  We investigate the effect of dust on the observed rotation rate of a stellar
bar as measured by application of the Tremaine & Weinberg (TW) method. As the
method requires that the tracer satisfies the continuity equation, it has been
applied largely to early-type barred galaxies. We show using numerical
simulations of barred galaxies that dust attenuation factors typically found in
these systems change the observed bar pattern speed by 20-40%. We also address
the effect of star formation on the TW method and find that it does not change
the results significantly. This suggests that applications of the TW method can
be extended to include barred galaxies covering the full range of Hubble type.
