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Final Wages in California

California has very strict termination rules for when your employment relationship ends.

When an employment relationship ends in CA, you must pay the last earned wages within a specific time period:
--If the employee is fired, you must pay out the last wages within 24 hours
--If the relationship ends mutually or the employee resigns, you must pay out the last wages within 72 hours

To be safe, we recommend that you pay all earned wages on their last day of work with you.

Household employers in California are also required to provide a Change in Relationship Notice to their employee at the time employment ends unless the employee quits. This does not go to the state of CA, but please keep a copy of this for your records.

According to the CA EDD website, you do not need to pay out unused sick time, but unused vacation time must be paid out. Here is information on Vacation Time being paid out.

We recommend that you reach out directly to the California Employment Development Department at 1-800-300-5616 if you have any additional concerns.

If you are currently paying with direct deposit, you will need to change your payment method settings to check in the system in order to pay on your employee's last working day. Their last wages can be paid with a physical check or a money transfer service.

To change to check payment, follow these instructions: 

1.  Click on Employees on the left-hand side of the screen and click on View Details next to your employee.

2. Click on on Edit in the section of [employee name] Payment Method.

3. From there, you can choose Check instead of Direct Deposit and then click on Save Changes.

This will cancel the future direct deposit and allow you to pay them directly instead on their last working day.