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Firm Home · Legal Resources · Law Updates

2027 California Employment Law Updates

A worker-focused roundup of California employment-law changes taking effect in 2027. The governor’s September 30, 2026 signing deadline has passed. Bills below are chaptered unless marked vetoed. These are not Workplace Rights Advocacy case results—for the firm’s verdicts and settlements, see Case Results.

Summary for general education only—not legal advice. Dollar amounts, effective dates, and bill status can change. Confirm the current text of any statute or opinion before relying on it.

What this page covers

This page tracks 2027 developments California employees ask about: statewide and industry minimum wages, the salaried overtime-exemption threshold, pay-data reporting that affects equal-pay investigations, and new statutes that may change discrimination, leave, or termination rules. Published 2027 court decisions will be added here as they land. For 2026 opinions already summarized, start at all law updates.

Dollar figures come from the Department of Industrial Relations. The statutes below are chaptered bills unless a veto is noted. This is a plain-English overview of the changes workers ask about most often, not every employment bill from the 2026 session.

Statewide minimum wage: $17.40 on January 1, 2027

Beginning January 1, 2027, California’s statewide minimum wage increases to $17.40 per hour. The Department of Finance certified the inflation adjustment in July 2026; the Labor Commissioner’s Office published the reminder in DIR News Release 2026-66. Piece-rate workers are still entitled to at least the applicable minimum wage for all hours worked.

Cities and counties may require a higher local rate. Fast-food and covered healthcare workplaces can also have separate industry floors. When more than one rate could apply, the worker is generally owed the highest applicable minimum. Employers must list wage rates on pay stubs and post the current wage orders. Underpayment can support claims for unpaid wages, liquidated damages, and penalties—see wage and hour and wage theft.

Salaried overtime exemption: $72,384

The statewide minimum-wage increase also lifts the salary piece of California’s white-collar overtime exemptions. DIR’s formula is $17.40 × 2 × 40 hours × 52 weeks: $72,384 per year beginning January 1, 2027.

Salary is only one part of the test. A worker still must perform exempt duties (executive, administrative, professional, or another recognized exemption). A title and a salary at or above $72,384 do not automatically erase overtime, meal-period, or rest-break rights. If you are salaried and routinely work more than eight hours in a day or 40 in a week, read whether salaried employees are owed overtime and try the wage and hour calculator.

Pay-data reports: 23 job categories (SB 464)

Senate Bill 464 (chaptered October 13, 2025) amends California’s annual pay-data reports to the Civil Rights Department. Private employers with 100 or more employees already file those reports. Beginning January 1, 2027, the job-category list expands from 10 EEO-1-style buckets to 23 Standard Occupational Classification groups. The 2026 reporting year, due in May 2027, is the first cycle that uses the 23 categories.

Workers do not file these reports. The change matters because more detailed occupational groupings can make sex- and race-based pay gaps easier for the Civil Rights Department to see—and can support equal pay and discrimination investigations. SB 464 also requires demographic information gathered for the report to be stored apart from personnel files, and it makes civil penalties for failure to file mandatory when the department asks a court to impose them.

Senate Bill 1237 (Chapter 1019, Statutes of 2026), signed September 30, 2026, raises the penalty for a later failure to file. Beginning January 1, 2027, a subsequent failure can draw a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per employee, up from $200. The penalty for a first failure stays at up to $100 per employee.

Healthcare and other industry wage floors

Covered healthcare facilities follow a separate minimum-wage schedule under California’s healthcare worker wage law. Rates differ by employer size and facility type, and they are already higher than the statewide $17.40 floor. Another scheduled step-up for many covered employers lands on July 1, 2027. Confirm the rate that matches your workplace on the Labor Commissioner’s healthcare minimum-wage materials rather than assuming the statewide number applies.

If your paycheck stayed flat while coworkers in the same classification received the new floor, document pay stubs, job title, and hours, then compare them to the posted wage order. Related pages: healthcare employees, nurses, and physicians.

Stay-or-pay and bonus-repayment contracts (AB 1697)

California’s 2025 “anti-trap” statute (AB 692) restricts employment contracts that make a worker pay a penalty, fee, or training debt if the job ends. As first written, that ban applied to contracts entered on or after January 1, 2026.

Assembly Bill 1697 (Chapter 889, Statutes of 2026) was signed September 30, 2026. It is an urgency measure, so the bill itself took effect on signing. It moves the stay-or-pay restrictions so they apply to contracts entered on or after January 1, 2027. It also widens the signing-bonus exception to cover certain bonuses paid after hire, and it adds exceptions for some grant-funded programs, securities or insurance producer agreements, and advanced paid time off. A repayment demand is not automatically legal because of those exceptions. Keep the contract and the demand.

No Robo Bosses Act (SB 947)

Senate Bill 947 (Chapter 859, Statutes of 2026), the “No Robo Bosses Act,” was signed September 30, 2026. The automated-decision rules are operative July 1, 2027.

An employer may not use an automated decision system as the sole basis for discipline or termination without independent human corroboration. If the employer primarily relies on the system, a human must review the output and the worker must receive a notice after that use. The statute also bars using an automated decision system to infer a protected characteristic or to retaliate. It is the successor to Senate Bill 7, which the governor vetoed in 2025. A firing or write-up that came only from a score, ranking, or monitoring tool is worth documenting: save the notice, the metrics, and any request for a human review. Related pages: wrongful termination and retaliation.

Emotion recognition and neural data (AB 1883)

Assembly Bill 1883, signed September 30, 2026, takes effect January 1, 2027. It bars employers from using surveillance tools that rely on facial, gait, or emotion recognition, or that collect neural data, and from using surveillance to infer a protected characteristic. The Labor Commissioner can enforce it, and workers have a private right of action.

Cal-WARN notices when AI causes the layoff (SB 951)

Senate Bill 951, signed September 30, 2026, takes effect January 1, 2027. It amends the existing Cal-WARN Act. It does not create a separate notice statute. When a covered mass layoff, relocation, or termination is caused substantially by artificial intelligence or automation, the 60-day notice must say so and identify the affected job functions and the AI system involved. A notice that hides an automation layoff can matter in a wrongful termination or WARN dispute.

Bereavement leave for a designated person (SB 1149)

Senate Bill 1149 (Chapter 679, Statutes of 2026) was approved September 27, 2026, and takes effect January 1, 2027. It amends Government Code § 12945.7. A covered employer—generally one with five or more employees, and public employers—already had to allow up to five days of bereavement leave for the death of a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, or domestic partner.

Beginning in 2027, “family member” also includes a designated person: anyone related by blood, or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. The employee may name that person when requesting the leave. The employer may limit each employee to one designated person in a 12-month period. The five days still need not be consecutive, and the leave still must be completed within three months of the death. Pay follows the employer’s existing bereavement policy; if there is none, the time may be unpaid, and the employee may use vacation, personal leave, accrued sick leave, or compensatory time.

FEHA “sex” definition, and the vetoed menopause bill

Assembly Bill 2563, signed September 30, 2026, takes effect January 1, 2027. It sets a uniform definition of sex discrimination across California codes and confirms that the definition includes discrimination based on nonconformity with sex or gender stereotypes. A trigger that would have added menopause to that definition did not take effect.

Assembly Bill 1940 would have added perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause, and related medical conditions to the FEHA definitions of “sex” and “medical condition.” The governor vetoed it on September 30, 2026. Those conditions are not a new named FEHA category because of that bill. Existing disability, medical-condition, sex, and pregnancy protections can still apply to a particular set of facts. See discrimination and pregnancy discrimination.

Arbitration agreements and FAA exceptions (AB 2155)

Assembly Bill 2155 was signed June 30, 2026, and takes effect January 1, 2027. It makes a California arbitration agreement unenforceable to the same extent the agreement would be unenforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act, including the Act’s exemption for certain transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce. It does not ban employment arbitration. Workers who move goods, including on an in-state leg of an interstate shipment, should compare the clause with Flowers Foods v. Brock and the arbitration guide.

2027 court decisions

Individual case summaries stay in the same format as our 2026 updates (court, year, official opinion link, plain-English holding). No 2027 published opinions are posted here yet. Recent 2026 decisions already on this site include Cruz v. City of Hermosa Beach (POBRA and a citywide vaccine rule), McInerney v. Regents (Fair Chance Act), and Smith v. Burbank Unified (a FEHA religious-accommodation claim). The full list is on all law updates.

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