|
Highlights
Impacted Employers: All private employers who have 100 or more employees, with at least one California employee
Effective Dates: January 1, 2026 and May 13, 2026 (reporting due). See below.
Summary:
The California Civil Rights Department has published preliminary versions of pay data reporting templates for the 2025 reporting year. The templates include new data fields for reporting employees’ exemption status, employment type, and weeks worked during the reporting year.
Next Steps: Begin planning how your organization will capture any additional information that may be required for reporting if the changes are finalized. ADP will continue to monitor the status of the preliminary templates and report on any updates.
See more details below.
|
Background
Under California law, a private employer with 100 or more employees, including at least one California employee, must submit a pay data report covering the prior calendar year to the state on or before the second Wednesday of May each year.
A private employer that has 100 or more employees, with at least one California employee, hired through labor contractors within the prior calendar year must also submit a separate pay data report to the state covering those employees. The private employer must also disclose on the pay data report the ownership names of all labor contractors used to supply employees. A labor contractor must supply all necessary pay data to the private employer.
New Data Fields in Preliminary 2025 Reporting Year Templates
The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) has published preliminary versions of pay data reporting templates for the 2025 reporting year. The preliminary templates include new data fields for reporting employees’ exemption status, employment type, and weeks worked during the reporting year.
The CRD says the preliminary templates are subject to change and are intended for planning purposes only. An accompanying document provides answers to frequently asked questions on the preliminary templates. Final versions of templates and answers to frequently asked questions should be available in February 2026.
Effective Jan. 1, 2026, the CRD also requires that any employee demographic information gathered by an employer or labor contractor for the purpose of pay data reporting be kept separately from the employee’s personnel records.
Preliminary Guidance for Completing the New Data Fields.
As mentioned above, the preliminary templates include new data fields for reporting employees’ exemption status, employment type, and weeks worked during the reporting year. The following is the CRD’s preliminary guidance for completing these fields if they are included in the finalized templates.
Reporting Exemption Status
The guidance says covered employers should identify whether each California employee is exempt from the minimum wage and overtime pay provisions of state laws and/or the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers should classify each California employee as having either:
· Exempt status; or
· Non-exempt status.
Reporting Employment Type
The guidance says covered employers should classify each California employee into one of three employment types:
· Full-time: An employee who is assigned to regularly work full-time hours under the employer’s standard or alternative workweek schedule would fall under the “Full-time” employment type.
· Part-time: An employee who is assigned to regularly work less than full-time hours under the employer’s standard or alternative workweek schedule would fall under the “Part-time” employment type.
· Intermittent: An employee who is assigned to periodically or irregularly work full-time or part-time hours, under the employer’s standard or alternative workweek schedule, would fall under the “Intermittent” employment type.
Reporting Weeks Worked
The guidance says covered employers should identify the number of weeks worked by each California employee during the reporting year. This includes weeks during which the employee was on any form of paid time off (such as vacation time, sick time, or holiday time).
For each establishment, covered employers should identify the number of California employees in each employee group created by classifying employees based on race/ethnicity, sex, job category, pay band, exemption status, and employment type.
Once a covered employer has identified the employee group for each of its California employees in the snapshot period, the employer should then aggregate the total weeks worked during the reporting year for all the California employees in the same employee group. The resulting number should be entered as the Total Annual Weeks Worked.
If an employee doesn’t share the same employee group of any other employee in the establishment, the employer would report a count of one employee and report the number of weeks worked during the reporting year by that employee alone. When reporting on labor contractor employees, weeks worked includes the actual number of weeks worked by the labor contractor employee for the reporting client employer.
Next Steps
Covered employers should:
· Consult legal counsel as needed.
· Start planning how to capture the additional information that may be required for reporting if the changes are finalized.
· Monitor the state’s pay data reporting website for developments.
· Submit pay data reports for 2025 using finalized templates (once available) by May 13, 2026.
· ADP TotalSource is unable to file the California Pay Data Report on your behalf with the CRD. You must file on your own after retrieving a pay data report from the ADP TotalSource system and verifying the information on the report.
ADP will continue to monitor the status of the preliminary templates and report on any updates.
We understand navigating through new regulations can be challenging. If you are unsure and need additional support, please call our dedicated line at 877-310-0825 Option 2 or send us an email at hrotaxuiclaims@adp.com. A member of our team will be happy to assist with any questions.