Working as a teen in Indiana: no permit, but real hour limits

For years, an Indiana teen had to get a work permit from the school office before starting a job. That is over. The state says plainly that the state has eliminated work permits for 14- through 17-year-olds, and that schools no longer track or register young workers.

The duty moved to the employer. Any Indiana business that employs five or more workers aged 14 to 17 must enter each one (name, age, and hire date) into the state's Youth Employment System, called YES. A business with four or fewer teen workers can register but does not have to. You do not need to bring anything from school. If a manager tells you to go get a permit, they are working from an old rule.

If you are 14 or 15, Indiana keeps the same hour limits it had before, which line up with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (the FLSA, the national wage and child-labor law). Under that federal floor, you can work no more than 3 hours on a school day, 8 hours on a non-school day, 18 hours in a school week, and 40 hours in a week when school is out. Your shifts must fall between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Indiana also adopted the federal summer exception: from June 1 through Labor Day, a 14- or 15-year-old can work until 9 p.m.

If you are 16 or 17, the picture is different. Since January 1, 2025, Indiana lets you work the same hours and days as an adult. The state no longer requires a parent's permission for a late or long shift. The FLSA sets no hour limits for 16- and 17-year-olds either, so there is no federal backstop here.

One set of limits did not move: the list of prohibited and hazardous jobs. Indiana says its list continues to mirror federal law. Driving for work, meat slicers, and most power-driven machinery stay off-limits under 18.

Indiana's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal minimum, and it applies to employers with two or more employees. Federal law also allows some employers to pay workers under 20 a lower training rate during their first weeks on a job, so ask what your starting rate is before your first shift and get it in writing if you can.

Why does federal law win when the state is looser? The Supreme Court answered that in United States v. Darby (1941). The Court held that Congress can use its power over interstate commerce to set wage, hour, and child-labor rules for businesses, overturning an earlier case, Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), that had said the opposite. The result is the layering you see in Indiana: the FLSA is the floor, and a state can be stricter but not looser.