Schooling Age Rises to 18 and What It Means for Student CDD

Starting with the 2026-2027 school year, compulsory schooling in Luxembourg moves from 16 to 18. Young people will now have to stay in education two years longer than before. That directly affects a common arrangement: the student CDD, the fixed-term contract that lets students work part time during the school year or full time during the holidays. From 1 September 2026, working that contract outside school holidays generally requires being 18, not 16 as today.

Until now, a teenager could legally leave school at 16. From 1 September 2026, under a law called the loi du 20 juillet 2023 relative à l'obligation scolaire, that age moves to 18. The government's reasoning: keep teenagers who are struggling connected to education and support for longer, and reduce the number of young people leaving school too early.

Checking that families follow the rule also changes hands, from the local commune to the State. If a family isn't complying, nobody gets fined or taken to criminal court, the law rules that out entirely. Instead, the family gets support measures first, and only as a last resort does the case get referred to the youth court.

The rule has one built-in exception. If a student already holds a secondary school diploma or a vocational diploma from a recognised Luxembourg institution (public or approved private), or an equivalent qualification recognised by the Education Minister, the schooling obligation ends there. A 17-year-old who already has a diploma doesn't have to sit through one more year of school just because of their age.

A student CDD during school holidays isn't affected by this reform. The minimum age for that version of the contract stays at 15, the baseline for anyone counted as a student under the framework at all.

A student CDD signed outside school holidays is a different contract, capped at around 15 hours a week. Today, it requires the student to be at least 16, because compulsory schooling currently ends at 16. From 1 September 2026, that threshold rises together with the new schooling age: a pupil or student generally needs to have turned 18 to work that version of the contract, unless a legal exception applies.

Two exceptions soften that. A student who already holds a secondary or vocational diploma exits compulsory schooling early, and with it, the age condition on the contract. And the change isn't retroactive: anyone who had already turned 17 before 1 September 2026 keeps working under the rules that applied when they signed.

There's a separate route for a minor who wants to leave education altogether, not for a part-time student job but for a real, full-time position. This detail comes from the bill's 2023 committee discussions, so it's worth checking it's still in force as described before relying on it.

Amendments at the committee stage introduced a dispensation, from age 16, a minor with a genuine employment contract, fixed-term or permanent, could ask to be excused from the schooling obligation for as long as that job lasts, and could go back to school if they changed their mind.

Holiday contracts for students, from age 15, aren't affected by this reform. It's the term-time student CDD that changes: from 1 September 2026, expect to need a student to be 18 rather than 16, unless they already hold a diploma or had already turned 17 before that date. If you're hiring a 16 or 17-year-old for a school-year job starting after the cutoff, check which exception, if any, applies before signing.