California Sexual Harassment Training Requirements (2026)

Source: California Government Code section 12950.1 and the Civil Rights Department (CRD). This guide is general information, not legal advice.

The training duty comes from Government Code section 12950.1. It applies to an employer that regularly employs five or more persons, or that receives services from five or more contracted persons. The CRD’s guidance describes it as employers with five or more employees, and the training applies to employees located in California.

Two groups are trained, with different lengths:

• Supervisors: at least two hours of classroom or other effective interactive training and education.
• Non-supervisory employees: at least one hour.

The training has to be repeated once every two years. It is the employer’s responsibility to provide it, including any cost, not the employee’s. The statute also says that a claim that training did not reach a particular person does not by itself create liability, and that completing the training does not shield an employer from harassment liability. In other words, training is one part of a prevention program, not a safe harbor.

Section 12950.1 requires practical examples that teach supervisors how to prevent harassment, discrimination and retaliation. Two content points are written into the statute:

• Abusive conduct: training must include the prevention of abusive conduct.
• Gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation: training must cover harassment based on these characteristics, with practical examples, and be presented by qualified trainers.

The statute also describes how online training must work: it needs an interactive feature that requires the viewer to respond to a question periodically, and questions must be answered by the employer’s HR department or an equally qualified professional. A video that you simply watch does not fit that description.

Bystander intervention is not required by California law at this time, according to the CRD. An employer may choose to include it, and many do.

• New non-supervisory employees: within six months of hire.
• New or newly promoted supervisors: within six months of taking the supervisory position.
• Employees hired for less than six months (seasonal, temporary): within 30 calendar days of the hire date or within 100 hours worked, whichever occurs first.
• The two-year cycle: after the first training, it repeats every two years. The CRD’s employer guidance currently points to January 1, 2027 as the next cycle deadline, so check its page for how the cycle applies to your workforce.

Your own counting of the cycle depends on when each person was last trained, so confirm your dates with the CRD or an employment lawyer.

The state’s Civil Rights Department provides free online sexual harassment prevention courses: one for supervisors and one for non-supervisory employees. The statute says the department’s courses satisfy the employer’s training obligation, and employers may also use other providers or classroom training that meets the law. The CRD courses are available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Tagalog, with closed captions.

At the end of the course the learner generates a certificate of completion. The CRD says it cannot email a replacement certificate, so save it or send it to your employer right away. Start here: calcivilrights.ca.gov/shpt.

If your goal is to meet the California mandate, using the free CRD course is the simplest and most defensible choice.

Gama Safety’s Sexual Harassment Training is a self-paced online course of about 1.5 hours, priced at US$19.95, with a final exam (80% to pass) and a certificate. It is a general harassment-prevention course. Its own course page says that several states, including California, New York and Illinois, have their own training content and timing rules, that the course has not been reviewed for those state-specific requirements, and that you should check your state’s rules before using it to meet a legal training mandate.

So we do not claim it satisfies California’s requirement, and it is not approved or certified by the state. Where it can help:

• General awareness and refreshers between your required cycles.
• Multi-state teams, where employees outside California need baseline training and no state mandate applies to them.
• A supplement to the CRD course, for example for staff who want a second look at the basics.

If you are a California employer who needs to meet section 12950.1, take the CRD course (or another provider whose content you have confirmed meets the law) for that purpose.

The statute requires the state to provide a way for learners to save and print a certificate of completion. Employers should keep a record of who was trained, which course they took and when, so they can show the two-year cycle and the six-month deadlines were met. The sources we checked did not give a single statewide retention period for employer training records, so we do not state one here. Ask the CRD or your lawyer how long to keep them.

If a trainer answers employee questions during live or webinar training, the CRD regulations have separate record rules for those written questions and responses.

The statute says the department may seek an order requiring the employer to comply with the training requirements. The text we reviewed does not describe a fixed fine. Separately, employers that fail to prevent harassment can face claims under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act regardless of training.

• California Legislature, Government Code section 12950.1.
• California Civil Rights Department, Sexual Harassment Prevention Training, including the employer FAQ.
• Gama Safety, Sexual Harassment Training course page.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Laws change, so confirm with the sources above.