How to Get a Work Permit at 15: Documents, Hours, and Approval

To get a work permit at 15, line up a job offer, pick up the application at your school’s guidance office (or download it from your state’s Department of Labor site), have your parent and employer each sign their sections, and return the completed form to the issuing officer, usually a school principal or counselor, for approval. In most states the whole process takes under two weeks. A handful of states don’t issue work permits at all, so your first step is finding out which camp your state falls into.

Check Whether Your State Requires a Permit

There is no national work permit. Whether you need one depends entirely on where you live, and the U.S. Department of Labor tracks which states mandate employment certificates, which issue them on request, and which don’t use them.¹ Roughly a dozen states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming, do not issue employment certificates for minors. If you live in one of those, you don’t need a permit to start a job, but the federal hour and job-type rules covered further down still apply to you.

Among the states that do use permits, some require them only for workers under 16, while others require them through age 17. California, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey are examples of states where 16- and 17-year-olds also need a certificate.¹ Your school guidance counselor can tell you exactly what your state requires, and that’s usually the fastest way to confirm.

Documents to Gather Before You Apply

Requirements vary by state, but most applications ask for the same core items. Getting these together before you sit down with the form saves trips back and forth:

Proof of age, typically a certified birth certificate or valid passport. Some states also accept a baptismal record or hospital birth record.
Your Social Security number, which the employer needs for payroll and tax withholding.
School enrollment verification in some states, such as attendance records or a letter from a school official confirming you’re enrolled and in good standing.
Employer information, including the business name, address, and a description of the work you’ll do. The employer fills out their own section, so you generally need a job offer, or at least a verbal commitment, before applying.
A parent or legal guardian’s signature authorizing your employment.

The application itself is usually available at your school’s guidance office or on your state’s Department of Labor website. It has separate sections for you, your parent, and your employer, so plan to pass it between all three before submitting.

How the Application Gets Approved

Once every section is filled out and signed, the application goes to an issuing officer. In most states that’s your school principal, guidance counselor, or another designated school official. Some states route applications through a local Department of Labor office instead. A growing number of states offer online submission portals where you upload scanned documents, which tends to move faster than paper.

The issuing officer reviews the form to confirm the job description and proposed hours comply with labor law. If everything checks out, you’ll receive the employment certificate, sometimes printed on the spot and sometimes mailed home. Turnaround typically ranges from a few days to about two weeks. Applications spike every spring as summer approaches, so applying early avoids the backlog.

One thing worth knowing: in many states, the school that issues your permit can also revoke it. If your grades drop or your attendance suffers after you start working, the issuing officer may suspend or pull the certificate. Work isn’t supposed to come at the expense of school, and schools have real authority to enforce that.

Hours You Can Work at 15

Federal law caps how much a 15-year-old can work, and those limits apply everywhere regardless of what your state says. During weeks when school is in session, you’re limited to three hours on a school day and 18 hours total for the week. When school is out for summer or holiday breaks, the cap rises to eight hours per day and 40 hours per week.²

There’s also a time-of-day rule. Work must fall between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. during the school year. From June 1 through Labor Day, the evening cutoff extends to 9 p.m.² Some states impose tighter limits, and when federal and state rules conflict, the stricter one wins. In practice, a typical after-school shift during the school year runs about three hours between the final bell and 7 p.m.

Jobs You Can Take at 15

Federal rules take a “what’s not listed is prohibited” approach for 14- and 15-year-olds. You can only work in occupations the Department of Labor has specifically approved. The approved list covers most jobs teenagers actually want:³

Retail and grocery work, including cashiering, bagging, stocking shelves, price marking, and packing.
Food service such as taking orders, busing tables, preparing food, and limited cooking on electric or gas grills (no open flames). Deep fryers are allowed only if they have automatic basket-lowering devices.
Office work like filing, answering phones, data entry, and general clerical tasks.
Creative and intellectual work, including performing, tutoring, and artistic occupations.
Lifeguarding at traditional pools and water parks, if you hold proper certification, and swimming instruction.

Kitchen cleanup is allowed as long as the surfaces and grease you handle stay below 100°F. That restriction trips people up because it sounds minor, but burns from hot grease are one of the most common injuries for teen workers.

Jobs That Are Off-Limits

The Department of Labor has designated 17 categories of hazardous occupations that no one under 18 can perform, including work involving explosives, mining, roofing, excavation, power-driven woodworking or metalworking machines, and demolition.⁴ At 15, the restrictions go further: you also can’t work in manufacturing, processing, warehousing, or construction, and you can’t operate motor vehicles or load and unload goods from trucks. Some employers try to slide young workers into these tasks anyway, so it’s worth knowing the line before your first shift.

Exemptions That May Apply to You

A handful of jobs sit outside the federal child labor rules entirely, which means no federal permit or hour restrictions:

Delivering newspapers directly to consumers is exempt from federal child labor, minimum wage, and overtime rules.⁵
Child actors in movies, theater, radio, and television productions are exempt from federal child labor provisions.⁵
Working for a parent who actually owns or operates the business. You can work at any age in any occupation there except manufacturing, mining, or a job the Secretary of Labor has declared hazardous. Working alongside your parent at someone else’s company doesn’t qualify.⁶

State law can still impose its own requirements even where federal law grants an exemption. Some states require entertainment work permits for child actors, for example, even though federal law doesn’t.

Agricultural work follows a completely separate track. At 14 or older, you can work in any non-hazardous farm job outside school hours, and parental consent isn’t a federal requirement at that age.⁵ There are no federal caps on daily or weekly hours for agricultural work. Eleven categories of hazardous farm work are off-limits to anyone under 16 unless the farm is owned by a parent.

What You’ll Be Paid

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and applies to you at 15.⁷ Many states set a higher minimum, and your employer must pay whichever rate is greater. Federal law also allows employers to pay workers under 20 a training wage of $4.25 per hour during the first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment, as long as the arrangement doesn’t displace other workers.⁸ After 90 days or your 20th birthday, whichever comes first, the regular minimum wage kicks in. Most employers of teenagers pay the standard rate from day one, but it’s legal for them not to.

Even at 15, your employer will withhold federal income tax from your paycheck, along with 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. Whether you owe income tax at year-end depends on your total earnings; if you fall under the filing threshold, you can file a return anyway to get back any income tax that was withheld.

A Quick Sequence to Follow

Check your state’s rules through your school guidance office or state Department of Labor website.
Line up a job, since most applications require employer information.
Gather your birth certificate or passport, Social Security number, and any school records your state requires.
Complete your section of the application, then pass it to your employer and parent for their signatures.
Submit the finished form to the issuing officer, and ask about turnaround so you can plan a start date.
Keep the certificate somewhere safe. Your employer will need a copy, and some states require renewal every 6 to 12 months or when you change jobs.

The most common delay is an employer who sits on their section of the form, so don’t be shy about following up. Once the certificate is in your hand, you’re cleared to start earning a paycheck.

1
U.S. Department of Labor. Employment/Age Certificate
2
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.35 – Hours of Work and Conditions of Employment Permitted for Minors 14 and 15 Years of Age
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 43 – Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act for Nonagricultural Occupations
4
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA – Child Labor Rules
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 213 – Exemptions
6
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.126 – Parental Exemption
7
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor – Youth Minimum Wage