California pay transparency law: what job postings must include

California requires any employer with 15 or more employees, with at least one working in the state, to publish the pay scale for a position in every job posting, whether the role is on-site, hybrid or remote. The rule sits in Labor Code section 432.3, runs alongside a separate, size-independent ban on asking candidates about salary history, and was amended again for 2026 by SB 642. Miss it and the Labor Commissioner can fine you per posting, not per company.

The statute and who enforces it

The pay scale posting duty is Labor Code section 432.3, added by SB 1162 and in effect since January 1, 2023. The California Legislative Information site's official text of the section shows it was most recently amended by Stats. 2025, ch. 468, sec. 1 (SB 642), effective January 1, 2026. The Labor Commissioner's Office, part of the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) within the Department of Industrial Relations, enforces it and publishes guidance on the California Equal Pay Act that covers the posting rule alongside the older salary-history ban.

SB 642 did not change the posting requirement itself. It amended the companion equal-pay statute, Labor Code section 1197.5, to broaden the definition of "wages" used when comparing pay between employees doing substantially similar work, to include bonuses, stock, stock options and other forms of compensation beyond base salary, and it extended the time an employee has to file an equal-pay claim to three years, with back pay recoverable for up to six years before the claim is filed. If you build pay scales off a total-compensation model rather than base salary alone, SB 642 is the reason to check that model again for 2026.

Which employers are covered

Two different thresholds apply under the same section, and recruiters routinely mix them up:

• Pay scale in job postings: employers with 15 or more employees, counting anywhere, as long as at least one employee is currently in California. The Labor Commissioner's guidance says to count all employees, including part-time staff, exempt staff and minors; bona fide independent contractors are excluded from the count.
• Salary history ban and pay scale on request: every employer, regardless of size. Labor Code 432.3(e) prohibits any employer from seeking or relying on an applicant's salary history, and a smaller employer that is not yet required to post a pay scale must still hand one over if a candidate asks after an interview.

Coverage follows the job, not the company's mailing address. The Labor Commissioner's position, stated in its published guidance, is that the pay scale must appear in the posting if the position may ever be filled by someone working in California, in person or remotely. A Texas-headquartered company advertising a fully remote role open to California applicants is covered the same as a company with a Los Angeles office.

What must appear in the posting

The posting must state the pay scale: "the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position." A few rules the Labor Commissioner has been specific about:

• A range needs a real floor and a real ceiling. "$70,000 and up" or "up to $120,000" does not satisfy the statute.
• The range has to be what the employer actually expects to pay, not a wide band chosen to avoid the question. For a role with a genuinely wide range driven by experience level, the range can be wide, but it should still reflect a good-faith estimate rather than a placeholder.
• If the position is paid by hourly wage instead of salary, the posting must give the hourly range instead.
• Piece-rate or commission-only roles must disclose the piece rate or commission structure that will apply, described in the posting.

Unlike several other states in this series, California's statute does not require a description of benefits, bonus eligibility or other non-wage compensation in the posting itself. Only the pay scale is mandatory. You can add a benefits line voluntarily, and many employers do, but leaving it out does not violate 432.3.

If you use a staffing agency, job board or any other third party to post the role, Labor Code 432.3(c)(6) puts the duty on you as the employer to give that third party the pay scale, and requires the third party to include it in the posting once you have.

What a candidate or employee may ask for, and when

• Applicants: may ask for the pay scale for the specific position they are applying to, and the employer must provide it. In practice this mostly matters for employers under 15 employees, since covered employers already have to publish the range.
• Current employees: may ask for the pay scale of the position they currently hold, regardless of employer size, and the employer must provide it.
• Salary history: no employer, of any size, may ask an applicant about current or past pay, orally or in writing, directly or through a recruiter. An applicant may still volunteer that information without being asked, and if they do, the employer may consider it, but cannot rely on it alone to set an offer below what the pay scale would otherwise support.

Records the employer must keep

Labor Code 432.3(d) requires an employer to maintain records of the job title and wage rate history for each employee, for the duration of that person's employment plus three years after employment ends, and to make those records available for Labor Commissioner inspection. If a pay-equity complaint is filed and the employer cannot produce the records, the statute lets the Labor Commissioner treat that gap as evidence supporting the complaint, which functions as a strong incentive to keep the records even though the section does not spell out a separate penalty for the recordkeeping failure by itself.

Penalties and who enforces them

The Labor Commissioner may order a civil penalty of not less than $100 and not more than $10,000 per violation for failing to include the pay scale in a job posting. The statute gives first-time offenders a narrow break: no penalty applies to a first violation of the posting requirement if the employer shows that every job posting has since been updated to comply. Second and later violations do not get that grace period. Beyond the Labor Commissioner's own enforcement, an aggrieved applicant or employee can also bring a civil action for the salary history violations under 432.3(e).

What it means for a staffing agency posting a client's role

Section 432.3(c)(6) makes the hiring employer responsible for supplying the pay scale to any third party it engages to post the job, and it makes the third party responsible for including that pay scale once received. In practice this means a staffing agency posting a California client's role should treat "get the pay scale in writing before the posting goes live" as a non-negotiable intake step, the same way you would confirm a job title or location. If a client is reluctant to share a number, point to the statute: the obligation to disclose the range runs to the role, not to whichever party happens to be doing the advertising, so posting without it exposes both the client and the agency's own listing to a Labor Commissioner complaint. Agencies that recruit into California from out of state should apply the same rule to remote roles a California-based candidate could fill, even if the client's office is elsewhere.

A posting checklist for California

This is a working checklist, not a substitute for legal review. Confirm each line against the posting before it goes live.

CALIFORNIA JOB POSTING — PAY SCALE CHECKLIST

[ ] Employer has 15+ employees total, with at least 1 currently in California
    -> if yes, pay scale is mandatory in every job posting for this role
[ ] Range has both a floor and a ceiling (no "up to" or "and up" phrasing)
[ ] Range reflects what you would actually offer, not a wide placeholder band
[ ] Hourly roles show an hourly range, not an annual salary range
[ ] Commission or piece-rate roles describe the commission/piece-rate structure
[ ] No salary history question anywhere in the application, screen or interview script
[ ] If a third party (agency, job board) is posting this role, the pay scale was
    sent to them in writing before the posting went live
[ ] Job title and wage-rate history for this hire will be retained for the
    duration of employment plus 3 years after separation
[ ] If a current employee asks what the pay scale is for their own role, someone
    on the team knows to answer, not deflect

How California compares with the rest of this series

California requires the pay scale only, no benefits line, which is narrower than Washington, Illinois or Maryland's requirements covered elsewhere in this series. Its 15-employee threshold matches Washington and Illinois, but its "at least one California employee" test for remote roles is closer to how Washington counts than how Colorado or Maryland, which have no size threshold at all, approach the question. For the full state-by-state comparison, see pay transparency laws by state. For how to phrase pay-related questions once the posting is live, see salary expectation questions, and for the wider list of topics interviewers should avoid, see illegal interview questions.