Where Can You Work at 14 in Colorado: Jobs, Hours, and Permits

If you’re 14 and looking for a job in Colorado, you can work in retail, food service, offices, outdoor maintenance, newspaper delivery, and as a golf caddy, as long as you stay within the state’s hour limits and avoid tasks the law treats as hazardous. Colorado pays 14-year-olds the full state minimum wage of $15.16 per hour in 2026, with no reduced “youth” rate.¹ The rules come from the Colorado Youth Employment Opportunity Act (CYEOA), which lists the jobs a 14-year-old is allowed to do rather than simply banning certain tasks. If a job isn’t on the approved list, a 14-year-old generally can’t take it.

Jobs a 14-Year-Old Can Work in Colorado

The CYEOA permits 14-year-olds to work in several familiar entry-level categories:²

Retail work such as price marking, stocking shelves, bagging groceries, and running a cash register.
Food service jobs like cashier, busser, and dishwasher, provided the role stays away from grills, fryers, ovens, and other high-heat cooking equipment.
Office and clerical tasks: filing, basic data entry, answering phones, and in-building errands.
Outdoor maintenance using non-powered tools, including hand car washing and lawn care with rakes or manual shears.
Newspaper and handbill delivery.
Caddying at a golf course.

Farm work is also open to 14-year-olds under federal rules, but only outside of school hours and only for non-hazardous tasks. A teen can’t operate tractors over 20 PTO horsepower, run harvesting or processing machinery, handle pesticides labeled “Poison” or “Warning,” work with livestock during breeding or birthing, or fell large timber. Those restrictions fall away on a farm owned or operated by a parent or guardian.³

Jobs and Tasks That Are Off-Limits

State and federal law both block 14-year-olds from work considered physically dangerous, and whichever rule is stricter controls.

Manufacturing, mining, and construction are entirely off-limits.⁴ A 14-year-old can’t operate power-driven machinery, which rules out lawn mowers, food slicers, grinders, and trimmers; office machines like copiers and vacuum cleaners are fine. Work involving explosives, radioactive materials, or hazardous chemicals is banned. So is outside window washing from sills, and any task that puts the teen on a ladder or scaffold.

Driving is off the table. A 14-year-old can’t drive a motor vehicle for work or ride on one as a helper. Loading and unloading goods from vehicles, railroad cars, or conveyors is also prohibited. The only things a teen may load or unload are personal items like a backpack, lunch box, or the hand tools they’ll use on the job.³

Door-to-door and street sales are prohibited under federal “youth peddling” rules. That covers selling at customers’ homes, on street corners, or at transit stations, plus the preparatory steps like loading sales vans and exchanging cash with the employer. Holding signs or wearing costumes to draw customers from a public sidewalk is barred unless the teen stands directly in front of the employer’s own storefront. Unpaid volunteer sales for charities or public agencies aren’t affected.

Hours You Can Work

Colorado tightens the schedule during the school year and loosens it on breaks:²

On school weeks, no more than 3 hours on a school day and 18 hours total per week, all outside of school instruction time.
On non-school weeks like summer or winter break, up to 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week.
During the school year, shifts can start no earlier than 7:00 a.m. and must end by 7:00 p.m.
From June 1 through Labor Day, the evening cutoff moves to 9:00 p.m.

How Much You Get Paid

Colorado’s minimum wage applies to workers of every age. That means a 14-year-old must be paid at least $15.16 per hour in 2026 from the first shift forward.¹ Federal law allows a $4.25 per hour “youth minimum wage” for the first 90 days of employment, but only where state law permits it.⁵ Colorado doesn’t, so the full state rate controls.

Breaks on the Job

Colorado’s wage order (the COMPS Order) requires employers to give every employee, including minors, a paid 10-minute rest period for every four hours worked, plus an uninterrupted, unpaid meal break of at least 30 minutes once a shift runs more than five consecutive hours. A 14-year-old on a six-hour summer shift gets one rest break and one meal break.⁶

Paperwork Before You Start

Colorado uses two documents for teen workers, and which one you need depends on when you’re working.

Age Certificate

An employer may ask a 14-year-old for an age certificate before the first shift. The certificate shows the minor’s age, date of birth, date of issuance, and the name of the issuing official. To get one, the teen brings proof of age (usually a certified birth certificate or passport), evidence of school enrollment, and a written consent form signed by a parent or guardian to the local school district superintendent or someone the school board has designated to issue certificates.⁷ The employer keeps a copy at the work site.

School Release Permit

A 14- or 15-year-old who wants to work on a school day during school hours needs a separate school release permit. Only the school district superintendent, an agent, or another person designated by the board of education can issue one. A teen who works only after school and on weekends doesn’t need a release permit, though the employer can still ask for a standard age certificate.

Special Situations

A few categories of work follow their own rules under the CYEOA:

A minor of any age may do non-hazardous work for a business owned 100 percent by a parent or guardian. Mining and manufacturing stay off-limits until the teen turns 16.⁸
Child actors, models, and performers are exempt from the CYEOA’s minimum-age rules, so children under 14 can work in those roles.⁹
The Director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics can grant case-by-case exemptions from most CYEOA provisions when doing so serves the minor’s best interests, taking into account the teen’s prior training and knowledge of safety precautions for the proposed work.

1
Department of Labor & Employment. Labor Standards and Statistics
2
Department of Labor & Employment. Youth Law
3
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 570 – Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of Interpretation
4
eCFR. 29 CFR 570.33 – Occupations That Are Prohibited to Minors 14 and 15 Years of Age
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 32 – Youth Minimum Wage – Fair Labor Standards Act
6
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. COMPS Order 40, 7 CCR 1103-1
7
U.S. Department of Labor. Employment/Age Certificate
8
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO 22 – Employment of Minors in Colorado
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Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Colorado Youth Employment Opportunity Act CRS 8-12-101 et seq