How Old Do You Have To Be To Be A Bartender?

Can you be a bartender at 18 in the U.S.? In many places, the answer is yes. In fact, some jurisdictions even allow you to serve alcohol when you’re under 18!

Below, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about the minimum age for bartending, including state-by-state bartending age requirements.

How Old to Bartend in the U.S.?

Unfortunately, bartender age requirements vary from state to state. In fact, sometimes counties or cities set bartending age differently than the state.

Also, in some jurisdictions, the minimum age for bartending depends on whether the business you work for is a restaurant or a bar.

When you put all these things together, your situation is highly dependent on where you intend to work.

Below, we’ll lay out the bartending laws by state as they stand at the time we’re writing this article. However, these laws can change at any time, so it can be a good idea to check up-to-date laws in your state, county, and city to ensure you know the current requirements.

Minimum Age for Bartending

In most jurisdictions, the minimum age for bartending is either 18 or 21. A handful are oddballs that set the minimum age at 19 or 20.

Perhaps more surprisingly, a few jurisdictions have recently made it legal to serve alcohol at ages as young as 16 due to labor shortages in the restaurant industry.

Can You Bartend Under 21?

Less than half of the states require people to be 21 before they can bartend in all circumstances, so in most of the U.S., there’s a good chance that you can bartend before you’re legally allowed to drink.

Additionally, you may find it useful to know that some states make a distinction between “bartending” and “serving alcohol” under the law. We’ll get into the details later, but this means that you may be able to wait tables in places that serve alcohol even if you’re too young to legally bartend.

State-By-State Bartending Age Requirements

What states allow bartenders under 21? You can find your bartending laws by state in the table below.

It’s legal in many states for a local jurisdiction (like a county, township, or municipality) to set the minimum bartending age higher than the state minimum (but not lower). As a result, your local minimum age may be stricter than the one listed

Can You Serve Alcohol If You’re Not a Bartender?

We mentioned earlier that some states set the age for “serving alcohol” before the minimum age to bartend.

Each state has its own way of defining the two roles; typically, alcohol servers are allowed to bring open containers of alcohol from the bar to a customer’s table, but they aren’t allowed to pour or mix the beverage. That’s the bartender’s job.

Sometimes, the law also makes a distinction between types of businesses based on whether they serve food. So, for example, in one state, an alcohol server might be able to ferry alcoholic drinks to the customer in any type of establishment, but in another, they can only be employed to do so by a restaurant, not a bar.

Finally, some of these states also require written parental permission if servers are under 21.

Regardless of where the state draws the line between the roles, here are states where you can serve alcohol before you can bartend.

State laws can often be modified by counties or cities to be more restrictive but never less restrictive.

Do You Need a License to Bartend?

Some jurisdictions require bartenders, alcohol servers, or both to have what's often referred to as a bar card, bartending license, or alcohol certification. In some cases, this credential is legally required, while in other cases, it's simply incentivized so that most employers decide to require it themselves.

To earn alcohol certification, you typically need to take the state’s responsible alcohol service curriculum with an approved training provider and sometimes submit a permit application.  Check out our state-by-state guide to get an idea of the rules where you are.

Get Required Alcohol Training for Your State Online

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