How to Fill Out California Form CIV-100: Request for Entry of Default

To fill out California Form CIV-100, the Request for Entry of Default, you work through eight numbered items on a two-sided form: the case caption, what you’re asking the clerk to do, the dollar breakdown of your claim, a few case-type declarations, a mailing declaration, a memorandum of costs, and a declaration that the defendant is not on active military duty. You sign the perjury declarations, mail a copy to the defendant, and file the original with the clerk within 10 days after the defendant’s response deadline passes.¹ Done correctly, the clerk enters the default and the defendant loses the right to answer or contest the case without first asking the court for relief.

When You Can File

A defendant served with a California summons and complaint has 30 days to respond.² The clock starts on the date personal service is completed. If service was by substituted service (leaving the papers with someone at the home or workplace and mailing a copy), service is not complete until the 10th day after mailing, which pushes the response deadline out.³

Once that deadline passes without an answer, demurrer, or other qualifying filing, Rule 3.110(g) gives you only 10 days to file the CIV-100. Miss it and the court can issue an order to show cause why sanctions shouldn’t be imposed. Start preparing the form before the defendant’s time runs so you can file promptly on day 31.

What to Gather Before You Start

Pull these together first. Missing any one of them is a common reason the clerk rejects the request.

The filed Proof of Service of Summons, showing the exact date and method of service. The clerk checks your request against it.
The dollar figures for your claim: the principal demand from the complaint, any credits or payments the defendant has made, prejudgment interest, costs, and attorney fees. The totals cannot exceed what the complaint demanded.⁴
Your interest calculation. For contract claims with no stated rate, California sets the prejudgment rate at 10 percent per year from the date of breach. If the contract specifies a rate, use that.⁵
Cost receipts: the filing fee ($435 for unlimited civil, $370 for limited over $10,000, $225 for limited up to $10,000), process server fees, and other recoverable litigation costs.⁶
A printed search result from the Department of Defense’s SCRA website (scra.dmdc.osd.mil) confirming the defendant’s military status. A false military-status affidavit is a federal crime punishable by up to one year in prison.⁷
The defendant’s last known mailing address, or the name and address of their attorney of record if they have one. You’ll need it for the mailing required by CCP 587.⁸
A served Statement of Damages (Form CIV-050) if your case is for personal injury or wrongful death. More on this below.

Walking Through the Form

Caption and Item 1

Fill in the court name, case number, and all party names at the top. Item 1 asks what you want the clerk to do. You can check the box for entry of default alone, add a clerk’s judgment, or request a court judgment, and you can check more than one. A clerk’s judgment is available only when the case is for a fixed sum of money arising from a contract or prior judgment, where the clerk can add the numbers without a hearing.⁴ Personal injury, fraud, quiet title, injunctive relief, and anything where damages require evidence need a court judgment, which goes to a judge.

Item 2: Judgment Amounts

This is the money table. Each row has columns for the amount demanded, credits acknowledged, and the balance due.

Row (a) Demand of complaint: your principal.
Row (b) Statement of damages: only for personal injury or wrongful death, taken from the served CIV-050.
Row (c) Interest: show the rate, start date, and total.
Row (d) Costs: the total from Item 7 on the reverse side.
Row (e) Attorney fees: only if a contract or statute entitles you to them.
Row (f) Totals: add each column.
Row (g) Daily damages: for cases like unlawful detainer, enter the daily rate and start date.

Items 3 and 4

Check Item 3 only if the case is an unlawful detainer (eviction). Item 4 asks whether a legal document assistant or unlawful detainer assistant was paid to help you prepare the form. If yes, list their name, address, phone number, county of registration, registration number, and expiration date. If you did it yourself or with an attorney, check “did not.”

Item 5: Contract-Type Declaration

This applies only if you’re asking for a clerk’s judgment under CCP 585(a). You check whether the case involves a consumer credit sale under the Unruh Act, a vehicle financing contract under the Rees-Levering Act, or an obligation for goods, services, loans, or credit subject to CCP 395(b). A default taken without the proper declaration in these categories can be set aside later.

Item 6: Declaration of Mailing

State that you mailed a copy of the completed CIV-100 to the defendant’s attorney of record or, if there is none, to the defendant’s last known address. List each person who received a copy and the mailing date, then sign under penalty of perjury. The clerk will not enter the default without this.⁸

Item 7: Memorandum of Costs

Required any time you’re asking for a money judgment. List your filing fees, process server fees, and other costs reasonably necessary to the case. Add them up and sign the declaration at the bottom confirming the amounts are accurate and necessarily incurred.

Item 8: Declaration of Nonmilitary Status

Required for every judgment. Check the box confirming the defendant is not on active duty, and indicate how you know: an SCRA database search, the defendant’s own written statement, or other facts. Attach the printout from scra.dmdc.osd.mil. If the defendant is a business entity, you still complete the item, noting that a business cannot be in military service.⁷

Extra Step for Personal Injury and Wrongful Death

If your case is for personal injury or wrongful death, you cannot request a default until you have served a Statement of Damages (Form CIV-050) on the defendant. CCP 425.11 requires it because California personal injury complaints do not state specific dollar amounts, and the statement of damages puts the defendant on notice before default locks them out.⁹

If the defendant hasn’t yet appeared in the case, serve the statement the same way you would a summons, typically by personal or substituted service. Mailing alone isn’t enough. If you also want punitive damages, serve a separate CCP 425.115 notice reserving that right. Serving a 425.115 notice after the original complaint restarts the defendant’s response clock for another 30 days (personal) or 40 days (substituted), so plan the timing.

Filing and Mailing

Prepare the original and at least two copies: one for the court file and one for your records. Options vary by county:

In person at the clerk’s window. The clerk stamps your copies and hands them back.
By mail, with a self-addressed stamped envelope for the clerk to return conformed copies.
Electronic filing through an approved provider, where the county accepts or requires it. Expect a small convenience fee.

The copy to the defendant goes out before or at the time of filing. Use first-class mail in a sealed envelope. The defendant’s non-receipt doesn’t invalidate the default, but failing to mail the copy, or failing to declare the mailing in Item 6, will stop the clerk from processing the request.⁸

The clerk reviews your request against the case file: proof of service on record, response deadline passed, dollar figures consistent with the complaint. Anything off and you get the form back with a deficiency notice. Common rejection reasons are mismatched dates, missing military-status declarations, and unsigned perjury declarations. Once it checks out, the clerk enters default and the defendant is officially locked out.

What Happens After Default Is Entered

Default entry alone does not give you money. You still need a judgment.

If you checked clerk’s judgment and the case qualifies (fixed-sum contract claim, straightforward math), the clerk enters judgment immediately for the principal plus interest and costs. No hearing.⁴

For everything else you apply for a court judgment under California Rule of Court 3.1800. You file a brief summary of the case, declarations proving each element of damages, your interest computation, a memorandum of costs, a current declaration of nonmilitary status (no older than six months at the time of judgment), a proposed judgment, dismissals of any unidentified Doe defendants, and the original written contract if your claim is based on one.¹⁰ The court either rules on the papers or sets a prove-up hearing. Prove-up hearings are more common in personal injury, fraud, and punitive damages cases, where the judge wants to assess credibility. The judgment total cannot exceed what the complaint (or served statement of damages) demanded.

The Defendant’s Window to Undo It

A default is not necessarily final. Under CCP 473(b), a defendant can move to set aside the default based on mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect, within a reasonable time and no later than six months after entry.¹¹ If an attorney’s sworn affidavit of fault is the reason the default happened, the court must vacate it, though the attorney can be ordered to pay the plaintiff’s resulting fees and costs. Move from default entry to judgment promptly so a late motion doesn’t catch you off guard.

1
Judicial Branch of California. Rule 3.110 – Time for Service of Complaint, Cross-Complaint, and Response
2
California Courts. Serve Your Answer
3
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 415.20
4
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 585
5
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 3289
6
Superior Court of California. Statewide Civil Fee Schedule
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3931 – Protection of Servicemembers Against Default Judgments
8
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 587
9
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 425.11
10
Judicial Branch of California. Rule 3.1800 – Default Judgments
11
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure 473