How much bereavement leave do I get in California?

A: Since 1 January 2023 it is an unlawful employment practice for a California employer to refuse a request to take up to five days of bereavement leave upon the death of a family member.¹ The employer needs five or more employees, or to be the state, a city or a county at any size.² You need 30 days on the job before the leave starts.³ The days "need not be consecutive."⁴

Five days per death — not five days a year

There is no annual cap in the statute. None. It grants five days "upon the death of a family member," and nothing anywhere in the section limits how many deaths that covers.¹

The contrast makes it certain rather than merely arguable: the reproductive loss leave statute, written a year later by the same Legislature, does impose a cap — "not… in excess of 20 days within a 12-month period."⁵ No such sentence exists here. The Civil Rights Department works the exact example: someone who loses a parent, a child and a grandparent in the same year "can take three five-day periods of bereavement leave during that year."⁶

Who counts as family

A spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner, or parent-in-law, using the California Family Rights Act's definitions.⁷ Those definitions are broader than they look: "parent" reaches a foster parent, a stepparent, a legal guardian and a person who stood in loco parentis to you as a child; "child" reaches a foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward and the child of a domestic partner; "sibling" includes siblings by adoption or affinity.⁸

But the list is closed, and there is no "designated person." Paid sick leave has one and the California Family Rights Act has one. Bereavement leave does not.⁷ If the person who died was chosen family rather than legal family, this statute will not reach them — your accrued sick leave might, because kin care does have a designated-person category.

Paid, unpaid, and the part employers get wrong

The leave "shall be taken pursuant to any existing bereavement leave policy" the employer has.⁹ Then the statute does something careful:

• No policy at all? The leave "may be unpaid," except that you may use vacation, personal leave, accrued and available sick leave, or compensatory time off otherwise available to you.¹⁰
• A policy that pays fewer than five days? You are entitled to "no less than a total of five days," made up of the policy's paid days plus unpaid days for the remainder.¹¹
• A policy with fewer than five unpaid days? You get no less than five unpaid days.¹²

So a three-day paid policy becomes three paid plus two unpaid, and you can put your own PTO against those two. The floor is five days of protected time, never fewer.

The documentation rule, read properly

The employer may request documentation — but the deadline runs from the leave, not before it: you provide it "within 30 days of the first day of the leave."¹³ Nothing entitles an employer to hold up your leave pending paperwork, and the Civil Rights Department says so: "you are not required to provide such documentation before you begin your leave."⁶

And the list of acceptable documents is open: "includes, but is not limited to, a death certificate, a published obituary, or written verification of death, burial, or memorial services from a mortuary, funeral home, burial society, crematorium, religious institution, or governmental agency."¹³ An obituary is enough. A note from the funeral home is enough.

Whatever you hand over is confidential: the employer "shall maintain the confidentiality of any employee requesting leave," and documentation "shall not be disclosed except to internal personnel or counsel, as necessary, or as required by law."¹⁴

Three more things

Three months, and no extension. The leave "shall be completed within three months of the date of death."¹⁵ Unlike reproductive loss leave, there is no provision restarting the clock after another leave ends.

It is separate from CFRA. The statute says the right "shall be construed as separate and distinct from any right under Section 12945.2."¹⁶ Taking bereavement leave does not spend your 12 weeks.

Union contracts can be carved out. The section does not apply to an employee covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement that expressly provides equivalent bereavement leave, along with terms on wages, hours and working conditions, premium overtime rates, and a regular hourly rate "not less than 30 percent above the state minimum wage."¹⁷ If your CBA is silent on bereavement leave, the statute applies to you.

If it goes wrong

Retaliation and interference are both separately unlawful.¹⁸ This is a Fair Employment and Housing Act right, so it goes to the Civil Rights Department, with three years to file the intake form.¹⁹ If your employer has 5 to 19 employees, CRD's small employer family leave mediation program is a prerequisite to filing suit.²⁰

Do this: put the request in writing and use the statutory phrase — "bereavement leave under Government Code section 12945.7" — with the dates and the relationship. Say in the same message whether you are electing to use PTO or sick leave for the unpaid portion. Do not send a death certificate with the request; you have 30 days from the first day of leave, and only if asked. Grief is not a mental illness and does not need a diagnosis, but if the weeks after are not moving the way you expected, that is a normal reason to talk to someone. Start with what's happening →

Sources

1. Government Code §12945.7(b): "It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to refuse to grant a request by any employee to take up to five days of bereavement leave upon the death of a family member." Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 767, §1 (AB 1949), operative 1 January 2023 — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
2. Government Code §12945.7(a)(2).
3. Government Code §12945.7(a)(1)(A). Subparagraph (B) excludes a person covered by Government Code §19859.3.
4. Government Code §12945.7(c).
5. Government Code §12945.6(b)(1) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
6. California Civil Rights Department, Bereavement Leave (AB 1949) FAQ (CRD-E17P-ENG, March 2023), questions 6 and 9 — calcivilrights.ca.gov.
7. Government Code §12945.7(a)(3) — "'Family member' means a spouse or a child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner, or parent-in-law as defined in Section 12945.2."
8. Government Code §12945.2(b)(1), (b)(11) and (b)(14) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
9. Government Code §12945.7(e)(1).
10. Government Code §12945.7(e)(2).
11. Government Code §12945.7(e)(3).
12. Government Code §12945.7(e)(4).
13. Government Code §12945.7(f).
14. Government Code §12945.7(i).
15. Government Code §12945.7(d).
16. Government Code §12945.7(j).
17. Government Code §12945.7(k).
18. Government Code §12945.7(g) and (h).
19. Government Code §12960(e)(5) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov; CRD, Complaint Process — calcivilrights.ca.gov.
20. Government Code §12945.21(a), (c) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

All sections read on the operative text on 18 August 2026. This page describes the statute; it is not legal advice.