DLSE NTE: California Notice to Employee Contents and Delivery

The DLSE NTE is the written notice California employers must give most new hires at the time of hiring under Labor Code section 2810.5. Short for the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement Notice to Employee, it lays out the basic terms of the job in writing: pay rate, how that pay is calculated, the employer’s legal identity and contact information, workers’ compensation coverage, paid sick leave rights, and any recent emergency declaration affecting the workplace. The idea is simple. If a pay dispute lands in front of the Labor Commissioner later, there’s a document showing what the worker was actually promised on day one.¹

What the Notice Has To Contain

The statute pulls specific data points into three areas.

Pay and Compensation

The notice states the pay rate and the basis for that rate, meaning whether the worker is paid by the hour, by salary, by piece, by commission, or on some other arrangement. If overtime applies, the overtime rate goes on the form. The employer also has to list any allowances claimed against the minimum wage, such as meal or lodging credits, and identify the regular payday.¹

Employer Identity

The form requires the employer’s full legal name along with any “doing business as” names, the physical address of the main office or principal place of business, a separate mailing address if one exists, and a telephone number.¹

Workers’ Compensation

The notice includes the name, address, and telephone number of the employer’s workers’ compensation carrier.¹ The official DLSE-NTE template also asks for the policy number.²

Paid Sick Leave

The sick leave section is narrower than many employers assume. The statute does not require a full explanation of accrual rates or carryover caps. It requires telling the employee four things: that they may accrue and use paid sick leave, that they have the right to request and use it, that they cannot be fired or punished for using or requesting it, and that they can file a complaint if the employer retaliates.¹

Emergency or Disaster Declarations

Since January 1, 2024, the notice must also disclose any federal or state emergency or disaster declaration that applies to the county where the employee will work, if the declaration was issued within 30 days before the worker’s first day. The requirement was added by AB 636.¹

When and How To Deliver It

The employer hands the completed written notice to the new hire at the time of hiring. A verbal rundown of pay terms doesn’t count, however thorough. The notice must be in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment information to that worker, so if you usually give instructions in Spanish, the notice goes out in Spanish.¹

The statute doesn’t explicitly require a signature. The official template includes a signature line anyway, because a signed copy in the personnel file is the cleanest way to prove delivery if a claim comes in later. Skip the signature and you’re left without evidence of compliance.

Updating the Notice When Something Changes

When any information on the original notice changes, the employer has seven calendar days to notify the affected employee in writing. That covers pay rate adjustments, a new workers’ compensation carrier, a change in the employer’s legal name or address, and any other item on the form.¹

Two exceptions can spare a separate written update. A standalone notice isn’t needed if all the changed information shows up on a timely wage statement under Labor Code section 226. A raise reflected clearly on the next pay stub handles itself. The same goes for changes communicated in another writing already required by law within seven days. For anything that wouldn’t naturally appear on a pay stub or another required document, a switch of workers’ compensation insurer being the classic example, a standalone written notice is still required.¹

Who Is Exempt

Not every California worker is entitled to the notice. Three groups fall outside the requirement:

Workers employed directly by the state or a political subdivision, including cities, counties, and special districts.³
Employees exempt from overtime under statute or the Industrial Welfare Commission’s wage orders. This covers the familiar executive, administrative, and professional classifications, among others.³
Employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement, but only if the agreement expressly addresses wages, hours, and working conditions, provides premium pay for all overtime hours, and guarantees a regular hourly rate at least 30 percent above the state minimum wage. With California’s minimum wage at $16.90 per hour as of January 1, 2026, a qualifying agreement must guarantee roughly $21.97 per hour. For employees in the federal H-2A agricultural visa program, the agreement must also provide wage rates no lower than the H-2A program wage for the contract period.¹⁴

What Happens if an Employer Skips It

Section 2810.5 does not spell out a specific fine for failing to provide the notice. That doesn’t make the requirement toothless. An employee who never got accurate written notice of pay terms is in a stronger position on a wage claim, because the employer can’t point to a signed document to prove what was agreed. Missing notices also tend to travel with other violations, especially inaccurate wage statements.

Under Labor Code section 226, an employee harmed by a knowing and intentional failure to provide an accurate wage statement can recover the greater of actual damages or $50 for the first violation and $100 for each subsequent pay period, up to $4,000 total, plus attorney’s fees.⁵ Filing a wage claim with the Labor Commissioner costs the worker nothing.

Where To Get the Official Form

The Labor Commissioner publishes the official DLSE-NTE template. The current version, revised in November 2023, is a downloadable PDF from the Department of Industrial Relations website.² The template walks through every required field, including checkboxes for the basis of pay and blanks for workers’ compensation details. Using it beats a homemade version, mostly because older in-house forms tend to miss the newer disaster-declaration field.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 2810.5 – Obligations of Employer
2
Department of Industrial Relations. Notice to Employee Labor Code 2810.5
3
Department of Industrial Relations. Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2011 – Notice to Employees
4
Department of Industrial Relations. Minimum Wage
5
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 226