California's Fair Chance Act: Every Step the 2026 Employer Owes

California's Fair Chance Act, with the October 2023 regulatory amendments effective in 2024, is the most actively enforced ban-the-box law in the country. The Civil Rights Department investigated more FCA charges in 2025 than any other employment-discrimination category. Most of the violations were workflow problems, not policy problems.

Job ad stage

• No statement on the job ad that the employer will not consider applicants with criminal histories — even if the role is one of the statutory exceptions.

Application stage

• No criminal-history question on the application, anywhere.
• No voluntary self-disclosure prompts.

Pre-offer stage

• No criminal-history inquiry in any interview, reference call, or informal channel.

Post-offer stage

1. Conditional offer in writing, with the offer letter recording the date of the offer.
2. Background check ordered with criminal results clearly labeled.
3. If a conviction within the lookback might disqualify, conduct the individualized assessment using the five California-specific factors.
4. Send the preliminary-decision notice with: (a) the disqualifying conviction(s) identified, (b) a copy of the report, (c) notice of the candidate's right to respond within 5 business days, and (d) notice that the response window doubles to 10 business days if the candidate disputes the accuracy of the conviction record.
5. Wait the full response window.
6. Conduct the reassessment if the candidate responds, in writing.
7. Send the final-decision notice with the appeal information and CRD complaint instructions.

The five California factors

• Nature and gravity of the offense.
• Time elapsed since the offense and completion of the sentence.
• Nature of the job held or sought.
• Specific duties of the position.
• Whether the position offers the opportunity for the same or similar offense to occur.

The 2024 amendment most employers missed

The amended regulations explicitly require the preliminary-decision notice to identify the specific conviction(s) at issue — a generic 'criminal history' notice is no longer sufficient. The SafestHires CA workflow auto-populates the offense detail directly from the report into the preliminary notice template.