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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, plus bills still awaiting a governor’s signature as of September 2026. 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.

Dates and dollar figures below come from official sources (the Department of Industrial Relations and chaptered bills). Pending bills are labeled as pending—they are not current law unless the governor signs them.

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.

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 / training-repayment clauses (watch 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 originally written, that ban applied to contracts entered on or after January 1, 2026.

Assembly Bill 1697 would move the effective date to contracts entered on or after January 1, 2027 and add exceptions (including certain grant-funded recruitment bonuses, advanced paid time off, and some securities/insurance affiliation contracts). As of September 17, 2026, AB 1697 had reached the governor but was not yet signed. Until it is chaptered, do not treat the delay as law. Workers asked to repay a “stay-or-pay” or training debt should keep the contract and get advice promptly.

Bills awaiting signature that would take effect in 2027

The 2026 legislative session sent several employment bills to the governor with 2027 effective dates. None of the following is law unless it is signed and chaptered:

AB 1940 would add perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause, and related medical conditions to FEHA’s definition of “sex,” covering discrimination, harassment, and failure to accommodate, and would require an updated CRD workplace poster by July 1, 2027.
SB 947 (the “No Robo Bosses Act”) would, beginning July 1, 2027, bar employers from relying solely on an automated decision system to discipline or fire a worker, require a human reviewer to independently corroborate the output, and restrict using such systems to infer protected characteristics or to predict and punish protected activity.

We will update this page after the September 2026 signing deadline. If a bill is vetoed, it will not appear as an enacted 2027 change.

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 that already affect California workers include CRD v. SpaceX (out-of-state workers and FEHA investigations), Glick v. City of Los Angeles (FEHA damages), and Morales v. Superior Court (narrow arbitration clauses).

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