California Senate Bill 1162: Pay Scales, Data Reports, and Penalties

California Senate Bill 1162 requires employers doing business in the state to publish pay ranges in job postings, share pay scale information with employees and applicants who ask, keep wage and job title records for every worker, and—if the employer has 100 or more employees—file an annual pay data report with the California Civil Rights Department. The law took effect January 1, 2023. Which pieces apply to you depends on your headcount, but every California employer has at least some obligation under the statute.

Pay Ranges in Job Postings

Employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in every job posting, internal or external.¹ That covers your own careers page, third-party job boards, recruiter listings, and anywhere else an opening is advertised. When you use a staffing agency or outside recruiter, you must supply the pay scale to them, and they must include it in the posting.²

Remote positions count. If a job could be filled by someone working in California, the pay scale needs to appear in the listing, even when the employer sits in another state.

Smaller employers—those with fewer than 15 employees—do not have to publish pay scales in postings, but they still must provide the pay scale to any applicant who makes a reasonable request.¹

What a Compliant Pay Scale Looks Like

“Pay scale” under the statute means the salary or hourly wage range the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position.³ A range like “$75,000–$95,000 annually” or “$28–$36 per hour” works. A single figure is only acceptable if the employer genuinely expects to pay just that amount.

The range has to be a good-faith estimate of what you actually plan to pay. A floor set artificially low paired with a ceiling nobody realistically reaches invites scrutiny from the Labor Commissioner and is likely to be treated as noncompliant.

Pay Scale Requests From Current Employees

Every employer, regardless of size, must give a current employee the pay scale for their position on request.¹ There is no cap on how often an employee can ask, and you cannot require them to give a reason.

Wage and Job Title Records

Every California employer must keep records of each employee’s job title and wage rate history for the entire duration of employment plus three years after separation.¹ The Labor Commissioner can inspect these records.

The record-keeping duty has real teeth. If you fail to maintain the records and an employee later brings a pay equity claim, the law creates a rebuttable presumption in the employee’s favor.² The burden shifts to the employer, and the documents that would ordinarily disprove the claim no longer exist.

Annual Pay Data Reports for Employers With 100 or More Workers

If you have 100 or more employees, you must file an annual pay data report with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD).⁴ The report is due by the second Wednesday of May each year and covers the prior calendar year.

The report breaks the workforce down in detail:

Headcount by race, ethnicity, and sex across ten standard job categories (executives, managers, professionals, technicians, sales workers, administrative support, craft workers, operatives, laborers, and service workers).
The number of employees in each demographic group whose W-2 earnings fall within Bureau of Labor Statistics pay bands.
The median and mean hourly rate for each combination of job category, race, ethnicity, and sex.
Total hours worked by each employee counted in each pay band during the reporting year.

To build the report, you take a snapshot of your workforce during a single pay period between October 1 and December 31 of the reporting year, then calculate full-year W-2 earnings for every employee captured in that snapshot.⁴

Labor Contractor Reporting

If you hired 100 or more workers through labor contractors during the prior year, you must file a separate pay data report covering those contractor-supplied workers.⁴ The report must name every labor contractor used, and the contractors themselves are required by law to supply the pay data you need to complete it. The reporting obligation is on the client employer, not the staffing agency.

Penalties for Missing the Pay Data Report

If the CRD does not receive your report, it can seek a court order compelling compliance and recover the costs of doing so. A court can also impose civil penalties of $100 per employee for a first failure to file and $200 per employee for each subsequent failure.³

Penalties for Posting and Pay Scale Violations

Failing to include a pay range in a posting, refusing a pay scale request, or neglecting record-keeping duties carries civil penalties of $100 to $10,000 per violation.¹ The Labor Commissioner sets the amount based on the totality of the circumstances, including any prior citations.

First-time job-posting violations get a cure opportunity. If it is your first offense and you can show that every open posting has been updated to include the pay scale, no penalty is assessed.² After that, each noncompliant posting can be treated as a separate violation, and penalties climb toward the $10,000 ceiling on repeat offenses.

How Employees and Applicants Enforce the Law

An aggrieved employee or applicant has two routes. They can file a written complaint with the Labor Commissioner within one year of learning about the violation, and the Commissioner must investigate promptly and can order civil penalties.¹

They can also skip the administrative process and file a civil lawsuit seeking injunctive relief and any other remedy the court considers appropriate.² The private right of action means employers can face suit directly from employees and applicants, not only regulators.

Related Rules That Sit Alongside SB 1162

Two related protections are often grouped with SB 1162 but exist independently. California’s salary history ban, in the same Labor Code section, prohibits employers from asking applicants about their prior compensation—including salary, benefits, and other pay—or using salary history to decide whether to hire someone or what to offer.² The prohibition covers questions asked directly, through an agent, or through a background check vendor. An applicant may voluntarily share prior pay, but the employer cannot rely on it as the sole justification for a pay decision.

Separately, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects private-sector employees’ right to discuss compensation with coworkers, whether the workplace is unionized or not.⁵ Punishing employees for sharing salary information can lead to an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, and the EEOC treats inquiries about suspected pay discrimination as protected opposition under federal anti-discrimination law.

1
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 432.3
2
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code Section 432.3
3
California Legislative Information. California State Senate Bill 1162 – Employment: Salaries and Wages
4
California Legislative Information. California Government Code 12999
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 29 Section 157