It's that time of year again! Adding to your list of to-dos, California pay data reports are due May 14, 2025. As a reminder, California law requires certain employers to submit to the Civil Rights Department (CRD) an annual pay data report detailing pay, demographic, and other workforce data. Read on to learn what's new for the 2024 pay data reporting cycle.
Who is Required to File
Private employers with at least 100 employees, and/or 100 or more workers hired through labor contractors, are required to file payroll reports for their employees and labor contractor employee reports for labor contractor employees. Annual reports for 2024 must be submitted to the CRD by May 14, 2025.
How Do I File
Employers must submit their reports through the CRD's online portal- New Window which opened on February 3, 2025. Updated resources can be accessed through the California Pay Data Reporting page- New Window, including new Excel reporting templates- New Window, which must be used for new filings – outdated versions will be rejected by the portal.
What's New for 2025
For the 2024 reporting period, the CRD added "Middle Eastern or North African" as a new race/ethnicity category. The CRD's Handbook defines the category as "[i]ndividuals with origins in any of the original peoples of the Middle East or North Africa, including, for example, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Israeli."
Other updates revise the former "Two or More Races" category to "Multiracial and/or Multiethnic" and the former "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander" category to "Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander." For further guidance on reporting under the new race and/or ethnicity categories, employers can refer to the CRD's FAQs- New Window and Handbook- New Window.
Employer Takeaways
Employers should prepare for the approaching deadline by ensuring they:
- File pay data reports by May 14, 2025;
- Use the new Excel templates for 2024 reports; and
- Account for the new race/ethnicity categories when completing reports.
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.
