Work Permits for Minors: What They Are and Whether You Need One

By Jenna Hale · Last checked August 19, 2026

If you searched this question you probably found ten pages that promised a state-by-state answer and delivered a vague paragraph. Here is why, and here is what actually works instead.

What a work permit is

A work permit, depending on where you live, may be called an employment certificate, an age certificate, a working paper, or a certificate of age. The names matter less than the function. It is a document that records three things: that a specific minor is a specific age, that a specific employer intends to give them a specific kind of work, and that a parent or guardian knows about it and agrees.

It exists for two reasons. It protects the teenager from being put into work that their age does not allow, and it protects the employer from an honest mistake about how old somebody is. An employer holding a valid certificate has a defense if the age turns out to be wrong.

That second purpose explains something otherwise confusing: in a few states, permits are issued “on request” even though nothing requires them. The employer wants the paperwork even where the state does not demand it.

There is no federal work permit

This is the sentence most pages bury, and it is the key to the whole topic.

Federal law, through the Fair Labor Standards Act, sets the minimum age for employment, the hour and time-of-day limits for 14 and 15 year olds, and the hazardous occupations that nobody under 18 may do. It does not require a permit. Not for a 14 year old, not for anyone.

Every work permit requirement in the United States is a state requirement. Which is why the question “does my teenager need a work permit” has fifty-one different correct answers, and why a national article that gives you one answer is either wrong or is describing somewhere else.

The Department of Labor is direct about how the two layers interact: where a state child labor law is more restrictive than the federal law, the state law applies, and where it is less restrictive, the federal law applies. Nothing overrides anything. The stricter of the two wins, every time.

What varies between states, and it is more than you would think

Reading the Department of Labor’s own comparison of state issuance practice, the differences are not small variations on one theme. They are structural.

Add to that: the states that issue “on request” rather than by requirement, and the ones where the school issues in the school year and the labor department issues in the summer.

This is the honest reason nobody owns this search result nationally. A correct fifty state table would need somebody to read fifty statutes and re-read them every legislative session. We have not done that, so we are not going to publish one. What follows is more useful anyway.

How to find your own state’s rule in about five minutes

Do these in order and stop when you have your answer.

1. Search “[your state] department of labor youth employment” or “[your state] work permit minor”. The result you want is a .gov domain belonging to your state. Skip the law firm pages and the payroll company blogs above it, which are frequently out of date.
2. If you land somewhere ambiguous, go through the Department of Labor’s state labor offices list, which has the real contact details for every state, DC and the territories. Phone numbers included. Calling is faster than reading a statute.
3. Cross-check against the DOL’s employment and age certificate table, which sets out, state by state, who issues certificates and for which ages. Note its as-of date at the top of the page, currently January 1, 2024, and treat it as a pointer rather than the final word.
4. Ask the high school office. In the many states where schools issue permits, the front office does this constantly, knows the current form, and will hand it to you across the counter. This is often the single fastest route and almost nobody tries it first.
5. Ask the employer’s HR. A chain restaurant or grocery store in a permit state hires minors every summer and has the process written down.

If two of those sources disagree, believe your state labor department over everyone else, including us.

What the paperwork usually asks for

In states that require permits, the pattern is fairly consistent even though the details are not. Expect to be asked for most of this.

• Proof of the teenager's age, usually a birth certificate, passport or driver's license.
• A section completed by the employer: job title, duties, hours, wage, and the address where the work happens.
• A parent or guardian signature.
• The teenager's signature.
• School verification, in some states, including enrollment and sometimes academic standing.
• A physician's statement of fitness, required in some states and for some kinds of work.
• The Social Security number, though in some states this is the employer's paperwork rather than the permit's.

The employer section is the part that stalls things. A parent cannot complete it, which means the permit generally cannot be finished until there is an actual job offer with actual details. The order of operations is: get the offer, then get the permit, then start the shift.

What this looks like

Lily is 15 and is offered a summer job at an ice cream shop in mid-May. Her mother spends four minutes on it: she searches her state’s department of labor site, finds that under-16s need an employment certificate issued by the school district, and calls the high school office.

The office says to bring a birth certificate and the employer’s completed section, and that they will process it while the school year is still running. Lily gets the employer’s part signed on Thursday, hands both in on Friday, and has the certificate before the last day of term.

The part that would have gone wrong: had she waited until June, the school office would have been closed for the summer, and her state’s alternative summer route runs through the labor department with a slower turnaround. The job start would have slipped by roughly two weeks.

Nothing about this was complicated. It was just easier to do in the right order.

Why we are pointing at the source instead of summarizing it

Plenty of pages on this topic will hand you a confident table. Some of those tables were accurate when written and have not been touched since, and there is no way for you to tell which from the outside.

Employment law for minors is genuinely state-by-state, it changes through ordinary legislation, and it is the kind of subject where being right nine-tenths of the time is not much use to the one family in ten. So on this page we tell you the mechanism, tell you the categories of variation, and send you to the office that can give you a binding answer in a phone call.

That is not us dodging the question. That is the answer.

Once the permit is sorted

The permit is one item on a longer list. The rest of it, documents, the W-4 for a teenager, direct deposit, and the conversation about what happens to the money, is in the first job checklist. If the job runs long enough to matter, it is also worth reading whether your teenager has to file a tax return before next April.

This page is general information, not legal advice, and state employment rules change. Verify anything you plan to act on with your own state’s labor department.