Child Labor Laws in Agriculture: Minimum Ages and Hazardous Tasks

Federal child labor laws in agriculture, set by the Fair Labor Standards Act, allow children as young as 12 to work on farms under specific conditions, ban anyone under 16 from a defined list of hazardous tasks, and exempt children working on a farm owned or operated by their parents from most restrictions. The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor enforces these rules, which are notably more permissive than the rules for non-farm youth employment.¹

Minimum Ages for Farm Work

Federal law sorts young agricultural workers into four age groups. Every tier requires work outside school hours, meaning the hours the local school district is in session, not the individual child’s schedule.²

Age 16 and older: no restrictions. A 16-year-old can do any farm job, including hazardous work, at any hour and for any number of hours.
Ages 14 and 15: any non-hazardous farm job, outside school hours.
Ages 12 and 13: non-hazardous farm work outside school hours, with written parental consent or if the parent works on the same farm.
Under 12: generally cannot work on farms. Two narrow exceptions apply, described below.

One point often missed: federal law sets no maximum daily or weekly hour limit for minors in agriculture. Non-farm youth employment caps hours tightly for 14- and 15-year-olds; farm work has no such federal ceiling.³

The Two Ways a Child Under 12 Can Legally Work

The first exception is the small-farm rule. A farm that used no more than 500 “man-days” of agricultural labor in any calendar quarter of the prior year is exempt from federal minimum wage. On those farms, children under 12 can perform non-hazardous work outside school hours with parental consent. A man-day is any day an employee performs at least one hour of farm work, and 500 man-days is roughly seven full-time employees for a quarter.⁴

The second is a hand-harvesting waiver for 10- and 11-year-olds. An employer, or a group of employers, applies to the Wage and Hour Division. The waiver runs a maximum of eight weeks per calendar year and only for crops customarily paid on a piece-rate basis. Approval requires objective data showing a short harvesting season, unavailability of workers 12 and older, likely severe economic disruption without the waiver, and pesticide levels safe for children. The agency recommends filing at least six weeks before the waiver period begins.⁵

The Parental Exemption

The largest carve-out in federal law: a child of any age may work at any time, in any farm occupation, on a farm owned or operated by the child’s parent or legal guardian. That includes tasks otherwise prohibited for anyone under 16. A 14-year-old working for a neighbor cannot legally drive a large tractor; the same 14-year-old working for a parent on the family farm can.⁶

Business structure can eliminate the exemption. If the farm is a corporation or a multi-member LLC, the exemption does not apply, even where a parent owns all the shares. For a partnership, both partners must be the child’s parents. Sole proprietorships, and single-member LLCs treated as disregarded entities for tax purposes, keep the exemption intact.⁷ A parent who incorporates for liability protection can inadvertently subject the operation to every age and hazardous-task rule that applies to any other employer.

Hazardous Tasks Banned for Workers Under 16

The Department of Labor prohibits anyone under 16 from performing 11 categories of agricultural work, unless the parental exemption applies or a training exemption covers the specific task.⁸

Operating a tractor over 20 PTO horsepower, or connecting and disconnecting implements to one.
Operating or helping operate corn pickers, cotton pickers, grain combines, hay mowers, forage harvesters, hay balers, potato diggers, or mobile pea viners.
Operating feed grinders, crop dryers, forage blowers, auger conveyors, or the unloading mechanism of a nongravity-type self-unloading wagon.
Operating trenchers, earthmoving equipment, forklifts, potato combines, or power-driven circular, band, or chain saws.
Working in a yard, pen, or stall with a bull, boar, or stud horse kept for breeding; a sow with suckling pigs; or a cow with a newborn calf.
Felling, bucking, skidding, loading, or unloading timber with a butt diameter over six inches.
Working from a ladder or scaffold at a height over 20 feet.
Driving a bus, truck, or car to transport passengers, or riding on a tractor as a passenger or helper.
Working inside a fruit, forage, or grain storage designed to retain an oxygen-deficient or toxic atmosphere; inside an upright silo within two weeks after silage has been added; inside a manure pit; or in a horizontal silo while a tractor is packing.
Handling or applying Category I pesticides (labeled “Poison” with a skull and crossbones) or Category II pesticides (labeled “Warning”), including cleaning contaminated equipment or serving as a flagman for aerial application.
Handling blasting agents such as dynamite, black powder, or blasting caps, and transporting or applying anhydrous ammonia.

The confined-space entries carry outsized risk. Grain storage can develop oxygen-deficient air that causes unconsciousness within seconds, and manure pits produce hydrogen sulfide and methane.

Training Programs That Unlock Some Hazardous Work

Two formal pathways let 14- and 15-year-olds perform certain hazardous tasks. Neither covers passenger driving, confined-space work, pesticide handling, explosives, or anhydrous ammonia. Those remain off-limits regardless of training.⁹

A student-learner enrolled in a vocational agriculture program through a recognized state, local, or private school can perform tasks in the first six hazardous categories under a written agreement. The agreement must state that the work is incidental to training, intermittent, and directly supervised by a qualified person, and both the school and the employer must sign and keep copies.⁹

The 4-H Federal Extension Service also runs two 10-hour programs: one certifying operation of large tractors, one covering harvesting and processing machinery. A minor must be at least 14, be a 4-H member, and complete the training before an employer assigns the task. Even after certification, the employer must give equipment-specific instruction and check on the minor at midmorning, noon, and midafternoon when direct supervision isn’t feasible.⁹

Wages, Overtime, and the Youth Rate

Farms above the 500-man-day threshold must pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Farms below it are exempt from federal minimum wage entirely, which is exactly what makes the under-12 employment exception possible.⁴

Agricultural employees of any age are fully exempt from FLSA overtime. There is no federal time-and-a-half obligation for farm work, no matter how many hours a worker puts in during a week.¹⁰

Employers subject to minimum wage may pay workers under 20 a youth training wage of $4.25 per hour during the first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment. The 90 days run on the calendar, not on days actually worked, so the window closes quickly. An employer cannot cut another employee’s hours or wages to make room for a youth-wage worker.¹¹

Penalties for Violations

Employers who violate federal agricultural child labor rules face civil penalties of up to $16,035 for each minor illegally employed. If a violation causes serious injury or death of a worker under 18, the penalty rises to $72,876 per violation, and doubles to $145,752 if willful or repeated. These amounts adjust annually for inflation.¹²

Willful violations can also draw criminal prosecution with fines up to $10,000, and a second criminal conviction can add up to six months in prison. The Wage and Hour Division runs proactive investigations in industries with high violation rates, so the absence of a complaint doesn’t mean the absence of scrutiny.¹³

How to Report a Violation

Anyone can report a suspected child labor violation to the Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243. Complaints are confidential; the agency will not disclose the complainant’s name or confirm that a complaint exists. Employers are prohibited from retaliating against any worker who files a complaint or cooperates with an investigation. Third parties, including teachers and neighbors, can also file, though the more specific the information, the more effectively the agency can act.¹³

State Law Can Be Stricter

Federal rules are a floor. When a state law is more protective, the state standard controls. Some states set higher minimum ages for farm work, cap daily or weekly hours for minors in agriculture, or require work permits federal law does not. Others have moved the other direction recently, loosening hour restrictions or dropping permit requirements. Because these laws change and vary widely, anyone hiring minors for farm work should check the current rules with their state labor agency alongside the federal ones.

1
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 570 – Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of Interpretation
2
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.123 – Agriculture
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #40 – Overview of Youth Employment (Child Labor) Provisions of the FLSA for Agricultural Occupations
4
eCFR. 29 CFR 780.305 – 500 Man-Day Provision
5
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 575 – Waiver of Child Labor Provisions for Agricultural Employment of 10 and 11 Year Old Minors in Hand Harvesting of Short Season Crops
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 213 – Exemptions
7
Farmers.gov. Employment of Family Members
8
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.71 – Occupations Involved in Agriculture
9
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.72 – Exemptions
10
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 780, Subpart E – Employment in Agriculture Exempted From Overtime Pay Requirements Under Section 13(b)(12)
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #32 – Youth Minimum Wage – Fair Labor Standards Act
12
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 579 – Child Labor Violations – Civil Money Penalties
13
U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint