Florida Child Labor Laws: Hours, Breaks, and Hazardous Jobs

Florida child labor laws set fourteen as the general minimum working age, cap how many hours minors can work during the school year, ban a list of hazardous occupations for anyone under eighteen, and require employers to keep proof of a minor’s age on file. Federal rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act sit on top of the state’s, and employers have to follow whichever is stricter on any given point.

Minimum Age to Work

Thirteen and under cannot hold a regular job in Florida.¹ Fourteen is the effective floor for most work. A few narrow exceptions:

Entertainment work in film, television, theater, still photography, music, circuses, and similar productions is open to children of any age when the employer follows Florida’s entertainment permit process.
Children of any age may do domestic or farm work at home, or work directly for a parent or guardian, outside required school hours.
Children eleven and older may sell and distribute newspapers. Ten and under cannot.
Minors of any age may serve as pages in the Florida Legislature.

Two flat bans apply regardless of the job. No one seventeen or younger may work at a retail location that sells alcoholic beverages, except in limited roles authorized under Florida’s beverage law.¹ No one under eighteen may work in an adult theater.

Work Hours for 14- and 15-Year-Olds

During the school year, a 14- or 15-year-old can work no more than three hours on a school day and no more than fifteen hours in a school week.² The three-hour daily cap lifts when there is no school the next day, so a Friday evening or pre-holiday shift can run longer.

Curfews add another layer. When school is scheduled the next day, work cannot start before 7:00 a.m. or run past 7:00 p.m. During summer vacations and holidays the window opens to 7:00 a.m. through 9:00 p.m., and the limits stretch to eight hours per day and forty hours per week.² No one in this age group may work more than six consecutive days in a single week.

Federal law allows this age group up to eighteen hours in a school week, but Florida caps it at fifteen.³ The stricter Florida cap controls.

Work Hours for 16- and 17-Year-Olds

Older teens have more flexibility, but the school year still brings limits. A 16- or 17-year-old cannot work more than thirty hours in any week school is in session, more than eight hours on a day when school is scheduled the next day, or before 6:30 a.m. or after 11:00 p.m. on nights before a school day.² The eight-hour daily cap does not apply on holidays or Sundays.

The thirty-hour weekly limit can be waived. A parent, legal custodian, or the school superintendent or designee may sign a waiver form prescribed by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and the employer keeps it on file.² Without the signed waiver, thirty hours is a firm ceiling.

Work during school hours on school days is prohibited for this age group unless the teen is enrolled in a career education program. Once summer arrives, Florida places no hour or curfew restrictions on 16- and 17-year-olds.

Meal Breaks

Break rules split by age. Workers fifteen and younger must get at least a thirty-minute meal break for every four continuous hours worked; a shorter pause does not restart the four-hour clock. Workers sixteen and seventeen get the same thirty-minute break requirement, but only when they work eight or more hours in a day. A 16-year-old on a five-hour shift has no state-mandated break.²

Hazardous Jobs Banned for Anyone Under 18

Florida bars all minors under eighteen from a list of occupations, regardless of experience or training:⁴

Work in or around explosives or radioactive materials
Operating power-driven woodworking machines
Operating power-driven metal-forming, punching, or shearing machines
Operating power-driven hoisting equipment
Operating power-driven bakery machinery
Working on scaffolding, roofs, or ladders above six feet, with a narrow exception for 16- and 17-year-olds in residential construction
Work in or around toxic substances, pesticides, or herbicides without proper safety intervals
Mining
Slaughtering or meat-packing operations

A student-learner exception is available for 16- and 17-year-olds enrolled in a recognized vocational program. The hazardous work has to be incidental to training, intermittent, and directly supervised by an experienced worker, and a written agreement signed by the employer, school coordinator, principal, and parent must be on file with both the school and the employer.⁵

Extra Bans for Workers 15 and Younger

On top of the under-18 list, Florida adds prohibitions for its youngest workers. No one fifteen or younger may work in any of these:⁴

Operating power-driven laundry or dry-cleaning machinery
Using power-driven meat or vegetable slicing machines
Working with any power-driven machinery, except push mowers with blades 40 inches or smaller
Manufacturing, transporting, or using explosives or highly flammable materials
Sawmill or logging operations
Heavy work in the building trades or on scaffolding
Spray painting
Working in meat freezers or meat coolers, or preparing meat for sale (wrapping, labeling, and stocking in a separate area is allowed)
Operating a motor vehicle, with narrow exceptions for licensed farm-tractor use under parental supervision
Alligator wrestling, snake pits, and similar activities
Door-to-door merchandise sales, except for nonprofits such as the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts

Restaurant employers should note the meat-cooler and slicing-machine entries. These are routine food-service tasks, and assigning them to a 15-year-old is a violation regardless of how capable the teen is.

Federal Cooking and Driving Rules Florida Doesn’t Cover

Florida’s hazardous-occupation statute does not address cooking equipment. The cooking restrictions on younger teens come from federal law.

Cooking

Under federal child labor rules, 14- and 15-year-olds may only cook using electric or gas grills that do not involve open flames, and deep fryers equipped with automatic basket-lowering devices. Broilers, rotisseries, pressure cookers, rapid-heat ovens, and any equipment requiring cooking over an open flame are off-limits.⁶ A fryer that requires manually lowering the basket into hot oil is out.

Driving

Driving for work is a federally declared hazardous occupation for anyone under eighteen. A narrow exception lets 17-year-olds drive on public roads only when all of the following apply:⁷

The vehicle’s gross weight is 6,000 pounds or less
Seat belts are installed, and the employer has instructed the minor to use them
Driving happens only during daylight
The teen holds a valid state license, has completed a state-approved driver education course, and has no moving violations at hire
Driving stays within a thirty-mile radius of the workplace
Driving is occasional and incidental: no more than one-third of any workday and no more than twenty percent of any workweek

Even when every condition is met, the 17-year-old still cannot do route deliveries, transport passengers for hire, tow vehicles, or make time-sensitive deliveries like pizza runs or bank deposits. No more than two delivery trips per day are allowed. Between these limits, delivery-driver jobs are effectively closed to anyone under eighteen.

Age Verification and Records

Florida does not issue or require work permits. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation confirms that work permits and working papers are not required or issued by any Florida school or government agency.⁸ Families moving from permit states are often surprised by this.

What the state does require is proof-of-age documentation kept on file for the entire length of employment. Any one of the following is acceptable:⁹

A photocopy of the minor’s birth certificate
A photocopy of the minor’s driver’s license
An age certificate issued by the local school board
A photocopy of a passport or visa showing date of birth

The statute says photocopies, not certified copies. An employer without one of these documents on file has a compliance problem during an inspection even if the minor is legally old enough to be working.

How Federal Law Layers On

The Fair Labor Standards Act covers any business with at least two employees and $500,000 or more in annual sales, plus hospitals, schools, and government agencies regardless of revenue.¹⁰ Most employers who hire teens meet that threshold. Where both sets of rules apply, the stricter one on each point wins.

Florida is stricter in some places (the fifteen-hour school-week cap for 14- and 15-year-olds), federal law in others (cooking equipment, driving). Looking at only one set will miss something on the other.

Wage rules follow the same pattern. Federal law lets employers pay a $4.25-per-hour youth subminimum to workers under twenty during their first ninety calendar days.¹¹ Florida’s minimum wage is $14.00 per hour as of 2026 and has no youth exception.¹² The stricter Florida wage controls, so the youth subminimum is effectively unavailable in the state.

Reporting Violations and Penalties

The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation handles child labor enforcement. Complaints can be filed online or submitted to a regional office, and should identify the employer and describe the specific violation.¹³ Once a complaint is filed, the department can enter and inspect any covered workplace and review age-verification records.

Administrative penalties can include fines, mandatory education, probation, license suspension, or license revocation.¹³ A second-degree misdemeanor conviction in Florida carries a maximum fine of $500 and up to sixty days in jail.¹⁴ For businesses that depend on a state license, the revocation risk usually outweighs the fine.

Violations that also breach the FLSA can go to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Federal law bars retaliation against any worker, minor included, who files a complaint, asks about workplace rights, or cooperates with an investigation.¹⁵ Cutting a teen’s hours or firing them for reporting a violation is its own separate federal offense.

1
Florida Senate. Florida Code 450.021 – Minimum Age; General
2
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 450.081 – Hours of Work in Certain Occupations
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 43 – Child Labor Provisions of the FLSA for Nonagricultural Occupations
4
Florida Senate. Florida Code 450.061 – Hazardous Occupations Prohibited; Exemptions
5
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 450.161 – Exemptions for Student Learners
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 58 – Cooking and Baking Under Federal Child Labor Law
7
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 570, Subpart E – Occupations Particularly Hazardous for Minors Between 16 and 18
8
Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Educational Guidelines
9
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 450.045 – Proof of Identity and Age; Posting of Notices
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 14 – Coverage Under the FLSA
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 32 – Youth Minimum Wage Under the FLSA
12
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
13
Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Child Labor – Complaints
14
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 775.083 – Fines
15
U.S. Department of Labor. Retaliation