PunchHow Many Hours Can a Minor Work? Teen Labor Law Hours Guide (2026)
How Many Hours Can a Minor Work? Teen Labor Law Hours Guide (2026)
The short answer: Under federal law a 14 or 15 year old can work at most 3 hours on a school day and 18 hours in a school week, or 8 hours on a non-school day and 40 hours in a non-school week, and only between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. (9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day). Sixteen and 17 year olds have no federal hour cap, but many states add one, and the stricter rule always wins. The one thing every rule has in common is that it is measured in recorded hours, so the owner who can prove the exact minutes a minor worked is the owner who stays out of trouble. Punch captures every punch to the minute and rolls daily and weekly totals into Reports, so the record is there when a labor inspector or a parent asks.
Summer hires, after-school help, and weekend crew members are the backbone of a lot of small restaurants, cafes, salons, and shops. They are also the category of worker most tightly regulated by the federal government. A minor who works one hour past the school-week limit is a violation, and the fines for child labor breaches are steep and climbing. This guide lays out the hour rules by age, the traps that catch small employers, and how a clean time record turns the whole question into a non-issue.
The Federal Rules for 14 and 15 Year Olds
Fourteen is the minimum age for most non-farm jobs under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Once a teen is 14 or 15, federal law wraps their schedule in a specific set of limits designed to keep the job from crowding out school. According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #43, a 14 or 15 year old may work:
No more than 3 hours on a school day, including Fridays. No more than 18 hours in a week while school is in session. No more than 8 hours on a day when school is not in session. No more than 40 hours in a week when school is not in session. And only during the hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., a window that extends to 9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day.
There is one more rule that trips people up: the work has to happen outside school hours. A 14 or 15 year old cannot leave class to come cover a lunch rush unless they are in an approved school work-study program. The daily and weekly caps sit on top of that, so a school-day shift is squeezed into the hours after the final bell and before 7 p.m.
The math gets tight fast. A student who works 3 hours on Monday through Thursday is already at 12 hours before the weekend, leaving only 6 hours of room for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday combined before the 18-hour school-week ceiling is hit. Owners who schedule by gut instead of by the record blow past that line without noticing.
Sixteen and Seventeen Year Olds: No Federal Cap, But Read Your State
Once a worker turns 16, the federal hour limits fall away. Sixteen and 17 year olds can work unlimited hours, on any day, at any time of day, as far as the FLSA is concerned. There is no federal curfew and no federal weekly maximum for this age group.
Two things keep that from being a free pass. First, no one under 18 may work in an occupation the Secretary of Labor has declared hazardous, a list that includes most power-driven machinery, roofing, excavation, and driving as a main job duty. Second, and this is the part small employers miss most often, many states impose their own hour and night-work limits on 16 and 17 year olds that federal law does not. State caps on school-night hours and late-night shifts are common, and when a state rule is stricter than the federal one, the state rule controls.
The practical takeaway is simple. Never assume "16 and up means no limits." Check your state labor department's youth employment page for the ages you employ, then treat the tighter of the two rules as your ceiling.
The Youth Minimum Wage
Hours are not the only teen-specific rule. The FLSA allows a youth minimum wage of $4.25 per hour for employees under 20, but only during their first 90 consecutive calendar days with your business, per the Department of Labor. The 90-day clock starts on the first day of work and runs on the calendar, not on days actually worked. When the 90 days end, or the worker turns 20, whichever comes first, they move to the full minimum wage.
There is a guardrail attached. You cannot cut an existing employee's hours or pay, or let anyone go, in order to fill the spot with a youth-wage hire. And as always, if your state sets a higher minimum wage with no youth exception, the state figure wins. The youth wage is a narrow, time-limited allowance, not a permanent discount.
The Record Is the Whole Ballgame
Every rule above is enforced against a number: hours worked, on which days, between which times. When a state labor agency opens a child labor case, the first thing they ask for is your time records. If you cannot produce an accurate account of exactly when a minor punched in and out, you are defending yourself with memory against the government's paperwork, and that is a losing position.
Federal recordkeeping rules make the point for you. Employers are required to keep the date of birth of any employee under 19 in their payroll records, precisely so the hour limits can be checked against a real age. A workforce that includes minors is a workforce the law expects you to document carefully.
This is also where good-faith owners get burned. It is rarely deliberate. A manager lets a 15 year old stay an extra hour to finish a cleanup, a Friday shift runs long, a summer schedule quietly stacks up to 42 hours in a week school is out. None of it feels like a violation in the moment. It only becomes one on paper, and paper is exactly what you will not have if you are reconstructing hours from a schedule that says what was planned rather than what happened.
How Punch Keeps Minor Hours Clean
Punch is built for the kind of small fixed-location and field team that hires teens: a cafe with two high-school closers, a landscaping crew with a summer helper, a salon with a weekend front-desk hire. Every worker punches in and punches out from their phone or a shared iPad kiosk with a PIN, and each punch is captured to the minute. There is no paper sheet to lose and no schedule standing in for reality.
Because the record is exact, the totals are honest. Owner and manager Reports roll each person's punches into daily and weekly hours, so you can see at a glance when a 15 year old is closing in on 18 hours for the school week and needs to be sent home. A manager approval step sits before payroll, which is a natural checkpoint to catch a shift that ran past a limit before it ever reaches your books. Punch supports weekly and bi-weekly pay periods, and when payroll runs, Reports export straight to QuickBooks Online or to a CSV your payroll provider can read, with the hour detail intact.
Punch verifies a punch with a job-site geofence on the punch-in, never a camera in anyone's face, which matters more, not less, when the worker is a minor. A location check confirms someone is on site without turning a teenager's shift into surveillance. And because every plan includes every feature and owners are always free, adding a seasonal 16 year old to the account never bumps you into a higher tier. Competitors that bill per user turn every summer hire into another line on the invoice. Punch charges one flat price per organization, so a crew that doubles for July costs exactly what it cost in June.
The Bottom Line
The federal hour rules for minors are narrow and unforgiving: 3 hours on a school day and 18 in a school week for 14 and 15 year olds, a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. window, no leaving school to work, and the youth wage capped at 90 days. Sixteen and 17 year olds escape the federal cap but not the hazardous-work ban and not their state's rules. Underneath all of it is one requirement you fully control: an accurate record of the hours each minor actually worked.
Punch gives you that record automatically. Every punch to the minute, daily and weekly totals in Reports, a manager approval before payroll, and a clean export when it is time to pay. Start free, keep owners free forever, and hire your summer crew without wondering whether the hours will hold up.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Child labor rules vary by state and change over time. Confirm the current limits with your state labor department or an employment attorney before you build a schedule.