Tennessee: Employee Expense Reimbursement Requirements
The short answer
Tennessee's labor code, Title 50, contains no general statute requiring an ordinary private employer to reimburse employee business expenses. Because the labor title creates no reimbursement scheme, it supplies no statewide expense standard, request deadline, payment deadline, interest rule, or reimbursement-specific remedy. A cost owed to an employee would have to rest on the employment agreement, an employer policy, or a different law.
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This is the general rule in Tennessee. Ezel applies current Tennessee law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and coverage | No general Title 50 mandate for ordinary private employers. The labor title's chapters and the Chapter 1 part index (hiring, right to work, working conditions, pensions, plant closings, etc.) and the Chapter 2 wage-and-hour section index contain no employee business-expense reimbursement or indemnity section |
|---|---|
| Reimbursable expense standard | No general state necessary, reasonable, scope-of-employment, directly-related, or employer-requested expense standard stated |
| Authorization, direction, and primary benefit | No general state preapproval, employer-direction, ratification, or primary-benefit test stated |
| Excluded losses and employee fault | No general reimbursement scheme supplying ordinary-risk, negligence, wear, theft, unlawful-direction, precondition, commuting, or personal-cost exclusions |
| Request deadline and documentation | No general state request deadline, receipt or proof requirement, itemization rule, certification, or missing-document substitute |
| Employer policy, preapproval, and caps | No general statutory preapproval, specification, cap, deadline-extension, de minimis, or nonwaiver rule identified |
| Payment deadline, method, and interest | No general state reimbursement deadline, payment method, advance or stipend rule, or reimbursement-interest rule |
| Enforcement and remedies | No general reimbursement-specific agency claim, damages, penalty, costs, fee, interest, or limitations rule because Title 50 imposes no general reimbursement duty |
Compare this rule across all 50 states + DC →
Tennessee has no general reimbursement mandate
Tennessee's labor code is Title 50 of the Tennessee Code. Its chapters cover
employment conditions (Chapter 1), wages and hours (Chapter 2), occupational
safety, workers' compensation (Chapter 6), and unemployment (Chapter 7). None of
them is a general scheme requiring an ordinary private employer to reimburse an
employee's business expenses.
Chapter 1 is where a working-conditions duty of this kind would most likely sit.
Its parts run from hiring practices and right-to-work through "Working Conditions
Generally," private pensions, plant closings, the Lawful Employment Act, and
retaliatory discharge — no expense-reimbursement or employee-indemnity part among
them. The wage law in Chapter 2 governs how and when wages are paid, not the
repayment of costs an employee lays out for the job.
Title 50 does use the word "reimbursement," but only in unrelated schemes: the
workers' compensation law reimburses an injured worker's medical and travel
expenses (§ 50-6-204), and the unemployment law addresses reimbursement between
the agency and employers or claimants (§ 50-7-304). Neither creates a general
duty to repay an employee's ordinary work expenses.
Without a general reimbursement scheme, Title 50 supplies no universal
necessary-expense test, authorization or primary-benefit rule, employee request
deadline, receipt form, policy cap, payment deadline, interest rule, or
reimbursement-specific remedy. A right to be repaid would have to rest on the
employment agreement, an employer's own policy, or a different law.
What trips people up
Workers' compensation is a separate scheme (Title 50, Chapter 6) and its medical
and mileage reimbursement for an injured worker is not a general business-expense
mandate. The state labor agency's only published mileage benefit is that
workers' compensation travel rate, not an ordinary-expense rule.
Reimbursement is also distinct from wage deductions and minimum-wage compliance.
Tennessee has no state minimum-wage statute, so federal wage law supplies the
applicable floor; that floor can limit shifting some costs onto a low-wage worker
without creating a state reimbursement procedure.
Common questions
Does Tennessee require mileage reimbursement for private employees?
Not under a general state statute. Title 50 creates no statewide mileage rate or
universal mileage-payment duty for ordinary private employment. Mileage is
reimbursable only if an employment agreement, policy, or a different law promises
it. (The state mileage figure people cite is a workers' compensation travel rate
for injured workers.)
Is there a statewide deadline for submitting receipts?
No general deadline or proof format appears because Title 50 contains no general
employee-expense reimbursement scheme.
Does Tennessee provide a reimbursement-specific wage claim?
Title 50 creates no general reimbursement entitlement or matching agency claim,
damages formula, interest rule, or limitations period. A different claim would
need its own legal basis.
Statutes and sources
- Tenn. Code Title 50, Chapter 1 (part index). The employment-conditions
chapter lists its parts (hiring, right to work, working conditions generally,
pensions, plant closings, lawful employment, retaliatory discharge) and
contains no employee-expense reimbursement or indemnity part.
Official code mirror
(accessed July 17, 2026). - Tenn. Code Title 50, Chapter 2, Part 1 (section index). The wage-and-hour
Part 1 sections, none of which requires an employer to reimburse an employee's
business expenses.
Official code mirror
(accessed July 17, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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