How Do You Get a Work Permit? EAD and Minor Permits

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Contents

If the question is about immigration work authorization
If the question is about a minor work permit
North Carolina: finish the certificate, not just registration
Washington: the employer’s permit and the minor’s authorization
Keep the two systems and employment verification separate
Sources

Key Facts

Identify the permit: An immigration Employment Authorization Document and a state youth employment certificate address different legal requirements.
Immigration eligibility: Form I-765 requires an eligible category; a job offer alone does not establish eligibility.
Young workers: Federal child-labor rules do not require working papers, but state permit requirements and federal limits on jobs and hours still need separate attention.
North Carolina: A Youth Employment Identification number starts the current online process; it is not the completed employment certificate.
Washington: For covered nonagricultural jobs, the employer needs a minor work permit endorsement and the required youth authorization records before employing minors.

To get a work permit, first identify what the employer is asking for: immigration employment authorization, permission to employ a minor, or documents for employment verification. Starting with the wrong meaning can send an applicant to the wrong agency.

An immigration work permit is commonly an Employment Authorization Document, or EAD, issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A youth work permit follows state employment rules instead; the North Carolina and Washington examples below show why there is no single application process for those states.

If the question is about immigration work authorization

Some noncitizens are authorized to work because of their immigration status, some have authorization limited to a particular employer, and others must obtain employment authorization through an application. Form I-765 is used by eligible applicants to request employment authorization or evidence of authorization they already have.

Lawful permanent residents, including conditional permanent residents, do not use Form I-765 to obtain permission to work. The form instructions also exclude the employer-specific nonimmigrant categories identified in 8 C.F.R. § 274a.12(b).

For someone who does need to apply, the useful sequence is to identify the eligibility category, select the initial, renewal, or replacement request, and assemble the evidence required for that category. The instructions ask for an eligibility category in Part 2, Item 27, rather than treating a job offer as a universal basis for approval.

Check the current filing method, filing address, fee instructions, and accepted form edition before submitting anything. USCIS’s filing directions vary by eligibility category and reason for applying.

There is an immediate form-edition transition to check: as reviewed on September 9, 2026, USCIS had announced that the 09/15/26 edition would be required for filings postmarked or submitted electronically on or after September 15, 2026, with no grace period. Its announcement says the 08/21/25 edition is accepted only for filings postmarked or submitted electronically before that date.

For an applicant whose category requires USCIS to grant employment authorization, filing the application is not the same as receiving permission to start work. Approval produces authorization for the applicable period and conditions.

Renewal applicants should not assume that a receipt automatically extends an expiring EAD: the regulation generally bars that automatic extension for renewal applications filed on or after October 30, 2025. Earlier qualifying renewal applications and extensions provided under another applicable law or a Temporary Protected Status notice require their own analysis.

These document-renewal rules should not be confused with employment authorization that exists through status itself; for example, the asylum-status regulation expressly distinguishes an EAD’s expiration from expiration of the person’s work authorization. For the detailed filing path, see our Form I-765 guide.

If the question is about a minor work permit

Start with the state where the job will be performed and the employer’s proposed duties and schedule. Ask who starts the application, who must sign, which age documents are accepted, and what must be completed before the first shift.

The federal youth employment provisions do not require minors to obtain working papers or work permits. They do regulate covered work, and a stricter applicable state child-labor standard is not displaced by the federal law.

A permit therefore cannot be read as permission to perform every task at the workplace. For example, the ordinary federal rules for covered nonagricultural work restrict 14- and 15-year-olds to permitted work outside school hours, with limits of 3 hours on a school day and 18 hours in a school week.

The ordinary limits rise to 8 hours on a nonschool day and 40 hours in a nonschool week, subject to the other restrictions and specific regulatory exceptions. The federal youth rules do not impose the same hours limits on workers aged 16 or 17, although hazardous-occupation restrictions still apply.

Farm work has a different federal framework, so these nonagricultural limits should not be carried over to an agricultural job. Our guide to child-labor laws covers the broader age, hours, and hazardous-work questions.

North Carolina: finish the certificate, not just registration

North Carolina generally requires a youth employment certificate for workers under 18 unless a specific exemption applies. State law also prevents a certificate from authorizing work that would violate the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

The online process checked on September 9, 2026 begins with the young person registering for a Youth Employment Identification number, called a YEID. The young person gives that number to the prospective employer, which enters the employment information and checks the applicable age and job restrictions.

The system then emails the young person to sign and provide a parent’s or guardian’s email address. After the parent or guardian signs, the completed certificate is sent to the employer.

The employer, young person, and parent or guardian must each sign the certificate for it to be valid, and the completed process is required before work begins. Having a YEID or an unfinished email request is not a substitute for that completed certificate.

The state’s page also announces that the process is changing soon to an employer-first sequence, but the live registration and employer portals checked for this article still used the YEID sequence above. Follow the current official portal’s instructions if the transition has occurred when applying, rather than assuming an announced change is already operating.

Washington: the employer’s permit and the minor’s authorization

Washington’s current rules for covered nonagricultural youth employment separate the employer’s minor work permit endorsement from the individual young person’s authorization paperwork. The employer needs an endorsement for each work location, and one endorsement can cover any number of minors at that location.

Before employing a minor, the employer must also have the required parent/school authorization or parent authorization for summer work and proof of age. Accepted age evidence includes a birth certificate, driver’s license, notarized parental statement, or a qualifying federal identification document such as a passport.

For the school-year authorization, the department’s form includes signatures from the employer, minor, school official, and parent or guardian. It records the proposed duties, working hours, and job location, making the actual job and schedule part of the approval process.

The employer completes its portion first and gives the form to the minor to obtain the required approvals. A summer authorization does not eliminate the school-approval requirement if employment will continue after school starts.

These authorization forms expire on September 30 each year, and the rules exempt court-emancipated minors from this authorization-form requirement. The employer’s permit endorsement is a separate requirement; the emancipation exception should not be read as eliminating it.

The employer must keep the required records for each minor, including the authorization and age evidence, for three years after the last date of employment. Washington’s updated youth-employment rules took effect July 1, 2026, so an older checklist using the repealed section numbers may miss the current requirements.

Keep the two systems and employment verification separate

A noncitizen minor may need to satisfy both an applicable immigration employment-authorization rule and the state’s youth-employment requirements. A state certificate does not create an immigration eligibility category, and an EAD does not override the state requirements described above.

Form I-9 is another distinct step: it verifies identity and employment authorization rather than granting an EAD or issuing a youth certificate. Its document rules allow qualifying evidence of both identity and work authorization, or the appropriate combination of separate documents; an EAD is only one listed option.

Before agreeing on a start date, make the remaining question concrete: Is USCIS approval still needed, is a state certificate incomplete, is an employer endorsement missing, or is employment-verification documentation being requested? Keeping those questions separate makes it easier to identify the next responsible person or agency.