Kansas Child Labor Laws: Age, Hours, Permits, and Wages

Kansas child labor laws set a firm floor at age 14, cap the hours 14- and 15-year-olds can work, restrict school-night shifts for 16- and 17-year-olds, require a work permit for any employee under 16, and ban all workers under 18 from hazardous jobs. Federal rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act run in parallel, and when the two systems disagree, the stricter rule controls.

Minimum Age to Work

No one under 14 can be employed in any occupation, trade, business, or service in Kansas.¹ The prohibition is absolute unless the activity is one the state does not treat as employment at all (see below).

At 14, paid work becomes possible in a limited range of non-manufacturing, non-hazardous jobs, but hour limits and job restrictions are strict. At 16, most hour limits drop away. Hazardous-occupation bans stay in place until 18.

Work Hours for 14- and 15-Year-Olds

Kansas caps children under 16 at eight hours a day and 40 hours a week, with work allowed between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. (later on evenings that don’t precede a school day).² Federal law is tighter on several points, and because the stricter standard controls, the practical limits look like this:³

School days: no more than 3 hours, and only outside school hours.
School weeks: no more than 18 hours total.
Non-school days: up to 8 hours.
Non-school weeks: up to 40 hours.
Time of day: between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. most of the year, extending to 9 p.m. from June 1 through Labor Day.

The daily and weekly school caps come from federal law, which is stricter than Kansas’s 8-hour/40-hour state figures. The 7 p.m. cutoff is also federal; Kansas’s 10 p.m. limit is more lenient and therefore doesn’t apply.⁴

Work Hours for 16- and 17-Year-Olds

Once a Kansas worker turns 16, neither state nor federal law imposes daily or weekly hour caps.⁴ Kansas does keep one restriction in place, though: 16- and 17-year-olds cannot work between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. on nights before a school day.⁵

On evenings that don’t precede a school day, including weekends and summer nights, there is no time-of-day rule. A 16-year-old can legally close on a Saturday but can’t stay on the clock past 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday during the school year. Employers scheduling older teens for closing shifts need to check the next day’s school calendar.

Work Permits for Minors Under 16

Any Kansas employer hiring a child under 16 must obtain a work permit before the minor starts.⁶ The employer provides a written statement describing the job, and the permit records the child’s age and the nature of the work. When employment ends, the permit is returned. The state labor commissioner can revoke a permit if conditions change or violations come to light.

Employers must also post a notice near the principal entrance of the workplace stating the maximum daily hours, start and stop times, and meal break times for any minor under 16 on staff.⁷ Working a minor longer than posted, or at different times, counts as a violation.

Workers who are 16 or 17 do not need a work permit under Kansas law. Hazardous-occupation rules still apply to them.

Jobs Minors Can’t Do

Kansas bans all workers under 18 from any occupation that is “dangerous or injurious to the life, health, safety, morals or welfare” of a minor, and the statute incorporates the federal hazardous-occupation orders directly, making them enforceable under state law as well.⁸ The most commonly relevant categories:⁴

Manufacturing or storing explosives (retail ammunition sales are allowed).
Driving on public roads or riding as an outside helper, with a narrow daylight-only exception for some 17-year-olds.
Coal mining and other mining work.
Power-driven woodworking machines, including chain saws, nailing machines, and sanders.
Workplace exposure to radioactive substances or ionizing radiation.
Hoisting equipment such as forklifts, backhoes, scissor lifts, boom trucks, and cranes. Chair lifts at ski resorts and car lifts at gas stations are exempt.
Operating or cleaning power-driven meat slicers, saws, or choppers anywhere they’re used, restaurants included, plus most work in slaughtering and packing plants.
Commercial dough mixers, rollers, and sheeters, with limited exceptions for lightweight countertop mixers.
Circular saws, band saws, wood chippers, and abrasive cutting discs.

For 14- and 15-year-olds, the list of prohibited work runs longer. Workers in this age group can’t work in processing, manufacturing, warehousing, construction, or communications, can’t operate any power-driven machinery other than standard office equipment, and can’t perform tasks from ladders or scaffolds.³ The working rule for this age group: if a job isn’t specifically permitted, treat it as prohibited.

What Doesn’t Count as Employment

Several categories of work fall outside Kansas’s child labor rules entirely, meaning the age, hour, and permit requirements don’t apply. Under K.S.A. 38-614:⁹

Children working for their own parents in nonhazardous occupations.
Domestic service, such as babysitting or household cleaning.
Casual labor in or around a private home.
Delivery and messenger work.
Newspaper and shopping-circular delivery.
Agricultural work, including farming, horticulture, livestock, and dairy.
Acting or performing in film, theater, radio, or television, subject to separate rules in K.S.A. 38-615 through 38-622.

One catch applies across the board: no child who is required to attend school can perform any of this exempt work during the hours public school is in session in the child’s district. A 12-year-old can deliver newspapers after school, but not at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday.

The agricultural exemption is broad. The U.S. Department of Labor classifies Kansas among the states where agricultural employment is either exempt from or not covered by the state child labor law, though federal agricultural rules still apply to larger farming operations covered by the FLSA.¹⁰ The hazardous-occupation ban for workers under 18 still applies even inside exempted categories.

Wages for Minors

Kansas’s minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, matching the current federal minimum, and it applies to minors the same as to adults.¹¹ Federal law allows employers to pay a youth subminimum wage of $4.25 per hour to any employee under 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment. The clock runs on calendar days, not days actually worked, and it starts on the first day of work.¹² Once the employee turns 20 or the 90 days pass, whichever comes first, the regular minimum applies.

Not every employer uses the subminimum wage. Many pay $7.25 or more from day one. But it’s legal, and a minor at a first job shouldn’t be surprised by $4.25 on an early pay stub.

Penalties for Violations

Kansas child labor violations carry consequences under state statute, and enforcement runs through the Kansas Department of Labor, which investigates complaints and can issue fines and penalties for violations of laws covering minimum wage, work hours, and employment of minors.¹³

The federal Department of Labor can separately impose civil monetary penalties for FLSA child labor violations. Because state and federal enforcement operate independently, one incident can trigger action from both.

Complaints can come from parents, workers, school officials, or inspectors, and the state labor department has authority to revoke work permits when violations surface.

1
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 38-601 – Children Under 14, Employment
2
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 38-603 – Children Under 16, Employment
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Non-Agricultural Jobs – 14-15
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 43 – Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act for Nonagricultural Occupations
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Selected State Child Labor Standards Affecting Minors Under 18 in Non-Farm Employment
6
Justia Law. Kansas Code 38-604 – Work Permit Required; Exception
7
Kansas State Legislature. Kansas Code 38-605 – Notice of Hours of Labor
8
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 38-602 – Children Under 18, Employment; Rules and Regulations
9
Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Kansas Code 38-614 – Activities Not Considered Employment
10
U.S. Department of Labor. State Child Labor Laws Applicable to Agricultural Employment
11
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
12
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 32 – Youth Minimum Wage – Fair Labor Standards Act
13
Kansas Department of Labor. Workplace Laws and Requirements