A California felony sentencing chart starts with a simple structure: most felonies carry three possible prison terms — a low, a middle, and a high — and the judge picks one. For the majority of felonies, those three options are 16 months, two years, or three years. More serious offenses have their own, longer triads written into the statute, and the final number you actually serve depends on enhancements, prior convictions, where the sentence is served, and how much credit reduces it.
The Three-Term Triad
Under Penal Code 1170, almost every California felony carries a sentencing triad: a low term, a middle term, and a high term.1California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1170 – Sentencing When the statute defining the crime doesn’t spell out a specific triad, the default is 16 months, two years, or three years, and that default covers roughly 71 percent of felonies.2California Policy Lab. Felony Offenses and Sentencing Triads in California
The judge has discretion to impose any term up to the middle. Going above the middle term requires a separate legal showing.
When the Upper Term Is Available
Senate Bill 567 changed how the high term is imposed. Under the current version of Penal Code 1170(b)(2), a court can only sentence above the middle term when the aggravating facts have been stipulated to by the defendant or found true beyond a reasonable doubt by the jury (or by the judge in a bench trial).1California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1170 – Sentencing If the defendant asks, the aggravation allegations are tried separately from the underlying charges.
One exception: prior convictions can still support the upper term based on a certified record alone, without going to a jury.1California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1170 – Sentencing Mitigating factors like no prior record, provocation, or a minor role in the offense point the other direction and support the low term.
Wobbler Offenses: Felony or Misdemeanor
Many California crimes are “wobblers,” meaning the prosecutor or court can treat them as either a felony or a misdemeanor. The difference is dramatic. A felony can mean state prison or county jail time measured in years; a misdemeanor tops out at one year in county jail.
Penal Code 17(b) sets out several ways a wobbler can end up as a misdemeanor. The prosecutor can file it that way from the start. A judge can declare the offense a misdemeanor before trial. And when the court grants probation for a wobbler, the judge can designate the offense a misdemeanor either at that point or later on a motion by the defendant or probation officer.3California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 17
State Prison or County Jail
Where a felony sentence is served changed with the 2011 Public Safety Realignment Act (Assembly Bill 109). Offenders convicted of non-serious, non-violent, non-sex felonies now serve their time in county jail rather than state prison.4California Department of Justice. 2011 Public Safety Realignment Fact Sheet These are commonly called “1170(h) felonies.”
County jail sentencing is off the table if you have a prior serious or violent felony conviction, are required to register as a sex offender, or your current sentence carries an enhancement that mandates state prison.5California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1170h If any of those apply, the sentence goes to state prison.
For county jail felonies, judges are generally expected to impose a “split sentence”: part of the term in custody, the rest under mandatory supervision by the county probation department.5California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1170h
Felony Probation Instead of Custody
Not every felony conviction results in time behind bars. Under Penal Code 1203, a judge can grant probation if mitigating circumstances exist or if the ends of justice would be better served by supervision than incarceration.6California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1203 Felony probation typically runs up to two years and can include community service, counseling, drug testing, and check-ins with a probation officer.
Probation is presumptively unavailable if you used a deadly weapon on another person, inflicted great bodily injury, or have two or more prior felony convictions, unless the judge finds an unusual case warranting an exception.6California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1203 The same holds for a long list of specified offenses including robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, murder, and certain sex crimes where the defendant was armed.
Multiple Counts: Concurrent and Consecutive
When someone is convicted of more than one felony, the court decides whether the sentences run at the same time (concurrently) or one after the other (consecutively). Concurrent sentences mean the clock runs on all counts at once, so you effectively serve only the longest. Consecutive sentences stack.
California uses a principal-and-subordinate framework for consecutive terms. The longest individual sentence becomes the “principal term.” Each additional consecutive count is a “subordinate term,” calculated as one-third of the middle term for that offense plus one-third of any specific enhancements attached to it. That one-third rule keeps consecutive sentences from simply multiplying by the count. Some serious offenses, like kidnapping with separate victims, carry the full middle term as the subordinate term instead of one-third.
Enhancements That Add Years
Enhancements are additional years added on top of the base term when specific facts are proven. They run consecutively, so the total is the base triad term plus whatever enhancements apply.
Firearm Enhancements
Penal Code 12022.5 applies to any felony where the defendant personally used a firearm and adds 3, 4, or 10 years. If the weapon was an assault weapon or machine gun, the range is 5, 6, or 10 years.7California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 12022.5 – Use of a Firearm
Penal Code 12022.53 is heavier and reserved for specified serious felonies like murder, robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking. It imposes a mandatory consecutive term of 10 years for personally using a firearm, 20 years for intentionally discharging one, and 25 years to life if the discharge causes great bodily injury or death.8California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 12022.53
Great Bodily Injury
Penal Code 12022.7 adds consecutive prison time for personally inflicting great bodily injury during a felony. The standard enhancement is three years, with higher terms tied to victim vulnerability or severity of harm, including five years for a comatose or paralyzed victim, five years for a victim age 70 or older, four to six years for a child under five, and three to five years in domestic violence circumstances.9California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 12022.7
Three Strikes
California’s Three Strikes Law, in Penal Code sections 667 and 1170.12, escalates punishment for defendants with prior serious or violent felony convictions. Each qualifying prior counts as a “strike.”10California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 667
One Prior Strike
With one prior strike, the sentence for any new felony is doubled, whether that new felony is serious, violent, or neither.10California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 667 A crime that normally carries a two-year middle term becomes four years. The doubling applies to the determinate term or, for indeterminate sentences, to the minimum term.
Two or More Prior Strikes
With two or more prior strikes, the outcome depends on the new offense. If it is itself a serious or violent felony, the sentence is an indeterminate life term with a minimum of the greatest of three calculations: three times the normal term, 25 years, or the term the court would otherwise impose including enhancements.11California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1170.12 In practice, that usually means at least 25 years before parole eligibility.
Voters narrowed this in 2012 with Proposition 36 (the Three Strikes Reform Act). Before then, any felony could trigger a third-strike life sentence. Now, if the new offense isn’t serious or violent, the sentence is doubled under the second-strike rule instead of triggering life.10California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 667 Exceptions remain: if the new crime involved a firearm, caused great bodily injury, or qualifies as a sex offense or certain drug crimes, the life sentence can still apply.
Strike defendants also must serve the sentence in state prison, cannot receive probation, and cannot have the sentence suspended. There is no washout period; time between the prior strike and the new offense doesn’t matter.12California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 667 – Penalty for Prior Serious or Violent Felony Convictions
Indeterminate Life Sentences
The most serious offenses fall outside the triad structure. First-degree murder carries 25 years to life. Second-degree murder carries 15 years to life. The “to life” language means the offender becomes eligible for a parole hearing after the minimum term but has no guarantee of release. Special circumstances in a murder case, such as multiple victims or murder committed during certain felonies, can result in life without the possibility of parole. The Board of Parole Hearings, not a formula, decides when (or whether) release actually happens.
How Much Time Is Actually Served
The number a judge announces is not always the number served. Custody credits reduce actual time behind bars, and they come in two forms: credit for time in custody before sentencing, and conduct credits for good behavior and program participation.
Under Penal Code 4019, a person in county jail earns two days of conduct credit for every four days served. The legislative intent is that four days of custody counts as a completed term of eight.13California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 4019 – Prisoner Confinement Credits That works out to roughly a 50 percent reduction. Credits can be lost for refusing work assignments or violating facility rules.
State prison inmates earn worktime credit under Penal Code 2933 at six months of credit for every six months of continuous incarceration, also an effective 50 percent reduction.14California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 2933 – Worktime Credit
Those generous calculations don’t apply to everyone. Under Penal Code 2933.1, a person convicted of a violent felony as defined in Penal Code 667.5(c) earns no more than 15 percent of the sentence in conduct credits, meaning at least 85 percent of the imposed term must be served. This is where the phrase “85 percent time” comes from, and it covers offenses like murder, robbery, kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury.
Restitution Fines
Every felony conviction in California triggers a mandatory restitution fine under Penal Code 1202.4. The court must impose it unless it finds “compelling and extraordinary reasons” not to and states them on the record. For felonies, the fine runs from a minimum of $300 to a maximum of $10,000, set at the court’s discretion based on the seriousness of the offense.15California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 1202.4 It is separate from and on top of any direct restitution ordered to compensate a victim for actual losses.
What Proposition 36 (2024) Changed
California voters approved a new Proposition 36 in November 2024. The measure increases penalties for certain repeat theft and drug offenses in ways that change how the chart plays out.
For theft, shoplifting or petty theft of items worth $950 or less, normally a misdemeanor, becomes a felony if the person has two or more prior convictions for qualifying theft crimes. The felony sentence can reach up to three years in county jail or state prison.16Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 36 Felony sentences for property crimes can also be lengthened by up to three years when three or more people committed the offense together.
For drugs, the measure creates a new “treatment-mandated felony.” Someone who possesses drugs like fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, or methamphetamine and has two or more prior drug convictions can be charged with this new felony rather than a misdemeanor. Defendants who complete court-ordered treatment get their charges dismissed. Those who fail treatment face up to three years in state prison.16Legislative Analyst’s Office. Proposition 36 The measure also generally requires that sentences for selling fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, or methamphetamine with quantity-based enhancements be served in state prison rather than county jail.