What Limits Were Placed on Child Labor: Ages, Hours, and Banned Jobs

Federal child labor laws, set primarily by the Fair Labor Standards Act, restrict when minors can work, how many hours they can work, and what jobs they can hold. The rules turn on three ages: 14, 16, and 18. Below 14, almost no covered work is permitted. At 14 and 15, work is allowed but tightly limited by hour, time of day, and occupation. At 16 and 17, hour limits fall away but hazardous jobs remain off-limits. At 18, federal child labor rules stop applying.

The Three Age Tiers

The FLSA builds its protections around two dividing lines, under 16 and between 16 and 18, which in practice produce three tiers.¹

Under 14: barred from most non-agricultural work. A short list of exempt activities like newspaper delivery and acting is the only opening.
14 and 15: allowed to work in specified non-hazardous, non-manufacturing, non-mining jobs, within strict hour and time-of-day caps.
16 and 17: allowed to work unlimited hours in any occupation the Secretary of Labor has not declared hazardous.²

At 18, federal child labor provisions no longer apply and any job, including hazardous ones, is legally open.

What 14- and 15-Year-Olds Can Do

Because the list of permitted jobs is shorter than the list of prohibited ones, the useful frame is what’s allowed. Federal regulation lets 14- and 15-year-olds do office and clerical work, retail tasks like cashiering, stocking, and bagging, most food-service work outside the restricted equipment, tutoring and creative work such as computer programming and music performance, errands and light delivery by foot, bicycle, or public transit, and cleanup or grounds maintenance that does not involve power-driven mowers, trimmers, or edgers.³

Cooking and Kitchen Equipment

Kitchens are where employers most often stumble. A 14- or 15-year-old can cook on an electric or gas grill only if there is no open flame. They can use a deep fryer only when it has an automatic basket that lowers and raises food without manual contact. High-speed ovens, rapid broilers, rotisseries, pressure cookers, and any equipment operating at extremely high temperatures are prohibited. Baking is off-limits altogether, including convection, pizza, and toaster ovens. Microwaves are permitted only to warm prepared food that will not exceed 140°F.⁴

A 15-year-old can assemble sandwiches and run a register. The moment the same worker pulls a basket from a manual fryer or slides a pizza into a commercial oven, the employer is in violation.

Hour and Time-of-Day Limits

For 14- and 15-year-olds, federal law caps both total hours and the clock window. The pattern is sometimes called the 3-18-8-40 rule:

3 hours on a school day.
18 hours in a school week.
8 hours on a non-school day.
40 hours in a non-school week.⁵

Work cannot start before 7 a.m. or run past 7 p.m. during the school year. From June 1 through Labor Day, the evening cutoff extends to 9 p.m.

At 16, the federal hour and time-of-day limits end. A 16-year-old can work full-time and late-night shifts as far as the FLSA is concerned, though many states impose their own limits on 16- and 17-year-olds.

No Federal Break Requirement

Federal law does not require meal or rest breaks for minors, or for any worker.⁶ Many states impose their own break rules for minor employees, so the answer for a specific workplace depends on state law.

Jobs No One Under 18 Can Do

The Secretary of Labor has issued 17 Hazardous Occupations Orders barring anyone under 18 from work considered too dangerous for minors.³ The prohibitions target specific tools, machines, and environments tied to serious injuries and deaths of young workers. Major categories include:

Work in plants manufacturing or storing explosives.
Nearly all coal mining work.
Operating, riding on, or servicing elevators, cranes, derricks, hoists, and forklifts.
Operating power-driven meat slicers, bone saws, poultry shears, and grinders, including the slicers common in retail delis.
All work in roofing operations or on a roof.
Demolition, wrecking, and shipbreaking.
Digging, working in, or backfilling trenches.
Operating or feeding power-driven woodworking machines.
Driving on public roads for work, or serving as an outside helper on a vehicle, with the narrow exception below.

These bans apply regardless of parental consent, employer training, or the minor’s size.

The 17-Year-Old Driving Exception

A 17-year-old can drive on public roads for work only if every one of these conditions is met:

The vehicle weighs no more than 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight and has seat belts for all occupants.
The teen has a valid state license, has completed a state-approved driver education course, and has no moving violations on record.
Driving occurs only in daylight and within 30 miles of the workplace.
Driving is occasional and incidental to the job: no more than one-third of any workday and no more than 20 percent of any workweek.
The driving does not involve towing, route deliveries, transporting passengers for hire, or urgent time-sensitive deliveries.

The exception does not extend to 16-year-olds. Missing any single condition collapses the entire exception.

Exemptions

Several situations sit outside the standard rules, but the openings are narrower than employers often assume.

Children of any age may work in a business owned entirely by their parents, at any time and for any number of hours. Minors under 16 still cannot work in manufacturing or mining, and no one under 18 may perform hazardous-occupation work, even for a parent.⁷ A parent who owns a landscaping company can put a 13-year-old on the phones, not on a commercial mower.

Three activities are fully exempt from the child labor provisions at any age: delivering newspapers to consumers, acting in movies, television, radio, or theatrical productions, and making wreaths from natural evergreens like holly, pine, and cedar at home.⁸

Farm Work Runs on Different Rules

Agricultural employment sits under a separate, more permissive age framework:

Any age, on a farm owned or operated by the child’s parent.
Under 12, on small farms not required to pay the federal minimum wage, with parental consent, outside school hours, in non-hazardous work.
12 and 13, outside school hours in non-hazardous work, with written parental consent or on a farm where a parent is also employed.
14 and older, in any non-hazardous farm job outside school hours.
10 and 11, hand-harvesting short-season crops for up to 8 weeks between June 1 and October 15, if the employer holds a special waiver from the Secretary of Labor.⁸

Agricultural hazardous-occupation orders do apply to minors under 16 who are not working on a parent’s farm.⁹ A 12-year-old can legally pick crops under conditions that would be a clear violation in a restaurant or retail store.

Youth Minimum Wage

Employers can pay a reduced federal minimum wage of $4.25 per hour to workers under 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days on the job.¹⁰ After 90 days, or once the worker turns 20, whichever comes first, the standard federal minimum wage applies. Employers cannot fire or cut hours of existing employees to bring in workers at the lower youth rate. Where state minimum wage law is stricter, it controls.

State Law Often Goes Further

Federal child labor law is a floor. The FLSA states that its provisions do not justify noncompliance with any state or local law setting a higher standard.¹¹ Whichever law is more protective of the minor is the one the employer must follow.

States commonly require work permits before a minor starts a job, cap hours for 16- and 17-year-olds that federal law leaves uncapped, set higher minimum ages for certain industries, and require meal or rest breaks the FLSA does not. Some restrict door-to-door sales by minors under 16. Checking only the federal rules is one of the most common compliance errors in this area.

Penalties for Violations

The Department of Labor adjusts civil penalty caps for inflation each year. As of 2025:

Up to $16,035 per minor for a standard violation.
Up to $72,876 per violation that causes serious injury or death.
Up to $145,752 per violation that is willful or repeated and causes serious injury or death.¹²

“Serious injury” is defined as permanent loss or substantial impairment of a sense, bodily function, or body part, or permanent paralysis.¹³ Penalties are assessed per employee and per violation.

Willful violations can also be prosecuted criminally, with fines up to $10,000, up to six months in prison, or both. A prison sentence is only available for a second or subsequent offense.¹⁴

How to Report a Violation

Complaints go to the Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243. The process is confidential: the complainant’s name, the nature of the complaint, and whether a complaint exists at all may not be disclosed to the employer.¹⁵ Federal law bars retaliation, including firing, demotion, hour cuts, or denial of a promotion, against anyone who reports a violation or cooperates with an investigation, regardless of immigration status.¹⁶

1
Legal Information Institute. 29 USC 203(l) – Oppressive Child Labor Definition
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 43 – Child Labor Provisions of the FLSA for Nonagricultural Occupations
3
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 570 – Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of Interpretation
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 58 – Cooking and Baking Under the Federal Child Labor Provisions of the FLSA
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Handy Reference Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Breaks and Meal Periods
7
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA Child Labor Rules Advisor – Exemptions from Child Labor Rules in Non-Agriculture
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 213 – Exemptions
9
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 40 – Overview of Youth Employment Provisions of the FLSA for Agricultural Occupations
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 206 – Minimum Wage
11
GovInfo. 29 USC 218 – Relation to Other Laws
12
U.S. Department of Labor. Civil Money Penalty Inflation Adjustments
13
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 579 – Child Labor Violations Civil Money Penalties
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 216 – Penalties
15
U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint
16
U.S. Department of Labor. Whistleblower Protections