Virginia Child Labor Laws for 17-Year-Olds: Wages & Restrictions

Under Virginia child labor laws for 17-year-olds, the state treats workers this age much like adults: no work permit, no cap on hours, no restrictions on when they can be scheduled, and the same minimum wage. What still applies is a list of hazardous occupations they cannot legally do until they turn eighteen, plus tight conditions on any driving they do for the job.

No Permit and No Hour Limits

Virginia’s employment certificate requirement stops at age sixteen.¹ A seventeen-year-old can apply for a job and start on the same timeline as any adult. No school form. No agency approval.

The state’s hour and scheduling caps also apply only to minors under sixteen.² Once a worker turns sixteen, those limits disappear. Federal law takes the same approach, placing no restrictions on total hours or time of day for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in non-agricultural jobs.³ A seventeen-year-old can legally work overnight, during school hours, on weekends, and full time. If they clock more than forty hours in a week, the employer owes overtime at one and a half times the regular rate under the federal FLSA standard Virginia follows.

Breaks are not guaranteed. Virginia’s thirty-minute meal-break rule applies only to workers under sixteen, and federal law does not require breaks for this age group either.² Many employers still offer them, but a seventeen-year-old has no statutory right to one. If an employer does give a short break of twenty minutes or less, federal rules treat that time as paid.

Employers should still verify the worker’s age at hire. A government-issued ID, birth certificate, or passport is the usual proof, and keeping documentation on file matters because federal law authorizes substantial civil penalties per employee for child labor violations.⁴

Minimum Wage

Virginia’s minimum wage is $12.77 per hour as of January 1, 2026, and it applies to seventeen-year-olds the same as to adults.⁵ The rate adjusts each year based on the Consumer Price Index.⁶

Federal law allows a youth minimum wage of $4.25 per hour for workers under twenty during their first ninety consecutive calendar days on the job.⁷ It does not help Virginia employers. The sub-minimum only runs against the federal floor of $7.25, and where state law pays more, state law controls. A seventeen-year-old in Virginia is owed $12.77 from the first hour.

Tipped work has one variation. Employers may take a tip credit, but base wages plus tips must equal or exceed $12.77 per hour across each pay period. A seventeen-year-old server should track hours and tips to confirm the total lands where it should.

Jobs a 17-Year-Old Cannot Do

This is where Virginia’s rules bite. Regardless of hours or scheduling flexibility, state law bars anyone under eighteen from a defined list of hazardous occupations.⁸ The Department of Labor and Industry spells out each category in its administrative regulations.⁹ Off-limits work includes:

Mining, quarrying, and tunneling, including underground scaffolding
Logging, sawmills, shingle mills, and cooperage-stock mills
Any occupation involving exposure to radioactive substances or ionizing radiation
Operating or assisting with power-driven woodworking machines (circular saws, band saws), metal-forming machines, bakery machines, and paper-products machines
Operating forklifts, cranes, and other power-driven hoisting equipment
Slaughtering, meatpacking, processing, or rendering work involving power-driven equipment
Roofing, wrecking, demolition, and shipbreaking
Excavation, including trenching

An employer who assigns a seventeen-year-old to one of these jobs is exposed on two fronts. Certain child labor violations are classified as a Class 6 felony under state law.¹⁰ Federal civil penalties per employee can be added on top.⁴

A narrow exception exists for farm work: sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds working on farms, in gardens, or in orchards may operate trucks and farm vehicles, excluding tractor-trailers.⁸

Driving for Work

Work driving is where employers most often slip up. A seventeen-year-old may drive a car or small truck on public roads as part of a job, but only if every one of these conditions is met:⁸

The driving happens during daylight only
It is occasional and incidental, meaning no more than one-third of any workday and no more than twenty percent of weekly work time
The vehicle weighs no more than 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight and has seat belts the employer requires the worker to use
The driving is not for time-sensitive deliveries such as pizza, prepared food, or courier packages
The work does not involve route sales, transporting property for hire, or carrying more than three passengers

The occasional-and-incidental piece is the one employers misjudge most often. A restaurant that hires a seventeen-year-old as a kitchen worker and occasionally sends them out for supplies during daylight is likely fine. The same restaurant assigning that worker to run food deliveries is not, even before sundown.¹¹

Working for a Parent

A common assumption is that working for a parent takes a seventeen-year-old outside the child labor rules. It usually does not. Virginia’s broader parental exemption for non-manufacturing occupations applies only to children under sixteen.¹² A seventeen-year-old working in a parent’s retail store or restaurant is subject to the full range of protections, including the hazardous-occupation bans.

Two exemptions do reach seventeen-year-olds. A child of any age employed by a parent on farms, orchards, or gardens the parent owns or operates is exempt from most child labor provisions, though workplace-injury and certain safety rules still apply. And a minor doing occasional household jobs — yard work, babysitting, house cleaning — outside school hours for someone else’s home is exempt, as long as the work is tied to the home and not to the homeowner’s business.¹²

If a 17-Year-Old Is Hurt on the Job

Virginia’s workers’ compensation law defines “employee” to include minors, trainees, and part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers.¹³ Any employer with more than two employees must carry coverage. If a seventeen-year-old is injured at work, they are entitled to the same benefits as any other worker: medical treatment, wage replacement, and compensation for permanent impairment. Being a minor does not reduce those benefits. If the injury happened because the employer had put the minor in a prohibited hazardous job, the employer’s exposure only grows.

Taxes on the Paycheck

A seventeen-year-old’s paycheck is treated like anyone else’s. The employer withholds federal income tax, Social Security at 6.2%, and Medicare at 1.45%, plus Virginia state income tax.

Whether a return has to be filed depends on earnings. The federal standard deduction for a single filer in tax year 2026 is $16,100.¹⁴ A dependent’s standard deduction is typically lower, generally capped at the greater of a base amount or earned income plus a small increment, so a seventeen-year-old claimed on a parent’s return may owe tax at a lower threshold than an independent filer. Even where no tax is owed, filing is the only way to recover any federal or state income tax that was withheld during the year.

1
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 40.1-84 – Employment Certificate Required
2
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Administrative Code 16VAC15-40 – Hours of Work for Minors
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 43 – Child Labor Provisions of the FLSA for Nonagricultural Occupations
4
U.S. Department of Labor. FLSA – Child Labor Rules Advisor – Civil Money Penalties
5
Virginia Department of Labor and Industry. Virginia Minimum Wage Rate Increasing Effective January 1, 2026
6
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Minimum Wage Act – Section 40.1-28.10
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 32 – Youth Minimum Wage – Fair Labor Standards Act
8
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 40.1-100 – Certain Employment Prohibited or Limited
9
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Administrative Code 16VAC15-30 – Hazardous Occupations
10
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 40.1-103 – Cruelty and Injuries to Children; Penalty
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 34 – Hazardous Occupations Order No. 2 – Youth Employment Provision and Driving
12
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 40.1-79.01 – Exemptions from Chapter Generally
13
Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission. Employers
14
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026