CA Paid Sick Leave Poster: Requirements, Notices, and Penalties

California’s paid sick leave poster must be displayed in a conspicuous place at every worksite, must reflect the current five-days-or-40-hours entitlement that took effect January 1, 2024, and must be paired with an individualized written notice to each new hire and a current sick leave balance on every pay stub. The poster itself is free from the Labor Commissioner’s Office. Skipping any of these three pieces can trigger penalties of up to $4,000 per violation, plus investigation costs.

Who Has to Post It

Almost every California employer. If you have anyone who works 30 or more days within a year of starting, you’re covered, no matter how small the business.¹ Part-time, temporary, and per diem workers all count. The exceptions are narrow and mostly tied to specific collective bargaining agreements that meet statutory criteria.

Where the Poster Goes

Put it somewhere employees can read it during a normal workday without having to ask. Labor Code section 247 requires a “conspicuous place” at each location.² Break rooms, near time clocks, by common entrances, or wherever your other required labor law notices already hang.

The Labor Commissioner publishes the poster in English, Spanish, Korean, Tagalog, Chinese (Simplified), and Vietnamese.¹ If a chunk of your workforce primarily speaks one of those languages, post that translation alongside the English version.

Remote and Hybrid Workforces

A physical poster at headquarters doesn’t reach a remote employee. Federal Department of Labor guidance treats electronic posting as a supplement to hard-copy notices, not a substitute, unless the entire workforce is fully remote, all employees customarily receive information electronically, and all employees have ready access to the electronic posting at all times.³ For a hybrid team, keep the physical poster at the workplace and distribute an electronic copy to the people who work from home.

Email the poster, or put it on the company intranet where employees can actually find it. The federal guidance is explicit that electronic notice must be as effective as physical posting, and employees must be told where to look.³ A file buried three subfolders deep doesn’t satisfy that.

What the Poster Must Say

Labor Code section 247 lists four categories of required information:²

That employees are entitled to earn, request, and use paid sick days.
The amount provided: at least one hour of leave for every 30 hours worked, with at least five days or 40 hours of use allowed per year, whichever is greater.⁴
The terms of use, including the permissible reasons (personal illness, care of a family member, preventive care, and the other purposes the statute specifies).
That retaliation is prohibited and that employees can file a complaint with the Labor Commissioner.

Check the version you have hanging up. SB 616, effective January 1, 2024, raised the minimum entitlement from three days or 24 hours to five days or 40 hours per year.¹ A poster that still shows the old three-day figure is non-compliant, even if your internal policy already matches the new minimum. The Labor Commissioner updated the official poster after SB 616; make sure you’re displaying the current revision.

Getting the Official Poster

The Labor Commissioner’s Office creates the poster and offers it free on the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement website.⁵ The current English version and the available translations live on the DLSE’s paid sick leave page.¹ Download, print, and post the latest version, and check back when the law changes.

The Two Notices That Have to Go With It

Posting alone doesn’t satisfy the law. California also requires an individualized written notice at hire and an updated sick leave balance on every pay stub.

Written Notice at Hire

Every new employee gets a written notice of their sick leave rights at the start of employment.⁵ It’s part of the Wage Theft Prevention Act notice required under Labor Code section 2810.5, which also covers pay rates, pay dates, and the workers’ compensation carrier.⁶

The sick leave portion must tell the employee they can earn and use sick leave, that they have the right to request it, that retaliation is prohibited, and that they can file a complaint with the Labor Commissioner.⁶ It must be delivered in the language you normally use with that employee for employment-related information. The Labor Commissioner publishes a template notice in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese on the DLSE website.⁷ If anything on the notice changes after hire, you have seven calendar days to issue an updated written notice, unless the change already shows up on a timely wage statement.

Sick Leave Balance on Every Pay Stub

Every pay stub, or a separate written document issued on the same payday, has to show the employee’s available paid sick leave balance.¹ If you offer unlimited paid sick leave or unlimited PTO, you can write “unlimited” in that field instead of a number.

This is the piece employers most often miss. The poster is a one-time task. The hiring notice is a per-employee task. The pay stub balance is a per-paycheck task, and if your payroll system isn’t configured to display it, every pay cycle becomes another missed obligation. Confirm your payroll software is set up correctly, and if you run payroll manually, build the balance into your template.

Keep the Records

Employers must track the sick days each employee earned and used, and keep those records for at least three years. Electronic storage is fine as long as employees can access their own records. If the Labor Commissioner opens an investigation, this is the first thing the agency asks for, and an employer who can’t produce the records faces a rebuttable presumption that the employee’s account is accurate. You do not have to ask or document why employees use sick leave, only how much they accrue and use.¹

Penalties for Non-Compliance

The Labor Commissioner enforces these requirements, and the penalties stack:

Withholding sick days triggers a penalty of three times the dollar value of the leave withheld or $250, whichever is greater, up to $4,000.⁸
If a violation leads to discharge or other injury, add $50 per day the violation continues, also capped at $4,000.⁸
The Labor Commissioner can order up to $50 per day per affected employee for the state’s investigation and enforcement costs.⁸
The Labor Commissioner or Attorney General can also sue to recover back pay, reinstatement, liquidated damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees.⁸

There’s one narrow safe harbor. An employer is not penalized for an isolated, unintentional payroll or written notice error that amounts to a clerical mistake about accrual or available leave.⁸ That covers a genuine one-off, promptly corrected. It does not cover a pattern of skipped hiring notices, an outdated poster left up for months, or systematic under-posting across a workforce. These penalties apply per employee, so an employer who missed the poster, skipped the hiring notice, and left balances off pay stubs for 20 workers faces a stack of violations, not one.

1
California Department of Industrial Relations. California Paid Sick Leave Frequently Asked Questions
2
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 247
3
United States Department of Labor. Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2020-7
4
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 246
5
California Department of Industrial Relations. Healthy Workplace Healthy Family Act of 2014 (AB 1522)
6
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 2810.5
7
Department of Industrial Relations. California Labor Code 2810.5 – Notice to Employee
8
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 248.5