California pay data report: get it past the CRD portal

Private employers with 100 or more payroll employees (and 100 or more labor contractor employees) file every year with the Civil Rights Department. The next report, for Reporting Year 2026, is due Wednesday, May 12, 2027. Penalties for not filing: $100 per employee, $200 per employee for a repeat.

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What the portal rejects

• A prior-year template. CRD posts new templates each February and the portal only accepts the current ones. The 2025 template has 25 columns, three of them new: Exemption Status, Employment Type, Total Annual Weeks Worked.
• Commas in CSV data. CRD's FAQ is explicit. "Acme Water Works, Inc" has to become "Acme Water Works - Inc", which is how CRD's own example file writes it.
• Invalid codes. Job Category must be 1 to 10. Race/Ethnicity/Sex must be one of 24 codes: A10–A30 for Hispanic/Latino by sex, then B (male), C (female) and D (non-binary) with 10 White, 20 Black or African American, 30 Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 40 Asian, 50 American Indian or Alaska Native, 60 Multiracial, 70 Middle Eastern or North African. Pay Band must be 1 to 12.
• Totals that disagree. The portal cross-checks what you type about each establishment against the file. Employee groups must add up to the establishment headcount, and not-remote + remote-in-CA + remote-outside-CA must equal each group.
• Excel side effects. ZIP 02110 saved as 2110, NAICS as 221310.0, rates as $115.00, blank rows of commas at the bottom.

Pay bands for Reporting Year 2025 (W-2 Box 5)

1. $19,239 and under
2. $19,240 – $24,959
3. $24,960 – $32,239
4. $32,240 – $41,079
5. $41,080 – $53,039
6. $53,040 – $68,119
7. $68,120 – $87,359
8. $87,360 – $112,319
9. $112,320 – $144,559
10. $144,560 – $186,159
11. $186,160 – $239,199
12. $239,200 and over

Job categories

1. Executive or senior level officials and managers
2. First or mid-level officials and managers
3. Professionals
4. Technicians
5. Sales workers
6. Administrative support workers
7. Craft workers
8. Operatives
9. Laborers and helpers
10. Service workers

Source: CRD 2025 Payroll Employee Report Excel template, code lists and data validations, posted February 2, 2026. When CRD posts the Reporting Year 2026 template, this page and the checker are updated the same week.

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