California's 2026 legislative session ended with a run of employment bills signed in late September. Most take effect January 1, 2027; the automated-decision law starts July 1, 2027; one training rule waits until 2028. Here is what was signed, what was vetoed, and the concrete change each law asks of an employer, so you can plan the next handbook and policy update instead of reconstructing it from headlines.
Two housekeeping notes before the list. First, evidence levels: items marked [A] come from the Governor's official September 30 signing announcement or statute text we have read; items marked [B] come from official legislative analyses or multiple consistent law-firm summaries where we have not yet read the chaptered text. We say which is which because the difference matters when you are writing policy language. Second, this article explains public law; it is not legal advice.
The date table
| Takes effect | Law | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 1, 2027 | AB 2563 | Clarifies the scope of sex discrimination under state law [A: signed; B: effective date] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | AB 1697 | Limits "stay-or-pay" contract provisions, for contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2027 [A: signed; B: scope] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | SB 1237 | Raises the pay-data reporting repeat-filing penalty from $200 to $1,000 per employee [A: signed; B: figures] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | AB 1883 | Restricts emotion-recognition AI and neural data in employment (Lab. Code 1580–1583) [B] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | SB 951 | Adds a Cal-WARN notice obligation for technology-driven displacement [B] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | AB 1331 | Bans surveillance of restrooms and similar private areas [B] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | AB 2495 | Expands protection against immigration-related retaliation [B] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | SB 1149 | Extends bereavement leave to a "designated person" the employee identifies [B] |
| Jan 1, 2027 | AB 2155 | Addresses enforceability of certain arbitration agreements [B] |
| July 1, 2027 | SB 947 | The "No Robo Bosses" automated-decision rules (Lab. Code 1520–1526.7) [B] |
| Jan 1, 2028 | AB 1803 | Adds an anti-hate-speech component to required training [B] |
| Vetoed | AB 1940 | Would have addressed menopause discrimination [A] |
Also signed September 30: AB 2646, setting a minimum wage for certain agricultural workers, and AB 1961 on workplace-violence protective orders [A: signed]. We have not read the enacted text of AB 2646, so we are not publishing its wage figure; the introduced version contained a dollar amount that may have changed before passage.
What each law asks you to do
AB 2563 — sex discrimination scope. Review the discrimination and harassment policy's protected-class language against the amended definition before January 1. If your handbook lists protected categories, the list is where drift shows up first.
AB 1697 — stay-or-pay provisions. This is the one to put in front of counsel now if you use training-repayment or sign-on-repayment agreements. Per the Senate Judiciary analysis and post-signing summaries, the law applies to contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2027, and carries exemptions, including one for certain financial-services entities and persons licensed under Insurance Code 1626. The action: inventory every agreement that requires an employee to repay anything on departure, and do not roll any of them forward into 2027 unchanged.
SB 1237 — pay-data penalties. The repeat-failure penalty moves from $200 to $1,000 per employee beginning January 1, 2027. If you filed late or not at all in a past cycle, the cost of repeating that just went up by a factor of five. Calendar the next filing now.
AB 1883 — emotion recognition and neural data. If any tool in your stack claims to read mood, sentiment, engagement or attention from employees — video interview scoring, call-center sentiment dashboards, productivity monitoring — ask the vendor in writing whether it falls under Labor Code 1580–1583 and what changes before January 1.
SB 951 — technology displacement notices. If a 2027 reduction in force is even partly attributable to automation, your Cal-WARN notice will need new content. Loop in whoever owns your WARN template.
AB 1331 — private-area surveillance. Audit camera placement. If anything covers a restroom, changing area or lactation room, fix it before January 1 and update the monitoring-notice policy to say where monitoring does not occur.
SB 1149 — designated-person bereavement leave. Your bereavement policy's list of covered relationships needs a "designated person" line. Summaries we reviewed describe the employee identifying the person at the time of the request and employers being able to limit this to one designated person per 12-month period; confirm the exact mechanics from the chaptered text before writing them into the handbook.
SB 947 — automated decisions (July 1, 2027). You have more runway on this one, but it is the largest: beginning July 1, 2027, summaries consistently describe a bar on relying solely on an automated decision system for certain employment decisions, a post-use notice when a covered decision is communicated, and an employee data-request right. Start the inventory of where algorithms touch hiring, discipline, scheduling and pay decisions now; we will publish a dedicated piece on this law once we have read the statute's notice provisions.
AB 1803 — training content (2028). A content update for harassment-prevention training, not a 2027 item. Note it and move on.
What we could not confirm
We have read the Governor's September 30 announcement in full, which is the authority for what was signed and vetoed that day. We have not yet read the chaptered text of most of these bills. That means: the AB 2646 wage figure, the exact wording of AB 1697's exemptions, SB 947's notice contents, and SB 1149's designated-person mechanics are stated here only as reported, and flagged [B] above. The status of litigation over SB 399 (the 2024 captive-audience law) is unchecked. We update this page as we read each chaptered text; the "last verified" date above tells you when that last happened.
Sources
- Governor of California, "Governor Newsom issues legislative update 9.30.2026," gov.ca.gov, September 30, 2026 (official; read in full) — bills signed and vetoed September 30.
- Senate Judiciary Committee analysis of AB 1697, June 23, 2026 (official analysis) — effective-date substitution.
- Law-firm and HR-press summaries reviewed October 2026 for the [B] items: Mayer Brown (AB 1697), Jackson Lewis and the author's fact sheet (SB 1237), SHRM, Crowell and K&T summaries (SB 947), CDF (SB 1149). Secondary; no figure or date in this article rests on a single secondary source.
This article explains public law and how our tools handle it. It is not legal advice and has not been reviewed by an attorney.