5 Types of Restraining Orders in California: Violations and Federal Gun Ban

California law provides five types of restraining orders, and the right one for you depends on your relationship to the person you need protection from and the kind of harm involved: a Domestic Violence Restraining Order, a Civil Harassment Restraining Order, an Elder or Dependent Adult Abuse Restraining Order, a Workplace Violence Restraining Order, and a Gun Violence Restraining Order. Picking the wrong category is one of the most common filing mistakes, and it can get your petition denied or delayed at exactly the moment you need protection in place.

Each one is built around a specific statutory scheme, with its own eligibility rules, evidence standard, duration, and remedies. Here’s how to tell them apart.

Domestic Violence Restraining Order

A Domestic Violence Restraining Order (DVRO) is the right tool when you have a close personal relationship with the person harming you. The Domestic Violence Prevention Act, starting at Family Code Section 6200, defines who qualifies.¹ The statute covers current or former spouses, current or former cohabitants, people in a dating or engagement relationship, a person you share a child with, a child of either party, and anyone related to you by blood or marriage within the second degree, such as a parent, sibling, grandparent, or in-law.²

“Abuse” under the DVRO statute reaches well beyond physical violence. It includes intentionally or recklessly causing bodily injury, sexual assault, and placing someone in reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury.³ It also covers conduct that “disturbs the peace” of the other party, defined as behavior that destroys a person’s mental or emotional calm. That language is deliberately broad and takes in coercive control, meaning a pattern of behavior that unreasonably interferes with someone’s free will and personal liberty.⁴ Financial manipulation, isolation from friends and family, monitoring communications, and repeated degradation all fit.

A DVRO can require the restrained person to stay a set distance away, stop all contact (direct or through third parties), move out of a shared home, and surrender firearms. The court can also address temporary child custody, visitation, and exclusive care of a pet. A DVRO issued after a full hearing can last up to five years. When it expires, you can ask for a renewal of five or more years, or ask the court to make it permanent, without having to prove new abuse happened since the original order.⁵

Civil Harassment Restraining Order

A Civil Harassment Restraining Order (CHRO) is the option when the person harassing you isn’t someone you have a DVRO-qualifying relationship with. Neighbors, coworkers, acquaintances, and strangers are the typical cases. These orders live in Code of Civil Procedure Section 527.6.⁶

You need to show “harassment,” defined as unlawful violence, a credible threat of violence, or a pattern of conduct that seriously alarms or annoys you and serves no legitimate purpose. The pattern must be severe enough that a reasonable person would suffer substantial emotional distress, and you must show that you actually did. Isolated rude comments or a single unpleasant encounter almost never clear this bar. Courts look for repeated, targeted conduct: ongoing threats, stalking, or relentless unwanted contact.

The evidence standard is tougher here than in most civil cases. To get a permanent CHRO after a hearing, you must prove harassment by clear and convincing evidence, not just the usual more-likely-than-not standard.⁶ A CHRO can last up to five years after the hearing.

Elder or Dependent Adult Abuse Restraining Order

California has a separate restraining order built around vulnerability rather than relationship. It protects people 65 and older (“elders”) and adults between 18 and 64 who have physical or mental limitations that restrict their ability to carry out normal activities or protect their own rights (“dependent adults”).⁷ These orders fall under the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act, which begins at Welfare and Institutions Code Section 15600.⁸

The abuse covered is broader than for a DVRO or CHRO. Physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, and isolation all count. The distinguishing feature is financial abuse: taking or misappropriating an elder’s or dependent adult’s money or property through fraud, undue influence, or other wrongful means. That’s the main reason to choose this order over a DVRO even when a DVRO might also fit.

Someone else can petition on the elder’s or dependent adult’s behalf; the victim doesn’t have to file. That matters, because the people who need these orders most are often the least able to navigate court alone. An order issued after a hearing can last up to five years, and renewals can run for five years or be made permanent without proof of further abuse.⁹

Workplace Violence Restraining Order

A Workplace Violence Restraining Order (WVRO) is the one order on this list that the employee doesn’t file. The employer does. Code of Civil Procedure Section 527.8 allows an employer to seek a court order protecting an employee who has experienced unlawful violence, a credible threat of violence, or harassment connected to the workplace.¹⁰

The threat can come from anyone: a customer, a former employee, a stranger, or a current coworker. As of January 1, 2025, the statute was amended to reach beyond violence and threats of violence to cover harassment, defined as a knowing and willful pattern of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously alarms or annoys and serves no legitimate purpose.¹⁰ That change gave employers a tool for sustained workplace harassment even without an explicit threat of physical violence.

If you’re an employee facing a workplace threat, this is the order to ask your employer to pursue. If you’re an employer and know about such a threat, there’s also exposure in doing nothing: under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, employers must provide a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm, and OSHA treats an employer as “on notice” of workplace violence risk once aware of threats or intimidation.¹¹ A WVRO lasts up to three years and can be renewed for additional three-year periods without proof of new incidents.¹⁰

Gun Violence Restraining Order

A Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) is a different animal from the other four. It doesn’t keep one person away from another. Its sole purpose is to temporarily remove firearms and ammunition from someone who poses a significant danger of hurting themselves or others. A GVRO won’t restrict the person’s movement or ban them from contacting anyone unless a separate protective order does that.

The list of people who can petition is broader than most protective-order statutes. It includes immediate family members, law enforcement officers, employers, coworkers who have interacted regularly with the person for at least a year (with employer approval), school employees or teachers (with administrator approval), roommates, dating partners, and a person who shares a child with the subject.¹²

GVROs come in three tiers:

Temporary emergency orders, which only law enforcement can request. A judge must find reasonable cause to believe the person poses an immediate and present danger. These expire after 21 days.¹³
Ex parte orders, filed by any eligible petitioner without the subject present. These also last up to 21 days, during which a full hearing is scheduled.
Orders after hearing, issued once both sides have presented evidence. These can last between one and five years.¹⁴

When a GVRO is granted, the person must surrender all firearms and ammunition to law enforcement or sell them to a licensed dealer. Storing them at a friend’s house or locking them in a home safe is not an option.

How To Choose the Right One

Start with the relationship, then look at the harm.

If the person is a current or former intimate partner, a close relative, someone you share a child with, or someone you’ve lived with, you’re in DVRO territory. If none of those apply, a CHRO is almost certainly the right fit, even for serious conduct, as long as it meets the harassment definition. If the person being harmed is 65 or older or is a dependent adult, the elder abuse order usually fits better than a DVRO or CHRO because it reaches financial abuse and lets a third party file. If the threat is tied to a workplace and you’re the employer, use a WVRO; if you’re the employee, ask your employer to file. And if the central concern is that a specific person shouldn’t have access to guns, a GVRO is the only order designed for that, and it can run alongside any of the others.

What a Violation Costs

This bears on which order you choose because it’s what gives every order its teeth. Violating any of California’s five restraining orders is a criminal offense under Penal Code Section 273.6. A first violation is a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.¹⁵

Penalties escalate in two situations. If the violation causes physical injury, the fine rises to up to $2,000 and the jail sentence carries a mandatory minimum of 30 days, which a judge can reduce to 48 hours in the interest of justice. A second conviction within seven years that involves an act of violence or a credible threat of violence can be charged as a felony, with potential state prison time.¹⁵

The violation doesn’t have to be dramatic to be criminal. A single text message to someone protected by a no-contact order is enough.

The Federal Gun Ban That Attaches to Some Orders

One more point can tip the choice between a DVRO and another order: federal firearm consequences. Under 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g)(8), a person subject to a qualifying protection order cannot possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms or ammunition anywhere in the country.¹⁶ Violating the federal ban is a separate felony carrying up to 15 years in federal prison.

Not every restraining order triggers it. The order must have been issued after a hearing where the restrained person received actual notice and had a chance to participate (so ex parte orders don’t count), must restrain the person from threatening or harassing an intimate partner or their child, and must either include a finding that the person poses a credible threat to the partner’s safety or explicitly prohibit the use of physical force.¹⁶ In practice, DVROs issued after a full hearing almost always trigger the ban. CHROs, elder abuse orders, and WVROs typically don’t, because they don’t involve “intimate partners” as federal law defines the term. The order doesn’t need to say anything about firearms for the federal prohibition to kick in automatically.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code FAM 6200 – Domestic Violence Prevention Act
2
California Legislative Information. California Code FAM 6211 – Domestic Violence Defined
3
California Legislative Information. California Code FAM 6203 – Abuse Defined
4
California Legislative Information. California Code FAM 6320 – Orders Enjoining Specific Acts
5
California Legislative Information. California Code FAM 6345 – Duration of Restraining Orders
6
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 527.6 – Injunction Prohibiting Harassment
7
California Legislative Information. California Code WIC 15610.23 – Dependent Adult Defined
8
California Legislative Information. California Code WIC 15600 – Legislative Findings and Intent
9
California Legislative Information. California Code WIC 15657.03 – Protective Orders
10
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 527.8 – Workplace Violence
11
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Workplace Violence – Enforcement
12
California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 18150 – Ex Parte GVRO Petitioners
13
California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 18125 – Temporary Emergency GVRO
14
California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 18170-18197 – GVRO Issued After Notice and Hearing
15
California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 273.6 – Violation of Protective Order
16
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts