What happens if a California job posting leaves out the pay range?

What can an applicant do?

1. Ask for it. Every California employer, at any size, must give an applicant the pay scale for the position on reasonable request under Labor Code 432.3. A short email works: “Before we schedule the interview, can you share the pay scale for this position?” This is usually the fastest route, and it tells you what you are negotiating against. Here is how to use the answer.

2. File a complaint. The Labor Commissioner accepts pay transparency complaints using its Pay Transparency Complaint form. You attach a copy of the posting, and the form lists paytransparency@dir.ca.gov for emailed filings. The law gives you one year after you learn of the violation to file.

3. Keep the posting. Take a screenshot with the date showing before it changes. A posting is evidence of what the employer said it would pay, and that can matter later in an equal pay question.

You do not have to choose between applying and complaining. The law protects your right to ask for the pay scale, and asking will not cost you the job at an employer worth working for. Once you have the range, compare it with what the role pays locally on the Bay Area salary map.

For employers: what the exposure looks like

The Labor Commissioner can assess a civil penalty of $100 to $10,000 per violation. If the complaint is your first, there is no penalty when you show that every open job posting has been updated to include the pay scale. That safe harbor is why speed matters: fix all of them, not only the one in the complaint.

The penalty is often the smaller cost. A posting without a range, or with a range that is not a good-faith estimate, invites questions about how you set pay across the board. Since January 2026, SB 642 also extended the time employees have to bring equal pay claims, so a pattern found today can reach further back than it used to.

How does an employer fix it this week?

• Inventory every live posting. Your careers page, job boards, LinkedIn, recruiter listings and any reposts on aggregator sites you did not create.
• Add the range inside each posting. The Labor Commissioner’s guidance says a link or QR code is not enough.
• Check the range is real. It should be the range you reasonably expect to pay on hire, not the full band from entry to top of grade.
• Send ranges to your recruiters in writing. Third parties posting for you must include the scale, and you must give it to them.
• Keep the records. Title and wage history for each employee, for the duration of employment plus three years.

Why do postings go out without a range?

Most employers who miss it are not hiding anything. The range was never decided, the ATS template has no pay field, a hiring manager wrote the post, or an agency dropped the number. Each has a process fix. The first one, deciding the range, is the one that matters most, and here is how to do it.

If you are under 15 employees, the posting rule does not apply yet, but the on-request rule does. Here is what small employers owe. For the full picture as you grow, see the headcount hub.

McKinley holds a J.D. but is not a licensed attorney. Articles here are general information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, talk with an employment attorney.

Data current as of September 2026. Sources are linked where each figure appears.