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California's annual pay data reporting submission this year is due on May 13, 2026. Each cycle, the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) typically releases updated guidance for that year's reporting in early February.
While we await this annual guidance, CRD has already provided preliminary templates for payroll employee and labor contractor pay data reporting and related Frequently Asked Questions. These preliminary templates are intended to be simplified versions of the final filing templates to help employers get familiar with the format and data fields in advance of the reporting deadline. Though neither final nor compelled by regulation, the preliminary templates reflect material changes to this year's data collection.
The headline: CRD adds three mandatory data fields to the pay data report:
- Exemption status (exempt or non‑exempt)
- Employment type (full‑time, part‑time, or intermittent)
- Total annual weeks worked (aggregated by employee group)
These fields apply across both the Payroll Employee reports and the Labor Contractor Employee reports.
In addition to receiving compensation data organized by job category, pay band, race/ethnicity, and sex, the updates further break out the submission by exemption status and employment type.
Exemption Status
Employers must classify each California employee as either "exempt" or "non‑exempt" from minimum wage and overtime requirements under California wage orders and/or the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Importantly, adding FLSA exemption status makes it part of the official pay data submission—so misclassification risk can show up in the report itself in addition to being part of record on file with the state. This makes it imperative for employers to review and evaluate the appropriateness of role exempt/non-exempt designations prior to submission.
Employment Type
CRD requires employers to assign every employee to one of three categories:
- Full‑time
- Part‑time
- Intermittent (periodic or irregular schedules)
The addition of an intermittent category moves reporting beyond the traditional full‑time/part‑time binary categories.
Expanding the reporting to include employment type allows CRD to more narrowly compare compensation among employees performing more similar work, which may permit more meaningful analysis of pay differences by race, ethnicity, and sex.
Employee Weeks Worked
Employers must now report the total number of weeks worked during the reporting year, aggregated by employee group. As with the "hours worked" reporting, "weeks worked" includes weeks on paid time off, such as vacation, sick leave, or holidays. For labor contractor employees, this is the number of weeks worked by the labor contractor employee for the reporting employer.
Reminders
Although not new, the FAQ reiterates how employers must calculate total annual hours worked for both exempt and non‑exempt employees.
For exempt employees, employers must use:
- actual tracked hours, if available; or
- a reasonable estimation based on days worked and paid time off multiplied by average daily hours.
CRD emphasizes that the 2025 templates are preliminary and may change. Final templates, instructions, and guidance will be released when the reporting portal opens in February 2026.
The preliminary templates are nonetheless instructive. They reflect how CRD expects data to be structured and the types of analyses it is preparing to perform.
Practical Preparation Steps for Employers
Employers preparing for the 2025 reporting cycle should consider the following steps now:
- Audit exemption classifications and reconcile them with job duties and pay practices.
- Standardize employment type definitions across establishments and apply them consistently.
- Confirm system capability to calculate weeks worked and hours worked accurately.
- Document methodologies used for estimating exempt employee hours.
- Run a dry‑run analysis using the preliminary templates to identify gaps or inconsistencies.
- Coordinate legal, HR, payroll, and data teams early in the process.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
