Under California on-call pay laws, your employer must pay you for on-call time whenever the restrictions placed on you during that time prevent you from using it freely for your own purposes. The floor is California’s minimum wage, $16.90 per hour as of January 1, 2026, and every compensable on-call hour counts toward daily and weekly overtime just like a regular shift.1California Department of Industrial Relations. Minimum Wage If your employer isn’t paying for that time, you can recover the wages, penalties, interest, and attorney’s fees through the state Labor Commissioner or in court.
When On-Call Time Must Be Paid
The controlling question is how much control your employer has over you while you wait. In Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions, Inc., the California Supreme Court set out the factors courts weigh:
- Whether you must stay on the employer’s premises
- Whether geographic limits restrict how far you can travel
- Whether your required response time makes it impractical to leave
- How often calls actually come in
- Whether you can trade on-call duties with a coworker
- Whether a pager or phone loosens those physical restrictions
- Whether, in practice, you’ve been able to use the time for personal activities
Courts also look at whether the time is spent primarily for the employer’s benefit.2Justia. Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions No single factor decides the case. A ten-minute response window on its own might not turn on-call time into paid time, but layer it with a geographic boundary and frequent callbacks and the answer flips.
The Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders reinforce the same principle. “Hours worked” includes all time you’re subject to your employer’s control, whether or not the employer specifically asked you to be doing anything.3California Division of Industrial Relations. Wage Order 5-02 – Wages, Hours and Working Conditions in the Public Housekeeping Industry If the rules mean you can’t go to dinner, take your kids to the park, or run an errand without dropping everything, you’re working.
What You’re Owed for Compensable On-Call Hours
Compensable on-call time must be paid at your regular rate and never below the applicable minimum wage. Some cities and counties, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Berkeley, set higher local minimums, so check your local ordinance.
Overtime is where on-call workers get shortchanged most often. California pays time-and-a-half for hours beyond eight in a workday or 40 in a workweek, and double time for hours beyond 12 in a workday or beyond eight on a seventh consecutive day in the same workweek.4California Department of Industrial Relations. Overtime If you finish a regular eight-hour shift and then spend four compensable hours on call, those four hours belong at the overtime rate.
A flat standby stipend doesn’t end the calculation. Any amount your employer pays for on-call time has to be folded into your regular rate for overtime purposes. The correct math takes total compensation for all hours (standby pay included) divided by total hours worked to find the true regular rate, and overtime premiums come on top of that.
Sleep Time on 24-Hour Shifts
If you pull 24-hour on-call shifts, your employer cannot automatically shave eight hours off the top for sleep. Federal law allows that deduction in some cases when there’s an agreement between employer and employee, but the California Supreme Court held in Mendiola that the IWC Wage Orders do not permit employers to exclude sleep time from compensable hours when on-call restrictions prevent employees from using their time freely.2Justia. Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions If you’re required to sleep on-site and remain available to respond, that sleep time is almost certainly paid time in California.
Reporting Time and Split Shift Pay
On-call workers hit two other pay rules regularly. When you report to your scheduled shift but your employer sends you home with less than half your usual day’s work, reporting time pay kicks in: half the scheduled shift, with a two-hour minimum and a four-hour maximum, at your regular rate. If your employer calls you in a second time the same day and gives you less than two hours on that second trip, you’re owed a full two hours for that report.5California Department of Industrial Relations. Reporting Time Pay
When on-call scheduling breaks your workday into segments separated by more than a meal break, California requires a split shift premium of one hour’s pay at the state or local minimum wage, whichever is higher. Anything you already earn above the applicable minimum wage counts as a credit toward that premium.6California Department of Industrial Relations. Split Shift Workers earning well above minimum wage may see the premium absorbed; workers earning at or near the minimum are owed the extra hour outright.
What Your Employer Owes If They Don’t Pay
California stacks its enforcement mechanisms, and a single unpaid on-call policy can trigger liability on several fronts at once.
Unpaid Wages, Interest, and Fees
Under Labor Code Section 1194, you can sue to recover the full amount of unpaid minimum wages or overtime, plus interest, reasonable attorney’s fees, and court costs.7California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 1194 This right can’t be waived. Any agreement to accept less than minimum wage is unenforceable.
Waiting Time Penalties
If you’ve quit or been fired and your employer still hasn’t paid what’s owed, Labor Code Section 203 adds a waiting time penalty. Your wages continue to accrue at your daily rate for every day they remain unpaid, up to 30 days. For a worker earning $200 a day, the penalty alone can reach $6,000 on top of the underlying wages.8California Department of Industrial Relations. Waiting Time Penalty
PAGA Penalties
The Private Attorneys General Act lets you sue to recover civil penalties on behalf of yourself, other affected workers, and the state. After the 2024 PAGA reforms, the default civil penalty is $100 per aggrieved employee per pay period. It rises to $200 if a court or agency previously found the same employer policy unlawful within the past five years, or if the employer acted maliciously or oppressively. Isolated, nonrecurring violations lasting 30 days or fewer drop to $50.9California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 2699
Criminal Liability
An employer with the ability to pay who willfully refuses after a demand for wages commits a misdemeanor under Labor Code Section 216.10California Department of Industrial Relations. The Laws Relating to the Time, Manner and Payment of Wages A California misdemeanor carries up to six months in county jail and a fine of up to $1,000. Prosecutions are rare, but the statute exists.
How to Recover Unpaid On-Call Wages
You have two main paths. The first is filing a wage claim with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, the Labor Commissioner’s Office. Claims can be filed online, by email, by mail, or in person. The DLSE investigates and typically schedules a settlement conference; if the parties don’t resolve the dispute there, the claim moves to a hearing where an officer reviews evidence and issues a decision.11California Department of Industrial Relations. How to File a Wage Claim
The second path is court. That can be an individual lawsuit, a class action when the same on-call policy affects many workers (common in healthcare, security, and property management), or a PAGA action seeking civil penalties on behalf of all affected employees.
Whichever path you take, records decide close cases. Employers must keep payroll records showing daily hours and wages for at least three years, and they cannot stop you from keeping your own record.12California Legislative Information. California Labor Code Section 1174 Log every on-call period: when it started and ended, what restrictions applied, whether you were called in, and how fast you had to respond. When an employer’s records are incomplete, the burden of proof can shift to the employer to disprove your hours.
Deadlines
California generally gives you three years to file a claim for unpaid minimum wages or overtime, which covers most on-call pay disputes. Claims based on a written employment contract can reach back four years; oral-agreement claims are limited to two. Waiting time penalties under Section 203 carry a three-year deadline running from your last day of employment.
Federal law offers a shorter window under the Fair Labor Standards Act (two years for standard violations, three for willful ones), so most California workers file under state law.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations The sooner you file, the further back your claim can reach.