2024 was 14.0 km and 30.2 minutes one way. Surveys differ in method, so compare countries within one source rather than across sources.
So how does the US look? The American average of 27.2 minutes (2024) sits a little above the EU's 25 minutes (2019) and below England's 32 minutes (2025). The real difference is the spread: an American in North Dakota and one in the New York metro area live in two different commuting worlds.
How to use the commute you have
The numbers say most of us will keep commuting for years. The good news is that commute time is unusually reliable time: it comes back every workday, at the same hour, in blocks of 20 to 40 minutes. That makes it a natural slot for learning, as our guide to habit stacking explains.
We call the plan for it your Commute Learning Stack: what you listen to or do, matched to how you travel.
- Driving: audio only. In NerdSip's Podcast Mode you queue 1 to 10 courses before you start the engine, and the app reads them out in a real voice, at any speed, with the phone in your pocket. Eyes stay on the road and hands on the wheel; never read or tap while driving.
- Train or bus with a seat: read a lesson (about a minute each) and finish it with the mini game, whether that is filling a gap, fixing a mistake, putting steps in order or matching pairs, so the idea sticks.
- Standing, walking or cycling: back to Podcast Mode, and ask the Voice Tutor a question out loud if something is unclear.
Courses are generated on any topic in seconds, with 3, 5 or 10 lessons, and you can also pick from a feed of the courses other learners rate best. Lessons are fact-checked. Podcast Mode is part of NerdSip Gold, and new users get a free listen to try it. If you want to know more about learning by ear, read our piece on AI-generated podcasts.
How to cite this page
Source: NerdSip, Average Commute Time 2026, https://nerdsip.com/blog/average-commute-time
Journalists, bloggers and students are welcome to use the tables and the hours-per-year calculation. Please link to this page and, for the underlying figures, to the official sources listed below.
Methodology and sources
US commute time: American Community Survey 1-year estimates, 2010 to 2024 (no standard release for 2020), table S0801 for the national, state and metro averages, shares of long commutes and the work-from-home share. Mean travel time counts workers aged 16 and over who did not work from home, one way, in the week before the survey. State and metro rankings use point estimates; the metro list includes all metro areas with at least 1,000,000 workers in 2024 (36 areas, Puerto Rico excluded). The 90-minute share comes from table B08303.
US times by mode: our calculation, dividing aggregate travel time by mode (table B08136) by the number of workers per mode (table B08301), 2024. Subway and light rail are grouped in B08136, which is why we do not show them separately.
US distance: FHWA, Summary of Travel Trends: 2022 National Household Travel Survey, table 7-4 (13.43 miles, margin of error 1.30 miles). Daily and yearly miles are our arithmetic (13.43 × 2, and × 225).
England: DfT National Travel Survey 2025, table NTS0403, published 10 September 2026. Trip time includes waiting time.
Germany: Destatis press release N027 of 26 May 2025 (Mikrozensus 2024, first results, employees); BBSR, Pendeln in Deutschland 2025 (reference date 30 June 2025, published 9 September 2026); Destatis press release N024 of 22 April 2026 on working from home.
Europe: Eurostat, EU Labour Force Survey ad hoc module 2019, dataset lfso_19plwk28; Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Pendlermobilität 2024.
Hours per year: one-way minutes × 2 × 225 workdays (5 days × 45 weeks). Course equivalents assume about 5 minutes per short NerdSip course.
The bottom line
The average American spends 27.2 minutes getting to work, the English 32 minutes per trip, and most Germans under half an hour. Small as those numbers look on a single morning, they add up to about five working weeks a year for the typical US commuter. If yours feels long, our article on whether an hour commute is too long looks at what research says about commuting and wellbeing, and if you drive, our guide to learning while driving shows how to do it safely. For the full picture, head back to the long commute guide.
References & Further Reading
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates, table S0801: Commuting Characteristics by Sex
- U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year, table S0801, states
- U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year, table S0801, metropolitan areas
- U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year, table B08303: Travel Time to Work
- U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year, table B08136: Aggregate Travel Time to Work by Means of Transportation
- U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 1-year, table B08301: Means of Transportation to Work
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2025 ACS data release schedule
- Federal Highway Administration (2024), Summary of Travel Trends: 2022 National Household Travel Survey
- Department for Transport, National Travel Survey, table NTS0403
- Department for Transport, NTS 2025: Introduction and main findings
- Destatis, Press release N027, 26 May 2025: 65% of employees drive to work
- BBSR, Pendeln in Deutschland 2025
- Destatis, Press release N024, 22 April 2026: 25% worked from home in 2025
- Eurostat (2020), Majority commuted less than 30 minutes in 2019
- Eurostat, dataset lfso_19plwk28: Employed persons by commuting time, 2019
- Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Pendlermobilität
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average commute time in the US?
The average one-way commute in the United States was 27.2 minutes in 2024, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. It counts workers aged 16 and over who did not work from home. The 2025 figures are due on October 29, 2026.
How long is the average commute to work per day?
At 27.2 minutes each way, the average American spends about 54 minutes a day commuting to work and back (ACS 2024). Over 225 workdays that adds up to about 204 hours a year, roughly five 40-hour working weeks.
How many miles is the average daily commute?
The average commute trip in the US is about 13.4 miles one way, according to the 2022 National Household Travel Survey. A round trip is therefore about 27 miles a day, or roughly 6,000 miles over 225 workdays.
Which state has the longest average commute?
New York has the longest average commute at 33.2 minutes one way, followed by Maryland (32.3) and New Jersey (31.9), according to ACS 2024 data. North Dakota has the shortest at 17.5 minutes.
What percentage of Americans commute more than an hour?
In 2024, 9.3% of American commuters needed 60 minutes or more to get to work one way, and about 3.0%, or 4.3 million people, needed 90 minutes or more. Both figures come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
What is the average commute time in the UK?
In England the average commuting trip took 32 minutes in 2025 and covered 9.2 miles, according to the Department for Transport's National Travel Survey. The time includes waiting. Eurostat's 2019 survey put the UK at 30 minutes, against an EU average of 25 minutes.
Is the average commute getting longer?
Yes, again. The US average rose from 25.3 minutes in 2010 to a record 27.6 minutes in 2019, dropped to 25.6 in 2021 when many people worked from home, and has climbed back to 27.2 minutes in 2024.
Every NerdSip course clears a four-layer fact-checking pipeline before it reaches the app: grounded in live sources, scored nightly, gated on failure, and reviewable by a person at one tap. Articles on this blog are drafted with AI assistance, then researched, verified, and edited by our team.
Editorial responsibility: ai51 UG (haftungsbeschränkt). Responsible editor named in the imprint.
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