What is the minimum working age in Maine?

14, for most jobs. Narrow exceptions allow younger children to do domestic work in a private home, work in planting, cultivating or harvesting field crops, or work for a parent in a nonhazardous occupation. Outside those, 14 is the floor.

Does a minor need a work permit in Maine?

Anyone under 16, including home schooled students and minors working for their own parents. A new permit is required for every new job. The minor takes proof of age and parental permission to their school superintendent, who verifies academic standing and forwards it to the Maine Department of Labor. You must have the stamped, approved permit on file before the minor starts work.

How late can a 15 year old work in Maine?

Until 7 p.m. during the school year, or 9 p.m. during summer vacation. They can start no earlier than 7 a.m. and can't work during school hours. On a school day the limit is 3 hours, and 18 hours across a school week.

How late can a 16 or 17 year old work in Maine?

Until 10:15 p.m. before a school day, or midnight when there's no school the next day. Federal law doesn't restrict hours for this age group, so these limits come from Maine law and apply only while the minor is still enrolled in school.

What are the penalties for violating child labor laws?

Up to $16,035 per employee involved under federal law, rising to $72,876 where a violation causes serious injury or death and $145,752 if that violation is willful or repeated. Maine can add its own penalties. Most violations found in practice are paperwork and scheduling problems rather than dangerous work, but the penalty applies either way.

Paper Trails > What are Maine’s child labor laws?

What are Maine’s child labor laws?

Maine's child labor laws set the minimum working age at 14, require a work permit for anyone under 16, and limit how early, how late, and how many hours minors can work depending on whether school is in session. Where Maine's rules and federal rules differ, you have to follow whichever one protects the minor more.

If you run a seasonal business in Maine, you already know how much of your summer staffing depends on high school students. Getting these rules wrong is easy, and the Department of Labor has been looking a lot harder lately.

Key Takeaways from this Article

The minimum working age in Maine is 14, with narrow exceptions for domestic work and agriculture.
Anyone under 16 needs an approved work permit on file before their first shift, and a new one for every new job.
Hour limits are tighter during the school year and differ between 14 to 15 year olds and 16 to 17 year olds.
You have to keep daily time records for every employee under 18 showing start time, finish time, and total hours.
Federal penalties run up to $16,035 per employee involved, and child labor is a current DOL enforcement priority.

What are Maine's Child Labor Laws?

Child labor laws restrict when, where, and how long people under 18 can work. The federal baseline comes from the Fair Labor Standards Act, enforced by the Wage and Hour Division, which sets a minimum working age, limits hours, and bars minors from hazardous occupations.

Maine layers its own rules on top, and they're stricter than federal law in several places. Federal law doesn't limit hours at all for 16 and 17 year olds. Maine does. When both apply, you follow the one that's more protective of the minor, which in Maine usually means the state rule.

The state splits its requirements into two age brackets, and the differences between them are where most employers slip up.

Want to make sure your business is staying compliant? Don’t miss our Maine Employer's Almanac. It covers everything you need to know—from federal laws to Maine-specific requirements.

How Many Hours Can a Minor Work in Maine?

	14 and 15 year olds	16 and 17 year olds
Work permit required	Yes	No
Earliest start	7 a.m.	7 a.m. school day, 5 a.m. otherwise
Latest finish, school night	7 p.m.	10:15 p.m.
Latest finish, no school next day	9 p.m., summer only	Midnight
Max hours, school day	3	6
Max hours, non-school day	8	10
Max hours, school week	18	24
Max hours, non-school week	40	50
Max consecutive days	6	6

A few more details. For 16 and 17 year olds, the 8 hour figure applies on the last school day of the week, and the 50 hour week applies when there are fewer than three scheduled school days, or during the first and last week of the school year. Minors under 17 can't work during school hours at all unless they have early release or are in an approved program. And the hour limits stop applying to 16 and 17 year olds who are no longer enrolled in school.

Whatever the age, you have to keep daily time records for every employee under 18. Start time, finish time, total hours, every day.

Who Needs a Work Permit in Maine?

Anyone under 16, including home schooled students, and including minors working for their own parents. They need a new permit every time they start a new job.

The process runs through the school, not through you. Once the minor has a job offer, they take proof of age and parental permission to the office of the superintendent of schools where they live. The superintendent verifies they're enrolled, passing most courses, and not frequently truant or suspended, then submits the form to the Maine Department of Labor. Approval can take about a week.

Your obligation is simple and absolute: the stamped, approved permit has to be on file before the minor works a single shift. Not on the way. On file.

Minors can hold one permit during the school year and two when school is out.

What Jobs Can Minors Do in Maine?

At 14, minors can work in restaurants that aren't on hotel or motel premises, sporting and overnight camps, stores, filling stations, ice cream stands, laundromats, hospitals, nursing homes, children's camps, construction, municipalities, and agriculture. They can also work outdoors on hotel and motel grounds, though not if the job means staying away from home overnight.

At 15, that expands to nonhazardous work in hotel and motel dining rooms, kitchens, lobbies, and offices. Room service and deliveries to guest rooms are still off limits.

At 16 and 17, minors can work in manufacturing, bakeries, laundries, dry cleaners, and garages, provided the work is nonhazardous, plus commercial amusement places like skating rinks, arcades, bowling alleys, and pool halls.

Occupational restrictions apply to every minor regardless of school enrollment. Anything involving power driven machinery, and most work in establishments serving alcohol for on premises consumption, stays prohibited. The Maine Department of Labor guide for minors has the full occupational lists.

What Are the Penalties for Violations?

Federal civil money penalties reach $16,035 for each employee who was the subject of a violation. A violation causing serious injury or death goes to $72,876, and doubles to $145,752 if it's willful or repeated.

Those amounts normally rise every January with inflation. They didn't this year, because the data needed to calculate the adjustment wasn't available, so 2025 levels carried into 2026.

Maine can assess its own penalties on top of the federal ones, and the Bureau of Labor Standards inspects businesses periodically rather than only on complaint. Child labor has been a stated DOL enforcement priority since the 2023 reporting on minors working overnight shifts in meatpacking and manufacturing, and enforcement activity has climbed every year since.

The practical risk for most Maine employers isn't a headline violation. It's a missing work permit, or a 15 year old who stayed until 8 p.m. on a Tuesday in October because someone called out.

FAQs: Maine Child Labor Laws

14, for most jobs. Narrow exceptions allow younger children to do domestic work in a private home, work in planting, cultivating or harvesting field crops, or work for a parent in a nonhazardous occupation. Outside those, 14 is the floor.
Anyone under 16, including home schooled students and minors working for their own parents. A new permit is required for every new job. The minor takes proof of age and parental permission to their school superintendent, who verifies academic standing and forwards it to the Maine Department of Labor. You must have the stamped, approved permit on file before the minor starts work.
Until 7 p.m. during the school year, or 9 p.m. during summer vacation. They can start no earlier than 7 a.m. and can't work during school hours. On a school day the limit is 3 hours, and 18 hours across a school week.
Until 10:15 p.m. before a school day, or midnight when there's no school the next day. Federal law doesn't restrict hours for this age group, so these limits come from Maine law and apply only while the minor is still enrolled in school.
Up to $16,035 per employee involved under federal law, rising to $72,876 where a violation causes serious injury or death and $145,752 if that violation is willful or repeated. Maine can add its own penalties. Most violations found in practice are paperwork and scheduling problems rather than dangerous work, but the penalty applies either way.

Getting This Right

Most Maine employers who run into trouble here weren't trying to cut corners. They hired a 15 year old in June, the permit came through late, and nobody caught it. Or the schedule got rewritten on a Thursday and someone under 16 ended up closing.

Time tracking that flags an underage employee before they clock past their limit solves most of it. So does a hiring checklist that won't let onboarding finish without the permit attached. We build both for clients as part of payroll and HR compliance, and we're happy to look at how you're handling seasonal minors before the summer hiring push rather than after. There's more on the wider picture in our guide to what's required of a Maine employer.

Updated: October 2026

Written by: Jon Portanova

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