How Many Hours Can a Minor Work? An Employer Guide

The first time I hired a teenager, I assumed the hard part would be the training. It was not. The hard part was realizing, a few weeks in, that I had almost scheduled a 15-year-old for an evening shift that would have run past the hour the law allowed, on a school night, without the work permit his state required on file. Nothing bad happened, because I caught it. But it taught me that hiring a minor comes with a compliance layer most small employers never think about until they are already exposed.

If you are a small business owner or manager wondering how many hours a 16-year-old, or a 14-, 15-, or 17-year-old, can work, the honest answer is that it depends on their exact age and the state they work in. The rules are also stricter and more specific than most people expect. Get them wrong and the penalties are steep. Get them right and hiring teenagers is a great way to staff a growing business.

This guide is written for the employer side: what federal law limits by age, where state law overrides it, the night-work rules, the documents you have to collect before a minor starts, the records you are legally required to keep, and what a violation actually costs.

I build onboarding and document management into FirstHR because the paperwork around hiring a minor, the age proof, the work permit, the consent form, is exactly where small employers slip up. This is general information, not legal advice, so confirm specifics for your state with counsel.

Quick Answer: Hour Limits by Age

The number of hours a minor can work depends almost entirely on their age, because the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) draws sharp lines between age groups. The two that matter most are the line at 14 (below which most work is barred) and the line at 16 (above which federal hour limits disappear). Here is the whole picture in one view.

The single most important thing to understand is the split at age 16. For 14- and 15-year-olds, federal law is highly restrictive on hours and timing. For 16- and 17-year-olds, federal law sets no hour limit at all in non-hazardous jobs, and the real constraints come from state law and the hazardous-occupation bans. Everything else in this guide builds on that distinction.

That split also answers whether minors can work full time. Federally, a 14- or 15-year-old is capped at 18 hours in any week with even one school day and can reach 40 only in a week with no school, such as summer break. A 16- or 17-year-old has no federal hour cap in non-hazardous jobs, so the state rule decides.

The Federal Rules: What the FLSA Limits

The federal baseline for employing minors comes from the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor. The FLSA sets a minimum working age of 14 for most non-farm jobs, restricts the hours and times 14- and 15-year-olds can work, and bars anyone under 18 from occupations the Secretary of Labor declares hazardous. Understanding this federal floor is the starting point, because state law builds on top of it.

Two features of the federal framework surprise employers most. The first is that the hour limits apply only to 14- and 15-year-olds; once a worker turns 16, federal law imposes no cap on hours in permitted jobs.

The hazardous-occupation bans are the second surprise: they apply to everyone under 18, regardless of hours, so a 17-year-old with no hour limit still cannot legally operate certain equipment or work certain jobs. Keeping these two ideas separate (hour limits by age and hazardous-job bans under 18) prevents most compliance mistakes.

The other essential federal principle is that the FLSA is a floor, not a ceiling. Many states set stricter rules, and according to the Department of Labor, where a state child labor law is more restrictive than the federal law, the state law applies. That single rule governs how everything below fits together.

How Many Hours Can a 14 or 15 Year Old Work?

Federal law places specific, strict limits on 14- and 15-year-olds, and these are the numbers employers most need to memorize. Per Department of Labor Fact Sheet #43, 14- and 15-year-olds may not work more than 3 hours on a school day, 18 hours in a school week, 8 hours on a non-school day, or 40 hours in a non-school week, and all work must be outside school hours. The limits flip depending on whether school is in session.

The night-work window is the detail employers overlook most. For 14- and 15-year-olds, work is only permitted between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. for most of the year, with the evening cutoff extended to 9 p.m. only from June 1 through Labor Day. That summer extension is why teen scheduling gets easier in June and tightens again after Labor Day. A closing shift that is fine in July can be illegal in October.

There is a narrow exception worth knowing: 14- and 15-year-olds enrolled in an approved Work Experience and Career Exploration Program can work somewhat expanded hours, including during school hours, under program supervision.

For the typical small business hiring a teenager for after-school or summer work, though, the standard rules apply: the 3/18/8/40 hour limits and the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. window, extended to 9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day. Those limits should drive every schedule you build for this age group.

How Many Hours Can a 16 or 17 Year Old Work?

Under federal law, there is no limit on the hours a 16- or 17-year-old can work in a non-hazardous job. The Department of Labor is explicit that 16- and 17-year-olds may be employed for unlimited hours in any occupation other than those declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor. No daily cap, no weekly cap, and no federal night-work restriction apply to this age group. That surprises many employers who assume all minors face hour limits.

That federal freedom comes with two important qualifications. The first is the hazardous-occupation bans, which apply to everyone under 18 regardless of hours. A 16- or 17-year-old can work unlimited hours, but not in a job the Secretary of Labor has declared hazardous.

The Secretary makes those declarations by order, and Fact Sheet #43 counts 17 hazardous occupations orders in force, covering mining, meat processing, operating certain power-driven machinery, roofing, excavation, and most driving on the job. Unlimited hours does not mean unlimited jobs.

The second qualification is state law, which is where the real limits on 16- and 17-year-olds usually live. Some states cap the hours this age group can work on school days or in a school week, restrict late-night work before a school day, or require rest breaks. So while the federal answer is genuinely unlimited hours, the practical answer for a specific 16- or 17-year-old depends entirely on the state, which is the subject of the next section.

State Law Overrides: Follow the Stricter Standard

State child labor law is where most of the real constraints on employing minors come from, and the governing principle is simple: when federal and state rules differ, you must follow whichever is stricter. This means the federal rules in this guide are a floor. Your actual obligations can be tighter, sometimes much tighter, depending on where your employees work.

States vary widely. Many set hour limits for 16- and 17-year-olds that federal law does not, particularly on school nights. Many require work permits or employment certificates that federal law does not. Some set earlier night-work cutoffs, mandate rest or meal breaks for minors, or require parental consent forms. A schedule that is perfectly legal under federal law can violate state law, and the state penalty applies regardless of federal compliance.

The practical takeaway is that you cannot run minor scheduling on the federal rules alone. Before you hire anyone under 18, look up the current child labor rules for your specific state. Note the hour limits, night-work cutoffs, permit requirements, and break rules, then build your schedule and onboarding around whichever standard is stricter. The Department of Labor publishes a state-by-state reference, and every state labor department publishes its own rules.

What the Stricter Standard Looks Like: Maryland and New Jersey

Two states show how far the real answer can travel from the federal one. Both require a permit for every worker under 18, and both replace the federal no-limit position for 16- and 17-year-olds with a genuine cap, but in ways that look nothing alike.

In practice, a 17-year-old in Maryland has no weekly ceiling to check, but the overnight rest requirement quietly rules out a late close before an early class. A 14-year-old in New Jersey may work in the permitted occupations for up to 3 hours on a school day and can be scheduled for no more than 6 consecutive days.

Neither state matches the federal picture, and neither matches the other. Current rules come from the Maryland Department of Labor and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Night-Work and Curfew Rules

Night-work limits are among the most commonly violated minor employment rules, because they are easy to forget when you are short-staffed for a closing shift. Federally, the night-work restriction applies only to 14- and 15-year-olds, who may not work before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m., with the evening limit extended to 9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day. There is no federal night-work limit for 16- and 17-year-olds.

State law is where night-work rules get more complex for older teens. Many states restrict how late 16- and 17-year-olds can work, especially when school is in session the next morning.

Within a single state, a 16-year-old who can legally work until midnight on a Friday might face a much earlier cutoff on a Sunday before school. These school-night rules are precisely the kind of detail that federal compliance does not cover.

The practical defense is to build the night-work cutoff into your scheduling from the start rather than checking it shift by shift. Know the latest permitted end time for each minor, factoring in their age, their state, and whether the next day is a school day, and treat that as a hard boundary the schedule cannot cross. A small error here, even a single late shift, can become a violation with real financial consequences.

Documents to Collect Before a Minor Starts

Before a minor works a single shift, you need the right documents on file, and this is where small businesses without a dedicated HR person most often fall short. The exact requirements vary by state, but the categories are consistent: proof of age, any required work permit, parental consent where mandated, and the school schedule you need to apply hour limits. Collecting these before the first shift, not after, is the whole game.

Treat document collection as a hard gate. Missing documentation is a compliance failure in itself, and it makes every other violation worse: a minor found working without the required permit or age proof tells a wage-and-hour investigator that your broader minor-employment practices may be loose. Having a clean file for every minor, assembled before they start, is the single best protection an employer has.

This is exactly where a structured onboarding process earns its keep. Build the age proof, work permit, and consent form into the standard new-hire flow for any minor, so no shift can be scheduled until the file is complete. That turns a scattered, error-prone task into a reliable checklist.

One page per minor does that job. It gathers the documents in one place and, more usefully, converts the rules into the specific numbers that govern this employee in this state, so whoever builds the schedule is reading a limit rather than remembering one.

Records You Are Legally Required to Keep

Beyond the documents collected at hire, federal law requires employers to keep specific ongoing records for minor employees, and these records are your primary defense in an investigation. Per the Department of Labor, employers must keep records of the date of birth of employees under 19, their daily starting and quitting times, their daily and weekly hours of work, and their occupations. General FLSA recordkeeping requirements, like name, address, and pay data, apply on top of these.

The date-and-time detail matters more for minors than for adults because the hour limits are so specific. To prove a 15-year-old never worked past 7 p.m. or over 3 hours on a school day, you need records that actually capture start and stop times, not just total hours.

Vague or reconstructed records are exactly what fails in an investigation. Under Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. (1946), an employee whose employer kept no accurate record may establish the hours worked as a matter of just and reasonable inference, which in plain terms means a reasonable estimate backed by evidence. The burden then shifts to the employer to disprove that figure.

The practical goal is to make this recordkeeping automatic rather than manual. When each minor's date of birth, occupation, and precise daily hours are captured and stored consistently, you can demonstrate compliance instantly if asked. When that information lives in memory and scattered notes, you are exposed.

Penalties for Getting It Wrong

The penalties for child labor violations are serious and have risen with inflation, which is the main reason this compliance area deserves real attention instead of guesswork. Federal civil money penalties can reach substantial per-minor amounts, with far higher penalties when a violation causes harm, and state penalties can apply on top. For a small business, a single mishandled minor hire can carry a penalty that dwarfs the value of the labor.

Two points make the real exposure larger than a single penalty figure suggests. First, the federal penalty is assessed for each minor involved in a violation, so several minors multiply the cost quickly. Second, the reputational damage from a child labor finding, particularly one involving an injury, can far exceed the financial penalty for a small business that depends on its local standing. The downside is asymmetric: the cost of compliance is small, and the cost of a violation is not.

The reassuring flip side is that compliance is entirely achievable. The rules, while specific, are knowable, and the documentation and recordkeeping they require are straightforward to build into a hiring process.

Employers who take the time to learn the limits for their state, collect the right documents, keep accurate records, and schedule within the rules almost never end up in trouble. The penalties are severe, but they fall on employers who cut corners, not on those who do the basic work.

How Many Hours Should a Teen Work?

Research on teen employment draws its line at 20 hours a week. According to the National Academies report Protecting Youth at Work (1998), work limited to 20 hours or less a week during high school has been found to promote post-secondary educational attainment, while work above that level is associated with substance abuse and minor deviance, insufficient sleep and exercise, and limited time spent with families.

The report is careful to say the 20-hour split is a convention researchers adopted to separate low-intensity from high-intensity work, not a finding about 20 hours itself.

The law and that research only partly overlap. The federal limits for 14- and 15-year-olds sit just inside the 20-hour line during the school year, but for 16- and 17-year-olds, where federal law sets no cap at all, the judgment falls to the employer, within whatever limit the state sets.

A reasonable approach for older teens during the school year is to keep hours moderate enough not to compete with school, even when the law would allow more.

Many good employers voluntarily cap school-year hours for 16- and 17-year-olds below what state law permits, both because it supports the teenager and because a rested, engaged young worker is more valuable than an overworked one. This is a place where the well-being of the employee and the interest of the business point in the same direction.

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