Where Can You Work at 15 in Virginia: Jobs, Hours, and Permits

If you are 15 and wondering where you can work in Virginia, the practical answer is retail stores, restaurants, offices, and some recreational settings, as long as you first get a Youth Employment Certificate and stay within the hour and task limits set by state and federal law. Virginia’s minimum wage is $12.77 per hour as of January 1, 2026, so even an entry-level shift pays real money.¹

Jobs You Can Actually Get at 15

Retail is where most 15-year-olds start. You can run a register, bag groceries, stock shelves, and handle general cleanup. Grocery chains, hardware stores, and clothing retailers hire teens for front-end and floor work year-round.

Food service is the other big door. Restaurants, fast-food chains, and cafeterias hire teens as counter help, dishwashers, and bussers. Some cooking is allowed, but the rules are specific enough to need their own section below.

Office and clerical work is on the table too: filing, data entry, running errands within a building. Virginia law specifically permits 14- and 15-year-olds to do clerical office work even inside types of businesses where most other work is off-limits to minors.²

Recreational settings open up a few more options. You can work at a bowling alley, handle gate duties or concessions at a swimming pool, or work non-lifeguard beach equipment roles. With proper certification, federal rules let 15-year-olds lifeguard at traditional swimming pools and water amusement parks.³ Virginia specifically bars anyone under 16 from lifeguarding at a beach, though.²

A few less-obvious positions are also allowed: cashier at a dry cleaner (as long as no processing happens on site), kitchen duties and hallway cleaning at hospitals and nursing homes, and intellectual or creative work like tutoring, music, or performing.

What You Can and Can’t Do in a Kitchen

Because so many 15-year-olds end up working around food, the cooking lines matter. You can operate everyday kitchen equipment: dishwashers, toasters, coffee grinders, milkshake blenders, and microwaves. You can prepare food and beverages, serve from cafeteria lines and steam tables, and clean kitchen surfaces. You can cook on electric or gas grills as long as there is no open flame.⁴

Deep fryers are allowed only when they have an automatic basket-lowering device. If you have to lower or raise the basket into the hot oil yourself, that fryer is off-limits. You also cannot bake, operate power-driven food slicers or grinders, or work in freezers or meat coolers, though you can step briefly into a freezer to grab something. When cleaning cooking equipment or handling grease, surface and oil temperatures must be under 100°F.⁴

These restrictions come from federal law and apply in every Virginia restaurant, chain or local. If a manager asks you to do something outside these lines, you can say no.

Jobs and Tasks That Are Off-Limits

Virginia bans a long list of workplaces for anyone under 16. Prohibited settings include manufacturing plants, warehouses, construction sites, laundry and dry-cleaning processing areas, funeral homes, lumber yards, ice plants, and carnivals or fairs. You also cannot work in hotel or motel room service, curb-service restaurants, pool halls, or as a theater usher.²

Hospital and nursing home work is only partially open. Kitchen duties and cleaning rooms and hallways are fine; working as a lab helper, therapist, orderly, or nurse’s aide is not. Veterinary offices are generally allowed, but you cannot assist with treatment of farm animals or horses.²

On top of the under-16 rules, Virginia and federal law both maintain a hazardous-occupations list that is off-limits to everyone under 18. The categories include mining and quarrying; logging and sawmilling; manufacturing or storing explosives; operating power-driven woodworking, metal-forming, bakery, paper-products, or meat-processing machinery; driving or riding as an outside helper on a motor vehicle; operating forklifts, cranes, boom trucks, or scissor lifts; and any work involving ionizing radiation. These bans apply regardless of employer size. A small family restaurant with a commercial meat slicer still cannot let a 15-year-old run it.⁵

A narrow exception exists for agricultural work on a farm owned or operated by a parent or legal guardian, where the hazardous-occupation rules do not apply. Students in a recognized vocational agriculture program can also perform certain otherwise-prohibited farm tasks under a supervised training agreement.⁶

How Many Hours You Can Work

Virginia follows the federal hour standards for workers under 16, and the rules shift depending on whether school is in session.

During school weeks, the cap is 18 hours total and no more than 3 hours on a school day. When school is out, the limits rise to 40 hours per week and 8 hours per day.⁷

Your shifts have to fall between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. for most of the year. From June 1 through Labor Day, the evening cutoff moves to 9:00 p.m. Outside those windows you cannot be on the clock.⁷

If you work more than five consecutive hours, your employer must give you at least a 30-minute meal break. A shorter break does not count as interrupting the five-hour stretch, so two 15-minute breaks will not satisfy the rule.⁸

Getting Your Youth Employment Certificate

Every 14- and 15-year-old in Virginia needs a Youth Employment Certificate before the first day of work. You cannot start while the application is pending. The whole thing runs through the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry’s online portal.⁹

Do not start the application until you have a firm job offer. The certificate is tied to a specific employer and job, so you need their information before you can proceed. There are three parts:

Youth registration, where you enter your personal information and job details.
Employer registration, where your employer logs in to confirm the duties, hours per day, days per week, and lunch period, and verifies your age using a birth certificate, baptismal record, or similar document.
Parent or guardian registration, where a parent or legal guardian provides electronic consent for the specified hours and duties.

Once all three sections are in, a compliance officer at the Department of Labor and Industry reviews the application, usually within 24 hours. If approved, the certificate is issued electronically to the employer and takes effect once you sign it.⁹ The employer must keep proof of your age on file and available for inspection.¹⁰

Change jobs and you need a new certificate. The one from your grocery store job will not carry over to a restaurant.

Pay, Taxes, and Protection on the Job

Expect $12.77 an hour or more unless you are earning tips in a food service role. Federal law allows a $4.25-per-hour training wage for workers under 20 during their first 90 calendar days, but Virginia’s higher state minimum wage overrides that in practice.¹¹

Your age does not exempt you from taxes. Your employer will withhold federal and state income tax if you earn enough, plus 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. You file a return at the end of the year like any other worker, and many teens end up with a refund because their annual earnings fall below the standard deduction.

Virginia’s workers’ compensation system covers minors. The statute defines “employee” broadly to include part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers as well as minors.¹² If you get hurt at work, your employer’s insurance should cover your medical expenses and a portion of lost wages. Report any workplace injury to your employer right away.

1
Governor of Virginia. Governor Spanberger Signs Bills to Raise State Minimum Wage
2
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 40.1-100 – Certain Employment Prohibited or Limited
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #43: Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act for Nonagricultural Occupations
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #2A: Child Labor Rules for Employing Youth in Restaurants
5
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Administrative Code 16VAC15-30 – Virginia Rules and Regulations Declaring Hazardous Occupations
6
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Administrative Code 16VAC15-50-30 – Exemptions to Hazardous Occupations
7
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Administrative Code 16VAC15-40 – Virginia Hours of Work for Minors – Section: 16VAC15-40-30
8
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 40.1-80.1 – Employment of Children
9
Virginia Department of Labor and Industry. Youth Employment
10
Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 40.1-93 – Proof Required for Employment Certificate
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Subminimum Wage
12
Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission. Employers