Penal Code 290 PC: California Sex Offender Registration Tiers and Rules

Under California Penal Code Section 290, the Sex Offender Registration Act, a person convicted of a qualifying sex offense must register with local law enforcement for 10 years, 20 years, or life, depending on the offense and, in some cases, a risk assessment score. The lifetime-for-everyone rule that governed the statute for decades ended on January 1, 2021, when a three-tier system took its place.

Who Has to Register

Registration is required for anyone convicted of a listed sex offense in a California, federal, or military court on or after July 1, 1944, and for anyone who moves to California after an equivalent conviction elsewhere. The offenses listed in subdivision (c) of the statute include rape, sexual assault, lewd acts with a child, kidnapping with sexual intent, human trafficking for sexual purposes, child pornography offenses, and indecent exposure, among others. Attempts and conspiracies to commit those offenses also trigger registration, as do adjudications as a sexually violent predator or a mentally disordered sex offender.¹²

A judge can also order registration for an offense that isn’t on the statutory list if the court finds the crime was committed out of sexual compulsion or for sexual gratification.³

A narrow exception exists for certain consensual offenses between people close in age. A person convicted under Sections 286(b), 287(b), or 289(h) or (i) is not required to register if they are no more than 10 years older than the minor and that conviction is their only qualifying offense.¹

For someone convicted outside California, the Department of Justice determines whether the out-of-state offense is equivalent to a registrable California offense and, if so, assigns the person to the matching tier. If there is no California equivalent but the other jurisdiction required registration, the person defaults to Tier Two, and can be pushed to Tier Three by a “well above average” risk score or a commitment similar to California’s sexually violent predator process. California may require registration even when the state of conviction no longer does.³

The Three Tiers and How Long Each Lasts

Senate Bill 384, signed in October 2017 and operative January 1, 2021, replaced the old lifetime rule with three tiers.⁴

Tier One requires 10 years of registration for adults, 5 for juveniles. It applies to misdemeanor sex offenses and felony offenses that aren’t classified as “serious” or “violent” under Penal Code Sections 667.5(c) or 1192.7(c).¹
Tier Two requires 20 years for adults, 10 for juveniles. It covers offenses that qualify as serious or violent felonies, plus second or subsequent convictions for certain offenses such as incest (Section 285), specified forms of sodomy and oral copulation, and annoying or molesting a child (Section 647.6).¹
Tier Three is lifetime. It applies to the most serious cases, including lewd acts with a child under 14 (Section 288), aggravated sexual assault of a child (Section 269), continuous sexual abuse of a child (Section 288.5), and sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 or younger (Section 288.7). It also covers anyone committed as a sexually violent predator, classified as a habitual sex offender, or sentenced under the One Strike law (Section 667.61).¹

A person who would otherwise land in Tier One or Tier Two can be moved to Tier Three based on a risk score at the time of release. The SARATSO (State Authorized Risk Assessment Tools for Sex Offenders) instrument for adult males is the Static-99R, and a score of 6 or above qualifies as “well above average risk.”⁵ Someone placed in Tier Three solely on risk score is not locked in for life; they can petition for termination after 20 years. A person whose Tier Three status comes from the underlying conviction registers for life and cannot petition.⁶

Not every case is sorted right away. The DOJ has up to 24 months to make a final tier designation for people placed in a “tier-to-be-determined” status, and time spent in that status counts toward the mandatory minimum.⁶

How and When You Register

A registrant must register with the chief of police in the city where they live, or with the county sheriff in an unincorporated area or a city without its own police department. Initial registration must be completed within five working days of moving into a jurisdiction, changing residence, or being released from custody. Local agencies forward the information to the Department of Justice.¹⁷

Ongoing update schedules depend on the registrant’s status:

Standard registrants update annually, within five working days before or after their birthday.⁷
Transient (homeless) registrants must re-register at least once every 30 days, no matter how long they’ve been in the jurisdiction. They have to report where they sleep, eat, work, and spend leisure time.⁸
Sexually violent predators update every 90 days.⁹

Any change of address, or becoming transient, has to be reported within five working days. A transient who leaves the state must appear in person at the local agency and give a planned destination.⁷⁸

Students, employees, and volunteers at a UC, CSU, or community college campus have a separate campus registration obligation on top of their primary local registration. It kicks in within five working days of enrollment or employment and applies to anyone present on campus for more than 14 days or an aggregate of 30 days in a calendar year. Campus police may release basic information—name, photograph, qualifying crimes, and date of last registration—to the campus community.¹⁰

What Appears on the Megan’s Law Website

California’s Megan’s Law, codified at Penal Code Section 290.46 and enacted in 1996, requires the DOJ to maintain a public, searchable website of registered sex offenders. The database is updated daily by law enforcement.¹¹¹²

Not every registrant appears, and those who do are shown in different levels of detail:

Full disclosure with home address applies to the most serious cases, including certain felony acts of rape, sodomy, oral copulation, kidnapping for sexual purposes, and people adjudicated as sexually violent predators. The site posts name, photograph, physical description, criminal history, residential address, and SARATSO risk score.¹³
Limited disclosure showing only community and ZIP code applies to Tier Two offenders and people convicted under Section 647.6. Name and photograph are posted; street address is not.¹³
Some registrants are excluded from the public site entirely but still must register with local law enforcement.⁹

A registrant can apply for exclusion from the public website if their only registrable offense involved their own child, stepchild, sibling, or grandchild, the offense did not involve oral copulation or penetration, and they successfully completed probation. Since January 1, 2012, exclusion also requires a SARATSO static score of average, below average, or very low.¹³

Using information from the website to harass someone or commit a crime can result in criminal prosecution and civil liability. Registered sex offenders themselves are prohibited from using the site’s search tools, with penalties of up to $1,000 in fines and six months in jail.¹²

Petitioning to End Registration

Since July 1, 2021, eligible registrants have been able to ask a court to terminate their registration duty. The petition is filed in the superior court of the county where the person is registered, using Judicial Council form CR-415, and copies must be served on the local law enforcement agency and the district attorney in both the county of filing and the county of conviction.¹⁴¹⁵

Eligibility to petition breaks down by tier:

Tier One and Tier Two registrants can petition on or after their first birthday following the expiration of their mandatory minimum registration period.⁶
A Tier Two registrant may petition after just 10 years if the single victim was 14 to 17, the offender was under 21 at the time, the offense is not a violent felony or human trafficking crime, and there has been no new registrable offense during the 10-year period.¹⁵
A Tier Three registrant placed there by risk score can petition after 20 years, if offense-free. Those with convictions under Section 288 or offenses listed in Section 1192.7(c) remain ineligible even if their tier was set by risk score.¹⁵
A Tier Three registrant placed there by the underlying conviction cannot petition at all.⁶

A person is also ineligible while in custody, on parole or probation, or facing pending criminal charges. The registration period is tolled during any subsequent incarceration, and it is extended by one year for each misdemeanor failure-to-register conviction and three years for each felony failure-to-register conviction.⁶

Once filed, the petition triggers a set schedule. The local law enforcement agency has 60 days to report to the court and district attorney on whether the petitioner meets the statutory requirements. The district attorney then has 60 days to request a hearing. If no hearing is requested and the criteria are met, the court grants the petition. If a hearing is held, the court weighs the nature of the offense, the age and number of victims, criminal history, completion of a certified sex offender management program, and current SARATSO scores. On denial, the court sets a re-petition date—one to five years for Tier One and Tier Two, three to five years for risk-assessment Tier Three registrants.¹⁵⁶

Once a court grants termination, the legal duty to register ends immediately. Full removal from the DOJ registry takes another 30 to 90 days.⁶

Penalties for Not Registering

Failure to comply with PC 290 is a crime, and willfulness is a required element. In People v. Sorden (2005) 36 Cal.4th 65, the California Supreme Court held that a defendant can negate willfulness by showing an involuntary condition that deprived them of actual knowledge of the duty to register, but only “the most disabling conditions” qualify. The court cited Alzheimer’s disease and amnesia as examples. Depression alone was insufficient.¹⁶

For transient registrants, failure to re-register within any 30-day window is a misdemeanor and can be charged as a felony in certain circumstances.¹⁷ For campus registration violations under PC 290.01, the penalty escalates from a fine on a first offense to up to a year in county jail on a third or subsequent offense.¹⁰

Where You Can Live and GPS Monitoring

Proposition 83, Jessica’s Law, was passed by voters in November 2006 and included a rule prohibiting sex offender parolees from living within 2,000 feet of any school or park where children gather. The measure also eliminated good-time credits for early release, extended parole periods for certain offenses, and mandated lifelong GPS monitoring for high-risk offenders.¹⁸

The blanket 2,000-foot rule was struck down by the California Supreme Court in In re Taylor (2015) 60 Cal.4th 1019. The court found the restriction bore “no rational relationship to advancing the state’s legitimate goal of protecting children from sexual predators” as applied in San Diego County, where it rendered roughly 97 percent of rental housing off-limits to registrants and drove parolee homelessness up about 24 times between 2007 and 2010. The court also held that retroactive application to people convicted before 2006 violated the ban on ex post facto laws.¹⁹

The blanket mandate is gone, but CDCR retains authority to impose individualized residency restrictions on specific parolees based on the circumstances of the case.¹⁸

Anyone convicted of a felony sex offense listed in PC 290(c) and released from custody on or after November 8, 2006, is subject to lifetime GPS monitoring. Monitoring begins within 48 hours of release from a state correctional facility, and responsibility transfers to another agency upon discharge from parole.²⁰

The Sex Offender Management Program, implemented in September 2014 under Chelsea’s Law (PC 3008), applies to all parolees who must register under PC 290 and uses a “Containment Model” combining supervision, treatment, polygraph testing, and victim advocacy. Chelsea’s Law, signed in September 2010, also required treatment for sex offender parolees and extended parole periods for felony sex crimes involving physical contact with children.¹⁸

What’s Changed Recently and What’s Coming

Effective January 1, 2026, Senate Bill 680 added unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor under Penal Code Section 261.5 to the list of registrable offenses in two situations: when the offender is more than three years older than the minor, and when an offender age 21 or older has intercourse with a minor under 16. The bill’s author, Senator Susan Rubio, described it as closing a loophole. SB 680 does not create new crimes or increase penalties; it adds a 10-year Tier One registration requirement for qualifying convictions.²¹²²

Assembly Bill 1568, introduced in 2025 by Assembly Member Juan Alanis, would change the termination-petition process by allowing courts to order petitioners to appear at their hearings, requiring hearings in the county of registration, and adding factors for courts to weigh—whether the offender held a position of trust over the victim, and whether they completed sex-offender-specific treatment. The bill was set for a committee hearing but was canceled at the author’s request as of June 2026.²³

1
Findlaw. California Penal Code Section 290
2
Justia. California Penal Code Sections 290-294
3
Marin County District Attorney. FAQs California Tiered Sex Offender Registration for Registrants
4
LegiScan. California SB 384
5
SARATSO. Risk Assessment Summary for Judges and Attorneys
6
California Attorney General. SB 384 Registrant FAQs
7
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Registration Requirements
8
Findlaw. California Penal Code Section 290.011
9
California Megan’s Law. Summary of California Laws
10
Justia. California Penal Code Section 290.01
11
State of California. Megan’s Law Website
12
California Megan’s Law. California Megan’s Law Website
13
Findlaw. California Penal Code Section 290.46
14
California Courts Self-Help. Form CR-415
15
Findlaw. California Penal Code Section 290.5
16
Central California Appellate Program. People v. Sorden
17
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. 15 CCR Section 3652
18
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Sex Offender Facts
19
Prison Legal News. California Supreme Court Voids Ex Post Facto Sex Offender Residency Restrictions
20
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. 15 CCR Section 3564
21
California State Senate. Rubio Bill Ends Legal Exception for Men Who Abuse Young Girls
22
LegiScan. California SB 680
23
Digital Democracy. California AB 1568