Reporting-Time Pay in California: When You Get Paid for a Shift That Was Cut

Yes, in most cases. If you report for a scheduled shift in California and are sent home with no work, or with less than half the shift, your employer owes you reporting-time pay. It brings your day up to half the scheduled shift at your regular rate, with a 2-hour floor and a 4-hour cap. The hours you already worked count toward that half and are always paid, and a slow night does not cancel the duty.

At a glance

$18.42 is the City of Los Angeles minimum wage since July 1, 2026. If you earn more, multiply the hours by your own regular rate.

• The rule is section 5 of the California wage orders. Restaurants, fast food and contract cleaning companies fall under Wage Order 5.
• It applies when you are required to report and do report, then get no work or less than half your scheduled shift.
• The pay tops your day up to half the scheduled shift, with a 2-hour floor and a 4-hour cap.
• Lack of work is not an exception, and the Labor Commissioner says poor performance is not one either. If you choose to leave early, the Labor Commissioner says no reporting-time pay is owed, though the hours you worked are still paid.
• You can claim it through a wage claim with the Labor Commissioner or a lawsuit.

How is reporting-time pay calculated in California?

California has no separate "show-up pay" statute. The rule sits in section 5 of the wage orders, the state regulations that set pay rules for each industry. For restaurants and cleaning companies that is Wage Order 5, published at Title 8 of the state's regulations, section 11050 (8 CCR 11050). Section 5(A) says that when an employee "is required to report for work and does report, but is not put to work or is furnished less than half said employee's usual or scheduled day's work," the employee is paid for half that day, "but in no event for less than two (2) hours nor more than four (4) hours, at the employee's regular rate of pay, which shall not be less than the minimum wage."

Apply it in three steps.

1. Halve your scheduled shift. If you worked less than that, the rule applies. If you worked exactly half or more, you are paid only for the hours you worked.
2. Top the day up to that half. The hours you already worked count toward that half-shift figure, and the top-up is your reporting-time pay. The Labor Commissioner's reporting-time pay FAQ uses a 6-hour shift cut after one hour: one hour worked plus two hours of reporting-time pay, "for a total of 3 hours of pay."
3. Apply the floor and the cap. Counting the hours you worked, the half-shift figure is never less than 2 hours or more than 4. The cap never reduces pay for hours you actually worked, which are always paid in full.

The rate is your regular rate of pay, never below the minimum wage. The state minimum is $16.90 an hour in 2026 and $17.40 from January 1, 2027. Our guide to the California minimum wage lists the local rates too.

Reporting-time pay does not count toward overtime, according to the Labor Commissioner. Its FAQ says it "is not compensation for services rendered or labor performed and thus, is not used in determining if overtime is due." The agency's enforcement manual also leaves it out of the regular rate used for overtime. Our guide to unpaid overtime in California covers the overtime rules themselves.

Can your employer pay it out of your tips?

Labor Code section 351 says tips belong to the employee and bars an employer from requiring you to credit a tip against the wages it owes. The Labor Commissioner treats reporting-time pay as wages. Read together, a server's reporting-time pay should be paid by the employer and should not come out of tips. We found no court decision or agency statement that says so in those words, so treat it as a strong reading of the law that is not yet settled.

Reporting-time pay examples for 2026: servers, kitchen staff and cleaners

Each example uses $18.42 an hour.

A server sent home on a slow night. You are scheduled for 8 hours. An hour in, the manager says it is dead and sends you home. Half of 8 is 4. You worked 1, so you are owed 3 more hours: 4 in total, or $73.68. Lack of work is not an exception.

A cleaner turned away at the building. You work for a contract janitorial company and are scheduled for 3 hours. On arrival, the supervisor says too many cleaners were scheduled and sends you home. That is plain lack of work, not an exception. Half of 3 is 1.5, below the floor, so you are owed 2 hours, or $36.84. If the building closed on police advice or because a public utility failed, no reporting-time pay is owed.

A server who worked exactly half. You are scheduled for 8 hours, work 4, and are sent home. You got half the shift, not less than half, so you are paid for the 4 hours worked ($73.68) and nothing more. The Court of Appeal read the rule this way in Aleman v. AirTouch Cellular (2012), a Wage Order 4 case with the same wording: the two-hour minimum applies "only if the employee is furnished work for less than half the scheduled time."

What if you are called back the same day?

Section 5(B) covers a second reporting in one workday. If you get less than two hours of work on the second reporting, you are paid for two hours for it. The two hours include the time you worked.

The Labor Commissioner's FAQ gives two examples. In one, an employee scheduled for eight hours is sent home after one hour for lack of work, then called back and works eight hours. Three hours of reporting-time pay are still owed for the first reporting. In the other, an employee finishes an eight-hour shift and returns two hours later for a one-hour training meeting. One hour of reporting-time pay is due, and the meeting hour is paid as overtime because it is the ninth hour worked.

For a line cook at $18.42, that second example works out like this: eight hours of shift pay come to $147.36, the meeting hour at time and a half is $27.63, and one hour of reporting-time pay adds $18.42. The day totals $193.41.

The unpaid gap is what triggers it. The Labor Commissioner's enforcement manual says that if a required meeting starts right after your shift, no reporting-time pay is due "no matter how long the meeting continues."

Which California workers get reporting-time pay?

Wage Order 5 covers the "public housekeeping industry," which includes restaurants, bars, cafeterias, catering and "all similar establishments where food in either solid or liquid form is prepared and served to be consumed on the premises." Kitchen staff, servers, bussers and dishwashers sit there.

• Fast food. Fast-food restaurants are inside Wage Order 5. The order defines them by reference to Labor Code section 1474 and sets their own minimum wage, but section 5 applies to them as written.
• Contract cleaning crews. The same definition names establishments "contracting for development, maintenance or cleaning of grounds; maintenance or cleaning of facilities and/or quarters of commercial units and living units." A janitorial company's crew is under Wage Order 5.
• In-house cleaners and cafeteria staff. If you work for a business whose main purpose is something else, its own industry order may cover you. The Labor Commissioner's example is a factory cafeteria, covered by Order 1. Section 5 reads the same in most orders, so usually only the citation changes.

The City of Los Angeles Fair Work Week Ordinance covers only retail businesses with 300 or more employees globally, so by its terms it does not reach restaurant staff. Berkeley's ordinance does reach large restaurant and building-services employers, and Emeryville's reaches large fast-food firms. San Francisco's Formula Retail Employee Rights Ordinances can apply to chain restaurants with at least 40 establishments worldwide and 20 or more employees in the city, and to their janitorial contractors.

When does your employer not owe reporting-time pay?

Section 5(C) lists the situations where the rule does not apply:

1. Work cannot start or continue because of threats to employees or property, or because civil authorities recommend it.
2. Public utilities fail to supply electricity, water or gas, or the sewer system fails.
3. The interruption is caused by an Act of God or another cause not within the employer's control.

The Labor Commissioner's FAQ applies the first to a bomb threat that closed a building all day, and names an earthquake as an Act of God. Its enforcement manual treats rain or bad weather that makes work impossible or unsafe the same way. An exception removes only the reporting-time pay. Hours you worked before being sent home are still paid.

The order names public utility failures. It does not say whether the restaurant's own equipment failing, such as a walk-in cooler or the register system, counts as a cause outside the employer's control. If that is why you were sent home, write down what broke and who told you.

What does not excuse the pay:

• A slow shift. Lack of work is the standard case where the pay is owed.
• Poor performance. The FAQ says work the employer finds unacceptable "does not fall within any of the exceptions."

Three narrower limits apply. If you leave on your own, for example to care for a sick child, the Labor Commissioner says no reporting-time pay is owed. Section 5(D) excludes an employee on paid standby who is called in at a time other than the scheduled reporting time. And the Labor Commissioner reads the rule as not applying to a regularly scheduled shift of less than two hours. That is the agency's own reading; section 5 does not say it.

Ready to talk it through?

If you were sent home on slow nights and your pay stubs show only the hours you worked, those facts can matter. Tell us what happened and we will review a possible wage claim free. Contact us for a confidential review.

Do call-ins and meetings count as reporting for work?

Sometimes. In Ward v. Tilly's, Inc. (2019), the Court of Appeal held that when an employer requires on-call employees to phone in two hours before a shift, that call is reporting for work, so an employee then told not to come in is owed reporting-time pay. The court described reporting as "presenting oneself as ordered," and the Labor Commissioner has adopted that reading in its FAQ.

Ward has limits. It was a retail case under Wage Order 7, decided at the pleading stage, with one justice partly dissenting. Wage Order 5's section 5 uses the same words, so the reasoning carries over to restaurants, but Ward did not decide a restaurant case. And it did not hold that any call to check a schedule triggers the pay, only a call the employer requires two hours before the shift. If your manager makes you call or check an app at a set time before each shift, save that instruction.

Meetings follow the same logic. In Price v. Starbucks Corp. (2011), a Wage Order 5 case, a barista called in on his day off for a meeting of no stated length was owed the two-hour minimum, although the meeting lasted about 45 seconds and he was fired. In Aleman, the court said a meeting scheduled in advance is scheduled work, so an employee who gets at least half the scheduled time is owed no reporting-time pay even for a meeting under two hours.

Is reporting-time pay the same as split-shift pay?

No. A split shift is a schedule broken up by unpaid, non-working periods set by the employer, other than meal or rest breaks. Wage Order 5, section 4(C), adds one hour's pay at the minimum wage for that day. In Aleman, the Court of Appeal treated that premium as a minimum-wage floor: an employee whose pay for the day already covers the minimum wage for every hour plus one gets nothing added. So for a worker paid well above the minimum wage, the split-shift premium usually adds nothing. Reporting-time pay is paid at your regular rate, whatever it is.

Whether both are owed when you are sent home and told to come back after an unpaid gap is not settled. The order does not say one displaces the other.

How do you claim unpaid reporting-time pay, and how long do you have?

You can file a wage claim with the Labor Commissioner's Office, online, by email, by mail or in person, or sue your employer in court. California's wage laws protect workers regardless of immigration status. Our guide to filing a California Labor Board wage claim walks through the first route, and our page on wage theft in California covers what else unpaid pay can involve.

If you have left the job, the Labor Commissioner says unpaid reporting-time pay due at termination "may be the basis for waiting time penalties." Labor Code section 203 requires a willful failure to pay and caps that penalty at 30 days of wages. Our guide to the California final paycheck law explains it.

Raising the issue is protected. Labor Code section 98.6 protects an employee who made "a written or oral complaint that they are owed unpaid wages," and a retaliation complaint with the Labor Commissioner is due within one year of the retaliatory act, with some exceptions. See our guide to California workplace retaliation laws.

Three years is the strong reading for the pay itself. Code of Civil Procedure section 338(a) gives three years for a liability created by statute, other than a penalty. In Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions (2007), the California Supreme Court said reporting-time pay provisions "do not become penalties for statute of limitations purposes simply because they seek to shape employer conduct in addition to compensating employees." The Court said this while deciding a meal and rest break case, so it is not a holding on reporting-time pay. The Labor Commissioner treats reporting-time pay as wages, although its FAQ also calls the pay a "penalty" in places, a label that, on Murphy's reasoning, does not decide the deadline. Still, no published appellate decision we found applies the three-year period to reporting-time pay directly, and the Labor Commissioner's filing page lists three years for minimum wage, overtime and several other wage claims without naming it. File promptly. A court claim under the unfair competition law, Business and Professions Code section 17208, has a four-year limit, but whether reporting-time pay can be recovered that way has not been settled by a court we found. Our page on important time limits for California employment cases lists the main deadlines, and our unpaid wages and overtime lawyers can confirm yours.

Start keeping three things now:

1. Your schedule for each week, as a screenshot.
2. A note each time you are sent home: the date, when you arrived, when you left, who sent you and the reason given.
3. Your pay stubs, to compare the hours paid with your notes.

Frequently asked questions

What is the California 4-hour minimum pay law?

There is no 4-hour minimum. California's reporting-time pay rule brings your day up to half your scheduled shift when you report and get no work or less than half the shift, with a 2-hour floor and a 4-hour cap. The cap limits the half-shift figure, not pay for hours you actually work, and is reached only on a scheduled shift of 8 hours or longer.

If you work 2 hours, do you get paid for 4 in California?

Only if your scheduled shift was at least 8 hours. The pay tops your day up to half the scheduled shift, counting the hours you worked, with a 4-hour cap. On a 6-hour shift you would be paid 3 hours. On a 4-hour shift, 2 hours is exactly half, so no reporting-time pay is owed.

Do you get paid if your shift is cancelled when you show up?

Yes, unless an exception applies. You are owed half your scheduled shift at your regular rate, with a 2-hour floor and a 4-hour cap. The exceptions are threats, civil authority advice, public utility failures, and Acts of God or other causes outside your employer's control. A slow night is not one of them.

Do I get paid if my manager tells me not to come in?

It depends on whether you had already reported. In Ward v. Tilly's (2019), a retail case, the Court of Appeal held that a call the employer requires two hours before a shift counts as reporting for work. Wage Order 5 uses the same words, so the argument applies to restaurants, but Ward was not a restaurant case.

Does reporting-time pay apply to split shifts?

They are separate rules. Reporting-time pay is paid at your regular rate. The split-shift premium is one hour at the minimum wage and adds nothing when your day's pay already clears the minimum wage for every hour plus one. Whether both are owed for the same unpaid gap is not settled.

What if the power goes out or there is an emergency?

Then reporting-time pay may not be owed. The wage order excuses it when public utilities fail to supply electricity, water or gas, when there are threats to employees or property or civil authorities recommend closing, and for an Act of God such as an earthquake.

Can my employer pay reporting-time pay out of my tips?

It should not. Labor Code section 351 bars an employer from crediting tips against wages owed, and the Labor Commissioner treats reporting-time pay as wages, so it should come from the employer. No court decision or agency statement we found says this in those exact words.

The Law Offices of Jonathan J. Delshad is a Los Angeles based employment law firm representing employees across California in wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, harassment, and wage and hour matters. Representing employees is the core of the firm's practice. Mr. Delshad serves as Editor-in-Chief of the California Wrongful Termination Law Review and trained at Latham & Watkins. Recognition includes Super Lawyers (2022 to 2027), Best Lawyers (since 2017), and an Avvo 10.0 "Superb" rating. Reviewed for California employment law accuracy. Last updated: November 4, 2026.

Attorney advertising. This article is educational only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship, which exists only under a signed engagement agreement. Every case is different, and outcomes depend on the specific facts. Deadlines can run early, so consult a lawyer promptly about your situation.