Federal child labor rules sort every teenage job in a store by two things: the worker’s age and the machine or task involved. A 14-year-old may bag groceries but may not run the deli slicer. A 17-year-old faces no federal hour cap in the sections reviewed here but still may not run the cardboard baler, and may load it only when the machine meets four federal conditions. The rules are specific, and a store that hires teenagers without knowing them can break one on the first shift.
This article walks through the federal rules as they stand in the Code of Federal Regulations on 14 October 2026, age band by age band and machine by machine. The Teen Shift Card, a one-page tool, turns them into a card you can fill in before you put a minor on the schedule.
It covers federal rules only. Your state may set its own rules, and where the two differ the stricter one controls. Nothing here is legal advice, and a question about a specific employee belongs with your state labor department or an employment attorney.
The rule that sorts every teen job: three age bands
The starting point is the regulation that sets minimum ages. According to 29 CFR 570.2, “The Act, in section 3(1), sets a general 16-year minimum age which applies to all employment subject to its child labor provisions in any occupation other than in agriculture, with the following exceptions.”
The first exception opens the door to younger workers. The same section says the Secretary of Labor may provide that employment of “employees between the ages of 14 and 16 years in occupations other than manufacturing and mining shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive child labor, if and to the extent that the Secretary of Labor determines that such employment is confined to periods which will not interfere with their schooling and to conditions which will not interfere with their health and well-being.”
The second exception sets the upper band: “The Act sets an 18-year minimum age with respect to employment in any occupation found and declared by the Secretary of Labor to be particularly hazardous for the employment of minors of such age or detrimental to their health or well-being.”
Those sentences give a store three bands:
Under 14. The regulations quoted here set no store jobs for this age, with one exception that matters to a family-run store. Under 29 CFR 570.2(a)(2), the Act “exempts from its minimum age requirements the employment by a parent of his own child, or by a person standing in place of a parent of a child in his custody, except in occupations to which the 18-year age minimum applies and in manufacturing and mining occupations.” An owner’s own child may work in the store below 14, but the hazardous orders still apply to that child, and the exemption is narrow: 29 CFR 570.126 says it “may apply only in those cases where the child is exclusively employed by his parent or a person standing in his parents’ place,” so whether it reaches a store owned through a corporation or with other partners is a question for your state labor department or an attorney.
14 and 15. A short list of permitted jobs, tight hour limits, and a long list of prohibited tasks.
16 and 17. No federal hour limits in the sections reviewed, but a set of “particularly hazardous” occupations that stay off limits until age 18.
Each band carries its own permitted jobs, hours and off-limits machines.
Fourteen and fifteen: the jobs a store may give them
The permitted list is 29 CFR 570.34, and it reads like a description of a store’s front end. It “authorizes only the following occupations,” and the ones that matter to a convenience store, bodega or small grocer include:
“Cashiering, selling, modeling, art work, work in advertising departments, window trimming, and comparative shopping.”
“Price marking and tagging by hand or machine, assembling orders, packing, and shelving.”
“Bagging and carrying out customers’ orders.”
“Errand and delivery work by foot, bicycle, and public transportation.”
“Clean up work, including the use of vacuum cleaners and floor waxers, and the maintenance of grounds, but not including the use of power-driven mowers, cutters, trimmers, edgers, or similar equipment.”
Two entries cover food. Cooking is limited to “electric or gas grills which does not involve cooking over an open flame,” and the regulation adds that it “does not authorize cooking with equipment such as rotisseries, broilers, pressurized equipment including fryolators.” The same paragraph makes one exception for fryers: “Cooking is also permitted with deep fryers that are equipped with and utilize a device which automatically lowers the baskets into the hot oil or grease and automatically raises the baskets from the hot oil or grease.” A fryer with hand-lowered baskets stays off limits for this age band; one with an automatic basket lift is permitted. The second entry covers “Kitchen work and other work involved in preparing and serving food and beverages, including operating machines and devices used in performing such work,” with examples such as “toasters, dumbwaiters, popcorn poppers, milk shake blenders, coffee grinders, automatic coffee machines” and “microwave ovens that are used only to warm prepared food and do not have the capacity to warm above 140 °F.”
Stocking is allowed with a condition: “the wrapping, sealing, labeling, weighing, pricing, and stocking of items, including vegetables, fruits, and meats, when performed in areas physically separate from a freezer or meat cooler.”
Fourteen and fifteen: the hours
Hours are set by 29 CFR 570.35. The regulation says employment of this age band “shall be confined to the following periods”:
“Outside of school hours;”
“Not more than 40 hours in any 1 week when school is not in session;”
“Not more than 18 hours in any 1 week when school is in session;”
“Not more than 8 hours in any 1 day when school is not in session;”
“Not more than 3 hours in any 1 day when school is in session, including Fridays;”
“Between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. in any 1 day, except during the summer (June 1 through Labor Day) when the evening hour will be 9 p.m.”
The definitions in the same section decide the edge cases, and they are where schedules go wrong. A “week” is “a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours—seven consecutive 24-hour periods—that is identical to the workweek the employer establishes for the employee.” A “week when school is in session” is “any week the local public school district where the minor resides while employed is in session and students are required to attend for at least one day or partial day.”
A week that includes a single day of school is a school week, so the 18-hour cap applies to it, and the district that matters is the one where the minor lives, not the one where your store sits.
The evening cutoff changes with the calendar: 9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day, 7 p.m. the rest of the year.
Fourteen and fifteen: what is off limits
The prohibited list is 29 CFR 570.33. It is introduced as a list that “is not an exhaustive list,” so the absence of a task from it does not make the task permitted. The entries that a store is most likely to hit:
Power-driven machinery: “Occupations that involve operating, tending, setting up, adjusting, cleaning, oiling, or repairing any power-driven machinery, including but not limited to lawn mowers, golf carts, all-terrain vehicles, trimmers, cutters, weed-eaters, edgers, food slicers, food grinders, food choppers, food processors, food cutters, and food mixers.”
Ladders: “all work requiring the use of ladders, scaffolds, or their substitutes.”
Driving and loading: “The operation of motor vehicles” and the “Loading and unloading of goods or property onto or from motor vehicles, railroad cars, or conveyors,” with narrow exceptions for personal items and hand tools.
Warehousing: occupations “in connection with” “Warehousing and storage.”
Peddling: “Youth peddling, which entails the selling of goods or services to customers at locations other than the youth-employer’s establishment.”
Two of those catch stores that think of themselves as low-risk. The first is the stockroom. A store that has a 14-year-old helping out in the back is close to the line on loading, on ladders and on warehousing, even if the job title is shelf stocker. The second is the sidewalk, and it turns on where the teenager stands. The regulation includes “such promotion activities as the holding, wearing, or waving of signs” in prohibited peddling, “except when performed inside of, or directly in front of, the employer’s establishment providing the product, service, or event being advertised.” A 14- or 15-year-old holding a sign at the store’s own door is permitted. The same teenager sent to the corner or down the block is peddling.
Sixteen and seventeen: free on hours, fenced by hazardous orders
Once a worker turns 16, the sections reviewed for this article contain no daily or weekly hour cap and no 7 p.m. cutoff. What remains is the 18-year minimum in the hazardous-occupations subpart, which 29 CFR 570.2 describes as covering “any occupation found and declared by the Secretary of Labor to be particularly hazardous.”
29 CFR 570.50 opens that subpart with a rule that every store should remember: “If more than one standard within this subpart applies to a single activity the higher standard shall be applicable.” If two prohibitions overlap on one task, the stricter one governs.
The deli slicer is the clearest hazard in the building
A store with a deli counter has a machine the regulations name directly. 29 CFR 570.61, Order 10, lists as particularly hazardous for minors between 16 and 18 “All occupations involved in the operation or feeding of the following power-driven machines, including setting-up, adjusting, repairing, or oiling such machines or the cleaning of such machines or the individual parts or attachments of such machines, regardless of the product being processed by these machines (including, for example, the slicing in a retail delicatessen of meat, poultry, seafood, bread, vegetables, or cheese, etc.).”
The list that follows includes “meat slicers, knives (except bacon-slicing machines), headsplitters, and guillotine cutters” and “grinding, mixing, chopping, and hashing machines.”
Three details deserve emphasis.
The prohibition reaches cleaning. The phrase “the cleaning of such machines or the individual parts or attachments of such machines” means a 17-year-old who only wipes down the slicer at close is still doing a prohibited task.
It reaches any product. The text says “regardless of the product being processed,” and its own example is slicing “bread, vegetables, or cheese,” not only meat.
It reaches stores like yours by name. The regulation’s definition of retail establishments includes “grocery stores, restaurants and quick service food establishments, hotels, delicatessens.”
For a 14- or 15-year-old the answer is already no, because 570.33 names food slicers in its power-driven machinery entry. In practice the rule for a store is simple: nobody under 18 touches the slicer, loads it, or cleans it. (The order makes one exception, for “The employment of apprentices or student-learners under the conditions prescribed in § 570.50(b) and (c),” which requires a registered apprenticeship or a written agreement with a school program. A store’s ordinary teenage hires do not fall under it.)
Back-of-store equipment: balers, compactors and forklifts
Back-of-store waste equipment is the second trap. 29 CFR 570.63, Order 12, names the machines. It lists as particularly hazardous “The occupations of operation or assisting to operate any of the following power-driven paper products machines,” and the list includes “scrap paper baler, paper box compactor.” It separately covers “any baler that is designed or used to process materials other than paper” and “any compactor that is designed or used to process materials other than paper.”
The definition of “operating or assisting to operate” is wide: “all work that involves starting or stopping a machine covered by this section, placing materials into or removing materials from a machine, including clearing a machine of jammed materials, paper, or cardboard, or any other work directly involved in operating the machine.”
The first carve-out covers stacking. The definition “does not include the stacking of materials by an employee in an area nearby or adjacent to the machine where such employee does not place the materials into the machine.” Stacking flattened boxes beside a baler is not operating it.
The second carve-out covers loading, and it applies only to 16- and 17-year-olds and only to paper machines. 29 CFR 570.63(c)(1) states: “Sixteen- and 17-year-olds [sic] minors may load materials into, but not operate or unload, those scrap paper balers and paper box compactors that are safe for 16- and 17-year-old employees to load and cannot be operated while being loaded.” The regulation treats a machine as safe to load “only if all of the following conditions are met”:
- The baler or compactor “meets the applicable ANSI standard,” and “the employer must initially determine if the equipment meets the applicable ANSI standard.”
- It “includes an on-off switch incorporating a key-lock or other system and the control of the system is maintained in the custody of employees who are 18 years of age or older.”
- “The on-off switch of the scrap paper baler or paper box compactor is maintained in an off position when the machine is not in operation.”
- The employer posts a notice on the machine, in a prominent position, that identifies the ANSI standard it meets and states “That sixteen- and 17-year-old employees may only load the scrap paper baler or paper box compactor” and “That no employee under the age of 18 may operate or unload the scrap paper baler or paper box compactor.”
The exception does not reach balers or compactors that process materials other than paper, and it never covers starting the machine, clearing a jam or removing a bale, all of which fall inside the definition of operating. The simplest compliant store policy is still to keep everyone under 18 away from the baler, because it removes the need to confirm the ANSI rating, control the key and keep the notice posted. A store that does let 16- and 17-year-olds load a paper baler needs all four conditions in place on every shift.
Forklifts. Order 7, in 29 CFR 570.58, names “Work of operating, tending, riding upon, working from, repairing, servicing, or disassembling an elevator, crane, derrick, hoist, or high-lift truck.” The definition of a high-lift truck includes “fork lifts, fork trucks, fork lift trucks, tiering trucks,” and says the term “shall not mean low-lift trucks or low-lift platform trucks that are designed for the transportation of but not the tiering of materials.” Whether a given pallet mover is a high-lift truck turns on its design, and that question belongs with your state labor department rather than a guess.
Delivery: the driving rules
Store delivery programs raise the last order. 29 CFR 570.52, Order 2, states that “the occupations of motor-vehicle driver and outside helper on any public road, highway, in or about any mine (including open pit mine or quarry), place where logging or sawmill operations are in progress, or in any excavation of the type identified in § 570.68(a) are particularly hazardous for the employment of minors between 16 and 18 years of age.”
It then allows an exemption for “Incidental and occasional driving by 17-year-olds,” and the regulation lists nine conditions that must all be met. In the regulation’s order: the vehicle “does not exceed 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight” and “is equipped with a seat belt or similar restraining device for the driver and for any passengers and the employer has instructed the employee that such belts or other devices must be used”; “The driving is restricted to daylight hours;” the minor “holds a State license valid for the type of driving involved in the job performed and has no records of any moving violations at the time of hire;” the minor “has successfully completed a State-approved driver education course;” “The driving does not involve: the towing of vehicles; route deliveries or route sales; the transportation for hire of property, goods, or passengers; urgent, time-sensitive deliveries;” or “the transporting at any one time of more than three passengers, including the employees of the employer;” the driving involves no “more than two trips away from the primary place of employment in any single day for the purpose of delivering goods of the minor’s employer to a customer”; it involves no more than two trips a day carrying passengers other than the employer’s own employees; it takes “place within a thirty (30) mile radius of the minor’s place of employment;” and it is “only occasional and incidental to the employee’s employment.” The regulation defines that last phrase: “occasional and incidental means no more than one-third of an employee’s worktime in any workday and no more than 20 percent of an employee’s worktime in any workweek.” A store that runs daily neighborhood deliveries is running a route, and the exemption is available only to 17-year-olds.
A 14- or 15-year-old’s delivery work is limited by the permitted-jobs list to “Errand and delivery work by foot, bicycle, and public transportation.”
The Teen Shift Card: a one-page decision tool
A rule that is hard to look up is easy to miss. The Teen Shift Card turns the regulations into a card you fill in once per minor, before the first shift, and keep with the schedule.
Step 1. Write the worker’s age on the first shift and on every shift after a birthday. The bands change at 16 and at 18.
Step 2. Pick the band and read its row.
| Band | Hours | Jobs a store can give | Jobs a store cannot give |
| 14 to 15 | Outside school hours; 3 hours on a school day and 18 in a school week; 8 hours a day and 40 a week when school is out; nothing outside 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day) | Cashiering, bagging, shelving, price marking, cleanup, small-appliance food work, errands on foot or by bike | Slicers and any other power-driven food machine, fryers without an automatic basket lift, baking, ladders, driving, loading trucks, walk-in freezer work, warehousing, and sign-holding away from the store (inside or directly in front of it is permitted) |
| 16 to 17 | No federal cap in the sections reviewed | Everything in the row for 14 to 15, plus work not named in a hazardous order | Slicers and cutters; operating or unloading any baler or compactor (loading a paper baler only under the four conditions in 29 CFR 570.63(c)(1)); forklifts; routine driving and route deliveries (a 17-year-old may drive only under the nine conditions in 29 CFR 570.52(b)) |
| Under 14 | Not covered by the store jobs in these sections | None, unless the owner is the minor’s parent, or stands in place of a parent to a child in the owner’s custody (29 CFR 570.2(a)(2)) | All; for an owner’s own child, every job under a hazardous order |
Step 3. Name the machine before you name the shift. Write the equipment the minor will touch on the card. If a machine appears in one of the four hazardous orders quoted here (Orders 2, 7, 10 and 12), the answer is no for anyone under 18, whatever the job title. The one exception is loading a qualifying paper baler or box compactor, which 16- and 17-year-olds may do only when all four conditions in 29 CFR 570.63(c)(1) are met.
Step 4. Run two checks. The cleaning check: does the job include cleaning, oiling or setting up a machine? The regulations extend their prohibitions to those tasks. The invisible-task check: will the minor ever pitch in at the dock, back door or deli at closing? Write those tasks on the card as off limits and tell the shift lead.
Step 5. For 14- and 15-year-olds, write the minor’s school district calendar into the schedule, because the definition of a school week turns on it.
Step 6. Keep the card. If an inspector or a lawyer ever asks what you told the shift lead, the card is your answer.
The card shows the principle underneath the rules. The age fixes the hours. The equipment fixes the job. Neither is a judgment call by the store.
Where state law fits
Every rule in this article is federal. The regulations anticipate that other rules may exist. 29 CFR 570.50 states: “Nothing in this subpart shall authorize non-compliance with any Federal or State law, regulation, or municipal ordinance establishing a higher standard.”
That sentence has a practical consequence. If your state or city sets a stricter hour limit or a longer prohibited list, the stricter one controls your store. This article does not summarize any state’s rules, and the right source for them is your state labor department. Before you hire a first minor, look up whether your state asks for a work permit or an age certificate. This article does not cover that question.
Where the POS fits, and where it does not
The one place the register connects to this subject is access control. NRS’s point-of-sale page says: “Cashiers can log in or out with special user permissions granted by the administrator (store owner).” A teenage cashier with a login of their own leaves a record of the shifts they worked.
For a first-week plan, see NRS’s walk-through on training employees on your POS.
To build the weekly schedule itself, see NRS’s guide to building a staff schedule that controls labor cost.
What this article leaves out. It gives no state rules, no work-permit rules and no penalty amounts, because none of the sections quoted state them. It does not cover farm work. The prohibited list in 570.33 says it “is not an exhaustive list,” so a task missing from this article is not thereby permitted. The regulations were read on the Legal Information Institute’s copy of the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations on 14 October 2026 and again on 27 October 2026, and they can be amended.
Frequently asked questions
Can a 14-year-old work the register at a convenience store? Yes, within the hour limits. The permitted list includes “Cashiering, selling, modeling, art work, work in advertising departments, window trimming, and comparative shopping.”
What is the latest a 15-year-old can work on a school night? 7 p.m. The regulation limits work to “Between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. in any 1 day, except during the summer (June 1 through Labor Day) when the evening hour will be 9 p.m.” School days also carry a 3-hour daily cap.
Can a 16-year-old clean the deli slicer? No. The hazardous order covers “the cleaning of such machines or the individual parts or attachments of such machines,” and it applies to every worker under 18 apart from apprentices and student-learners in qualifying programs.
Can my own child work in the store before turning 14? Under 29 CFR 570.2(a)(2), the Act exempts “the employment by a parent of his own child” from its minimum age requirements, “except in occupations to which the 18-year age minimum applies and in manufacturing and mining occupations.” The hazardous orders still apply, and your state may set its own rule.
If my state has a different rule, which one do I follow? The stricter one. The regulation states that nothing in the hazardous-occupations subpart authorizes “non-compliance with any Federal or State law, regulation, or municipal ordinance establishing a higher standard.”
Key takeaways
Three age bands rule a store’s teen hiring: under 14, 14 to 15, and 16 to 17.
An owner’s own child may work below 14 under 29 CFR 570.2(a)(2), only where the parent alone employs the child, and never in a job under a hazardous order.
14- and 15-year-olds have hour caps: 18 hours in a school week, 3 hours on a school day, and nothing outside 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day).
A week with one day of school is a school week for the 18-hour cap.
Their permitted work is front-of-store work: cashiering, bagging, shelving, price marking, light cleanup and small-appliance food work, including a deep fryer only if it lowers and raises the baskets automatically.
Sign-holding is permitted inside or directly in front of the store and is prohibited peddling away from it.
Slicers are off limits to everyone under 18, including for cleaning, and for every product, not only meat.
Forklifts are off limits under 18, and so is operating or unloading a baler or compactor. 16- and 17-year-olds may load a paper baler only when it meets the four federal conditions, and stacking beside a baler is not operating it.
Delivery by car is not a standing job for a minor. The 17-year-old exemption is for incidental and occasional driving only, under the nine conditions in 29 CFR 570.52, and the regulation’s own definition of incidental rules out a daily delivery run.
The stricter rule wins, so check your state labor department before the first minor’s first shift.
Fill in the Teen Shift Card before the schedule goes up, and name the machines on it.
