Iowa Work Permit Laws: Ages, Hours, Driving, and Penalties

Iowa no longer issues work permits for minors. The state repealed its child labor permit requirement effective July 1, 2023, so a teen starting a job in Iowa does not need a state-issued form from a school or Iowa Workforce Development office before being hired.¹ What hasn’t gone away: age limits, restrictions on what kinds of work minors can do, hour limits for workers under 16, and recordkeeping duties that now sit squarely on the employer.

What Replaced the Permit

Before Senate File 542 took effect, Iowa required a child labor form issued through a school-designated officer or an Iowa Workforce Development center. SF 542 repealed the sections of Iowa Code Chapter 92 that governed that process and renamed the lists of allowed and prohibited “occupations” as “work activities.”²

Dropping the permit did not eliminate paperwork; it moved it. Employers hiring anyone under 18 should keep two things on file:

Proof of age. A certified birth certificate, current passport, or certified baptismal record showing date and place of birth all qualify. A driver’s license or school ID that shows the birth date also works for verification.³
Written parental or guardian consent. The old permit form bundled consent into the state process. With no state template, a signed document from the parent or legal guardian identifying the minor and the type of work serves the same purpose. Many schools and employers keep their own templates.

The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing (DIAL) enforces child labor rules, and these are the records inspectors ask to see.⁴

Minimum Age and What Minors Can’t Do

No one under 14 can be employed in Iowa, with narrow exceptions for family businesses, agriculture, and court-ordered work discussed below.³ From age 14 up, the restrictions loosen in stages, but even 16 and 17 year olds face a long list of prohibited jobs.

Ages 14 and 15

Workers in this age group are generally limited to retail, food service, and gasoline service tasks. Manufacturing, mining, and most processing environments are off-limits, as is heavy power-driven machinery. They cannot work in areas where alcohol is served for on-premises consumption.³

Ages 16 and 17

Older teens can take a broader range of jobs, but Iowa Code 92.8 still bars anyone under 18 from more than 20 categories of hazardous work, including:⁵

Manufacturing or storing explosives, and any mining operation.
Logging and work at sawmills, lath mills, or shingle mills.
Operating woodworking machines, metal-forming machines, circular saws, band saws, and guillotine shears.
Work in or around slaughterhouses, meatpacking plants, and rendering plants.
Power-driven bakery equipment, with a narrow exception for pizza dough rollers that have enclosed gears, cutoff microswitches, and built-in finger guards. Setup, adjustment, and cleaning of those rollers are still prohibited.
Any work involving radioactive substances or ionizing radiation.
Wrecking, demolition, roofing, and excavation.
Transmitting, distributing, or delivering goods or messages between 10:00 PM and 5:00 AM.
Work in establishments where nude or topless dancing is performed.

Alcohol Service by 16 and 17 Year Olds

Iowa allows restaurants to employ 16 and 17 year olds to sell and serve alcohol, but the conditions are strict. The rules apply only to restaurants, not bars. If food service is incidental to alcohol sales, the establishment counts as a bar and minors cannot serve alcohol there at all.⁶

To qualify, the restaurant must meet every one of these conditions:

At least two employees age 18 or older are physically present in the same area and can see the minor while they work.
Written permission from the parent, guardian, or legal custodian is on file and explicitly authorizes serving alcohol.
The restaurant has notified its dramshop insurance carrier, using the required form, for each minor employee.
The minor has completed sexual harassment prevention training upon starting the job.
Any harassment incident involving the minor is reported to both the parent or guardian and the Iowa Office of Civil Rights.

The minor can only serve alcohol during hours the restaurant is actively serving food, and every requirement applies per employee.

Hour Limits (and the Federal Trap)

Iowa’s hour rules only cover workers under 16. The state imposes no hour limits on 16 and 17 year olds, who may legally work the same schedule as adults under Iowa law.³

For 14 and 15 year olds, Iowa sets these limits: no work before 7:00 AM, no work past 9:00 PM during the school year, no work past 11:00 PM from June 1 through Labor Day, 6 hours maximum on school days, 28 hours per school week, 8 hours per non-school day, and 40 hours per non-school week.⁷⁴

Here is where employers get into trouble. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act sets tighter limits for the same age group, and the stricter rule wins:⁸

School days: 3 hours maximum (Iowa says 6).
School weeks: 18 hours maximum (Iowa says 28).
Evening cutoff during the school year: 7:00 PM (Iowa says 9:00 PM).
Evening cutoff June 1 through Labor Day: 9:00 PM (Iowa says 11:00 PM).
Non-school days and weeks: 8 hours and 40 hours, same as Iowa.

A 15 year old scheduled for a 5-hour shift ending at 9:00 PM on a school night would be legal under Iowa law and in violation of federal law on both counts. Employers should schedule to the federal numbers for anyone under 16.

Mandatory Break

Iowa requires a 30-minute break for any worker under 16 scheduled for five or more hours in a day. The break can be unpaid as long as the minor is completely relieved of duties.⁹ Iowa does not mandate breaks for 16 and 17 year olds.

Driving as Part of the Job

Federal law, not Iowa law, controls when a minor can drive for work, and the rules are stricter than most employers assume. Under Hazardous Occupations Order No. 2, no one under 17 may drive on the job at all. A 17 year old can drive on public roads for work only if every one of these conditions is met:¹⁰

Daylight hours only.
Valid state license for the type of driving involved.
Completed a state-approved driver education course and had no moving violations at the time of hire.
Vehicle weighs no more than 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.
Vehicle has seat belts and the employer has instructed the teen to use them.
Driving is occasional and incidental: no more than one-third of the workday and no more than 20 percent of weekly work time.

Even with all boxes checked, a 17 year old cannot make route deliveries (including pizza delivery), tow vehicles, carry more than three passengers, drive beyond 30 miles from the workplace, or make urgent time-sensitive deliveries. No one under 18 may ride on the outside of a vehicle as a delivery helper.

Exceptions Families Actually Run Into

Iowa Code 92.17 exempts several categories of work from Chapter 92 entirely:³

Household chores before or after school and during vacation, as long as the work is not related to the employer’s business or trade.
Work in any occupation or business operated by the child’s parents, including foster parents licensed by the state.
Part-time agricultural work (excluding migratory labor), plus seed production tasks like detasseling corn for workers 14 and older during June through August.
Child modeling for children under 16: up to 3 hours per day between 7:00 AM and 10:00 PM, not exceeding 12 hours per month, with written parental permission, and only outside school hours.
Court-ordered work for juveniles 12 and older benefiting the state, the public, or a crime victim.

The family business exception is broad on its face, but it does not override federal hazardous occupation orders. A parent who owns a roofing company cannot put a 15 year old on a job site based on this state exemption alone.

Waivers for Work-Based Learning

SF 542 created a waiver process allowing employers to place 16 and 17 year olds in certain normally prohibited hazardous activities as part of approved work-based learning or training programs. The waiver is coordinated among Iowa Workforce Development, the Iowa Department of Education, and DIAL.¹¹

Only employers can apply, and IWD recommends legal advice to determine whether a specific activity needs a waiver. Applications may be approved or denied.¹² A state waiver does not override federal law; if an activity is prohibited under the FLSA, the Iowa waiver alone is not enough.

What Violations Cost

Iowa can assess civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation of Chapter 92. A graduated schedule escalates fines with repeat offenses, and a fatality from prohibited work triggers an automatic $10,000 penalty regardless of prior history.³¹³

Federal penalties are steeper. The U.S. Department of Labor can assess up to $16,035 per child labor violation, rising to $72,876 when a violation causes serious injury or death, and $145,752 for willful or repeated serious-injury violations.¹⁴ The FLSA’s “hot goods” provision also lets the Department of Labor seek a federal court order blocking the interstate shipment of goods produced at a facility where a child labor violation occurred within the previous 30 days, which can reach buyers in the supply chain unless they obtained a written assurance of FLSA compliance in good faith before the violation.¹⁵ For a manufacturer or food processor, a shipping injunction often hurts more than the fine.

1
Iowa General Assembly. Iowa SF542 – 2023-2024 – 90th General Assembly – Enrolled
2
Iowa General Assembly. Iowa Senate File 542 – Youth Employment
3
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code Chapter 92 – Child Labor
4
Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing. Child Labor
5
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code 92.8 – Under Eighteen – Prohibited Work Activities
6
Iowa Department of Revenue. Employing 16 and 17 Year Olds
7
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code 92.7 – Under Sixteen – Hours Permitted
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 43 – Child Labor Provisions of the FLSA for Nonagricultural Occupations
9
Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing. Wage
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 34 – Child Labor Motor Vehicles
11
Iowa Workforce Development. Youth Employment Waiver
12
Iowa Workforce Development. Youth Employment Waiver – Frequently Asked Questions
13
Cornell Law Institute. Iowa Admin Code r 875-32.11 – Civil Penalty Calculation
14
U.S. Department of Labor. Civil Money Penalty Inflation Adjustments
15
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet – The Prohibition Against Shipment of Hot Goods Under the FLSA