California employers must submit annual pay data reports by May 13, 2026. While there are significant changes on the horizon for 2027 reporting, this year’s reporting remains largely in line with the prior year with three new data fields.
Employers must submit their 2025 pay data reports through the California Civil Rights Department’s online portal. The reporting obligation applies to:
- Private employers with 100 or more employees, at least one of whom is a California employee (payroll employee report)
- Private employers with 100 or more labor contractor employees, at least one of whom is a California employee (labor contractor employee report)
The CRD has also updated its Excel reporting templates and FAQ guidance, which employers should review closely before submission.
Updates to 2026 Reporting
For Reporting Year 2025, there are three new data fields that employers will need to include: exemption status, employment type, and total annual weeks worked.
- Exemption status: Employers will need to identify whether each California employee is exempt from the minimum wage and overtime pay provisions of the California Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders and/or the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
- Employment type: Employers will need to classify each California employe into one of three employment types (“Full-time,” “Part-time,” or “Intermittent”)
- Total annual weeks worked: Employers will need to identify the number of weeks worked by each California employee during the reporting year, including weeks during which the employee was on any form of paid time off.
In addition, as a reminder, CRD introduced updates to race and ethnicity classifications in 2025, which impact how employee data is categorized and reported:
- Addition of a new category: Middle Eastern or North African (MENA)
- Removal of “Other” from the Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander category
- Adoption of “Multiracial and/or Multiethnic” in place of “Two or More Races”
Employers new to reporting this year should make appropriate updates to HRIS systems, employee self-identification processes, and data validation workflows to comply.
New Requirements for Demographic Data Handling
Employers and labor contractors are required to collect and store any demographic data gathered pursuant to these reporting requirements separately from employees’ personnel records, strengthening:
- Data protection practices
- Appropriate use of sensitive information
- Compliance during audits and investigations
Existing Reporting Requirements
Employers must continue to report detailed pay data across multiple dimensions. Each report must include:
- Mean and median hourly pay by race/ethnicity and gender within each job category
- Employee counts by race/ethnicity, gender, and pay band (as used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Occupational Employment Statistics survey)
- Total hours worked by employees in each pay band
Additionally, employers are required to:
- Maintain payroll records for the duration of employment plus three years post-termination
- Submit pay data reports directly; EEO-1 reports cannot be used as a substitute
Employers must also report workforce distribution across three categories:
- Number of employees working onsite
- Number working remotely from California
- Number working remotely outside of California
This requirement reflects the increasing importance of understanding geographic pay dynamics in a distributed workforce.
Looking Ahead: Major Changes Coming in 2027
While 2026 reporting is relatively stable, employers should already be preparing for significant changes to next year’s reporting, under amendments to California Government Code section 12999 made by Senate Bill 464, which go into effect on January 1, 2027.
Expanded Job Categories
The state will replace the current 10 EEO-1 job categories with 23 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) categories used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This shift introduces greater granularity and is designed to improve the identification of employees performing equal or comparable work — a key concept in pay equity analysis.
Mandatory Penalties for Non-Compliance
The amendments to Section 12999, effective in 2027, also remove judicial discretion in penalty enforcement. If civil penalties are requested by the CRD for failure to file the required report, a court must impose that penalty:
- $100 per employee for a first violation
- $200 per employee for subsequent violations
A New Regulatory Subcommittee: More Changes Ahead
The California Civil Rights Council has established a pay data reporting subcommittee tasked with clarifying:
- Key regulatory definitions
- What must be reported (not just how)
- Longstanding ambiguities that have challenged employer compliance
This signals that further guidance — and potentially additional changes — are still to come.
What This Means for Employers
While the 2026 reporting cycle may feel familiar, California continues to increase the granularity of its reporting requirements year-over-year and employers must at the same time strengthen governance around demographic data. This reporting cycle also sits at the edge of additional reporting changes to come next year with increased enforcement risks.
Employers should use this year to:
- Validate data collection processes and reporting accuracy
- Prepare for increased job classification granularity
The direction is clear: California is moving toward a more comprehensive, transparent, and enforceable pay reporting framework.
Organizations that take a proactive approach now will be better positioned to meet both current obligations and the more complex requirements ahead.
How Trusaic Can Help
At Trusaic, we provide employers across California, the U.S., and the EU with solutions to comply confidently with expanding pay reporting and transparency requirements.
Our Pay Equity Software Suite enables compliant pay systems, ensures gender-neutral job evaluations, and automates complex reporting obligations to keep your organization one step ahead of enforcement.
- PayParity® analyzes base pay and all complementary or variable components using legally defensible regression-based analysis.
- Remediation Optimization Spend Agent (R.O.S.A.) identifies the most cost-effective strategies to close nominal pay gaps and meet remediation expectations.
- Regulatory Pay Transparency Reporting™ automates complex state and global reporting requirements, including California’s expanded regime and the EUPTD.
- Salary Range Finder® helps employers build equitable, transparent salary ranges aligned with local laws.
- Pay Decisions: Generate fair, competitive offers instantly from Workday.
Trusaic supports compliance with CCPA/CPRA, GDPR, and emerging pay transparency regulations worldwide. Our end-to-end solutions enable organizations to meet the evolving requirements of and build a sustainable, defensible pay equity framework.
