FLSA Non-Hazardous Occupations for 14- and 15-Year-Olds

At 14 and 15, federal law lets you work a specific set of non-agricultural jobs: office and clerical work, tutoring and other creative or intellectual tasks, most food preparation and counter work, cashiering and bagging, shelf stocking, price marking, courtesy work at gas stations and car washes, and errands or deliveries done on foot, by bike, or by public transit. Fifteen-year-olds can also lifeguard at pools and water parks with the right certification. The list of jobs 14 and 15 year olds can do is written as a closed list, meaning anything not specifically named is off-limits, even if it sounds harmless.¹

Office, Clerical, and Creative Jobs

Office work is the broadest safe category. Filing, typing, answering phones, and general record-keeping all qualify, and you can run standard office equipment like copiers, scanners, and computers.² The general ban on power-driven machinery has a specific carve-out for office machines, which is why running a photocopier is fine and running a floor-mounted paper cutter is not.³

The rules also permit work of an intellectual or artistically creative nature. That includes computer programming, writing software, tutoring, serving as a peer counselor or teacher’s assistant, singing, playing a musical instrument, and drawing.² The regulation uses “not limited to” language for these creative and intellectual tasks, so similar work likely qualifies even if it is not named.

Food Service Jobs

Restaurants and quick-service places hire a lot of teens, and the food-service rules get specific about what your hands can be on. You can do the kitchen work involved in preparing and serving food and beverages, and you can operate dishwashers, toasters, milkshake blenders, warming lamps, and coffee grinders.⁴ Cleaning vegetables and fruits, wrapping and labeling items, and stocking shelves in food-prep areas are all on the list.²

Cooking is allowed only on electric or gas grills without an open flame. Deep fryers count only when they have devices that automatically lower and raise the baskets.⁴ Baking is off-limits entirely. So are power-driven food slicers, grinders, processors, and mixers.⁵ Flipping burgers on an electric grill is fine; slicing deli meat or pulling bread out of a commercial oven is not.

Retail, Grocery, and Cashier Jobs

Stores have several permitted roles: cashiering, selling, price marking and tagging by hand or machine, assembling orders, packing, shelving, and bagging and carrying out customers’ orders.² Modeling, art work, advertising tasks, window trimming, and comparative shopping are also allowed. Clean-up work is on the list too, including running a vacuum cleaner or floor waxer, plus general grounds maintenance.⁶

Two things trip up younger workers in retail. First, all use of ladders, scaffolds, or their substitutes is completely prohibited. There is no height exception; even a two-foot stepladder is out.⁵ Second, you may not load, operate, or unload any trash compactor or paper baler. You can carry cardboard or trash to the area near the machine and set it on the ground, but you cannot put anything into it.⁷ The limited baler exemption for 16- and 17-year-olds does not extend down.

Delivery, Gas Station, and Car Wash Work

Errand and delivery work is permitted when you do it on foot, by bicycle, or using public transportation. Driving is out. You may ride inside the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle in narrow circumstances: each minor needs their own seat with a seatbelt, the driver has to hold a valid license for the vehicle, and the trip cannot be primarily for transporting people or property.²

At a gas station or car wash, your work is limited to dispensing gasoline and oil, providing courtesy service, and cleaning, washing, or polishing vehicles by hand. Anything involving pits, racks, lifting equipment, or inflating tires on rims with removable retaining rings is prohibited.²

Lifeguarding at 15

Lifeguarding is the one job on the permitted list with an age split inside this group. Fifteen-year-olds may work as lifeguards at traditional swimming pools and water amusement parks; 14-year-olds may not.³ You need a current certification in aquatics and water safety from the American Red Cross or a similar organization, plus an additional certification if you will also serve as a swim instructor.

The permission covers pools and water parks, including wave pools and lazy rivers. It does not cover natural bodies of water like lakes, rivers, or ocean beaches. Even at a water park, a 15-year-old lifeguard cannot work as an attendant or dispatcher at the top of elevated water slides.³

Jobs That Are Off-Limits

Because the list works as a closed list, the safest way to check any job that is not clearly named above is to compare it against the main prohibited categories. If a job falls in one of these buckets, it is out regardless of how safe a particular workplace looks:

Any work in rooms or areas where goods are manufactured, mined, or processed, even if your specific task seems harmless.
Operating, tending, cleaning, or repairing power-driven machinery, other than the office machines, vacuum cleaners, floor waxers, and specific kitchen devices already listed.
Door-to-door sales, street-corner selling, and sign waving, along with any selling away from the employer’s establishment.
Most work in construction, warehousing, and transportation.
Working inside freezers and meat coolers, though brief entry to grab an item is allowed.

A clean factory floor is still a factory, and a well-lit warehouse is still a warehouse.⁵

Hour Limits That Apply to Any of These Jobs

A permitted job still has to fit into permitted hours. During weeks when school is in session, you can work no more than 18 hours per week and no more than 3 hours on any school day, Fridays included. When school is out for summer or holidays, the limits open up to 40 hours per week and 8 hours per day.⁸

All work has to fall between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. for most of the year. From June 1 through Labor Day, the evening cutoff moves to 9 p.m.⁸

Working in a Parent’s Business

If your parent owns the business, the rules loosen considerably. A parent, or someone standing in the place of a parent, may employ their own child under 16 in any occupation except manufacturing, mining, and jobs the Secretary of Labor has declared hazardous for 16- to 18-year-olds.⁹ A 14-year-old can help out in a parent’s woodworking shop doing tasks that would be illegal at another employer, as long as the work itself is not in the manufacturing or hazardous categories.

One catch: the child has to be employed exclusively by the parent. If you help a parent who works for someone else’s company, you count as employed by both the parent and that company, and the full set of restrictions comes back into play.⁹

Work Permits and Pay

Federal law does not require a work permit, but many states do, and the state’s rule controls when it is stricter than federal law.³ Some states also restrict hours more tightly or prohibit additional occupations, so a job permitted under 29 CFR 570.34 may still be illegal locally. The state labor department is the right place to check before you start.

On pay, an employer may pay workers under 20 a youth minimum wage of $4.25 per hour during the first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment. After the 90 days, or when you turn 20, the regular federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies.¹⁰ The 90-day clock runs on calendar days, not days worked, so a job that starts June 1 hits the mark by the end of August even if you only worked weekends. Many states set a higher minimum wage, and the higher rate wins.

1
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 570 – Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of Interpretation
2
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.34 – Occupations That May Be Performed by Minors 14 and 15 Years of Age
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #43 – Child Labor Provisions of the FLSA for Nonagricultural Occupations
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #2A – Child Labor Rules for Employing Youth in Restaurants and Quick-Service Establishments Under the FLSA
5
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.33 – Prohibited Occupations for Minors 14 and 15 Years of Age
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #38 – Child Labor Rules for Employing Youth in Grocery Stores Under the FLSA
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Are Your Teen Workers Taking Out the Cardboard or Other Trash?
8
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 570 – Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of Interpretation – Section 570.35
9
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 570 Subpart G – Exemptions
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #32 – Youth Minimum Wage – Fair Labor Standards Act