Period of availability, explained properly

By Gary Webster · Updated 18 October 2026 · 6 min read

Period of availability, POA, is the most misunderstood button on the tachograph. Used correctly it is a legal, sensible way to record time you're not working but can't leave. Used wrongly, usually at somebody else's suggestion, it quietly converts hours you should have been paid for into hours you weren't. This guide explains what it actually is, when you can use it, and how it connects to your money.

What POA actually means

A period of availability is time when you are not required to work, but you are still at work because you can't leave: waiting to load or unload, waiting for a breakdown recovery, waiting at a port, or riding as a passenger (if you were told to before the journey started).

The key test is known in advance, and genuinely yours. The time must be predictable in duration and nature, and you must be able to use it for your own purposes: resting, reading, walking the dog around the yard fence. If the traffic office can call you back to the wheel in ten minutes, it probably isn't POA.

POA vs break vs other work

These three get mixed up constantly, and each one pays differently:

Break is your rest: 45 minutes in every 4.5 hours of driving. Break time is not working time and is generally unpaid.
Other work is loading, unloading, checks, cleaning, coupling, waiting that isn't a genuine POA. Other work counts toward your working time and should be paid under your contract.
POA sits between them: it doesn't count toward your driving limits or toward most of your working time, but it is still time at the employer's disposal.

That last sentence is where the money lives. POA doesn't count toward the 48-hour average under the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations, which is exactly why some operators love it: your recorded working time shrinks, their compliance looks tidy, and your payslip doesn't grow.

When POA is legitimate

Duration known in advance. "The load will be ready at 14:00, that's a two-hour wait" can be POA. "Sit tight, we'll call you" cannot.
You can genuinely use the time. You're free to rest in the cab, and facilities (somewhere to wash, eat, park safely) are reasonable.
You agreed it as POA. Not somebody in an office retro-filling your card. The driver records their own time: that's not a courtesy, it's how the system is meant to work.

The two ways POA costs you money

1. Reclassifying waiting as POA after the fact

If you waited four hours at an RDC with no idea how long it would take, that is other work (or waiting time under your contract), not POA. If it gets logged as POA anyway, the record now says those hours never happened, and any claim that they should be paid gets much harder. See the waiting time guide for what to do about it.

2. "Log it as break"

The other classic: being told to record waiting as break. That's worse. Break resets your driving clock, which lets the day be stretched longer, and it puts unpaid time in the slot where your legal rest should be. A wait is not a break. Break is for recovering, not for queueing.

Rule of thumb: your break belongs to you, POA belongs to the delay, and other work belongs on the clock.

What the rules actually say, and where to check

POA comes from the retained EU drivers' hours rules (Regulation 561/2006 as retained in GB law) and the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005. DVSA guidance explains how POA should be recorded. Operators can be fined and drivers cautioned for systematic misuse, and DVSA analysis regularly flags firms whose POA figures don't match reality. Always check the current guidance on GOV.UK and the DVSA pages for your work.

Keeping your own record

Whatever goes on the tacho, keep your own log for one week: gate-in time, gate-out time, what you were told, by whom. It costs nothing, it settles arguments, and if you ever need to challenge a dismissal or claim unpaid time, contemporaneous notes beat memory every time. The 7-Day Pay Audit in the bundle is built around exactly this: a week of honest records, then the maths.

The short version

POA is legal and correct when the wait is known in advance and genuinely yours to use.
POA is wrong when the length is unknown, when you're on call, or when it's back-filled by the office.
A wait is not a break. Logging it as one stretches your day and steals your rest.
Your true hourly rate includes all of it. Work it out and see what your POA is really costing you.

Know the rules properly. Know Your Worth covers POA, waiting time, breaks and working time on one spread, from the driver's side. Part of the £19.99 bundle.

Get the bundle

General information, not legal advice. Next: HGV pay rates UK.