Between October 18–21, this website will move to a new web address (from health.gov to odphp.health.gov). During that time, some functions might not work as expected. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we’re working to make this transition as smooth as possible.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Underage Drinking: Minimum Ages for Off-Premises Sellers

About this resource:

HHS Non-systematic Review

Source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Last Reviewed: January 2019

Workgroups: Substance Use Workgroup

This webpage includes tools about laws that set a minimum age for employees who sell alcoholic beverages in off-premises establishments. It features tables that include:

  • Policies for each state as of specific dates
  • Minimum age requirement to sell alcoholic drinks based on each policy
  • Whether a manager or supervisor must be present when alcohol is sold
  • Policy changes over time 
  • Citations to legal sources

Users can sort and filter the tables by a variety of criteria. In addition to the tables, the webpage provides resources like:

  • Timeline of policy changes
  • Useful maps and charts
  • List of variables and other definitions to help understand the language used in the webpage
  • Detailed information about the policy the state laws are based on
Read more about this resource

Objectives related to this resource (1)

Reduce the proportion of adolescents who drank alcohol in the past month — SU‑04
Little or no detectable change

Suggested Citation

1.

Alcohol Policy Information System. (n.d.). Underage drinking: Minimum ages for off-premises sellers. Retrieved from https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/apis-policy-topics/minimum-ages-for-off-premises-sellers/37