10 Things California Employers Can’t Legally Ask You

A hiring manager at a Sacramento company starts to ask the question, then stops halfway through.

California crossed it off the list months ago.

These are the questions a California employer can’t legally ask you, whether your interviewer knows it or not.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. California’s employment protections and their exceptions can change, so confirm your situation with the California Civil Rights Department.

1. Your Age or Graduation Year

California employers can’t ask your age, your birthday, or the year you graduated high school or college before they hire you.

The state’s Fair Employment and Housing Council closed that loophole back in 2020, building it into the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).

The rule covers more than the interview.

A job posting can’t ask for “recent graduates” or “digital natives,” and an online form can’t require a birth date.

Illegal, all of it.

A newer rule goes further still.

Since October 2025, state regulators have required employers to test any hiring algorithm for age bias before they use it.

A tool that scores an applicant’s word choice, facial expressions, or reaction time on a video interview can screen out older candidates without anyone ever typing in a birth date.

Employers can still ask if you meet a minimum age for some jobs, serving alcohol or working with heavy equipment among them, since they’re tied to the actual duties and not your resume.

2. Your Salary History

Can a California employer ask what you made at your last job?

No, not verbally, not on a form, and not through a staffing agency.

Labor Code 432.3 bars the question outright and blocks a company from using an old paycheck to set your new salary.

They can still ask what you want to make.

Different question.

You’re also free to volunteer your old salary if you want to. The law protects you from being asked. It doesn’t stop you from offering it.

3. Your Conviction History

California employers can’t ask about a criminal conviction until after they’ve handed you a conditional job offer.

Not before.

The Fair Chance Act, often called ban the box, moved that question to the very end of the hiring process.

An application can’t carry a conviction checkbox, and an interviewer can’t bring it up while you’re still competing for the job.

Once the offer goes out, a background check can turn something up.

Even then, the employer has to weigh how long ago it happened and whether it relates to the job, put the reasoning in writing, and give you at least five business days to respond before pulling the offer.

A required process, not a formality.

4. Arrests Without a Conviction

An arrest that never turned into a conviction is one California employers can’t legally ask about.

Labor Code 432.7 also blocks questions about a case sent to a diversion program, a conviction that’s been sealed or judicially dismissed, and anything that happened while you were still a juvenile.

Employers can’t dig for that history from any other source either, and they can’t factor it into hiring, promotion, or firing.

One exception exists.

An employer can ask about an arrest if you’re currently out on bail or awaiting trial for it, since that case is still open.

5. Your Immigration Status

A California employer can’t ask about your immigration status, full stop, with one narrow exception.

The state’s Civil Rights Department puts it plainly. An employer can only look into it if federal immigration law leaves no other way to comply.

Not a hunch.

Civil Code 3339 sets the bar high. The employer has to show clear and convincing evidence the question is legally required, not just useful to know.

The same law limits what a company can demand once you’re already on payroll.

Labor Code 1019.1 blocks a company from demanding more identity or work-authorization documents than federal law requires, and violating it carries a fine of up to $10,000 per instance.

6. Your Marital Status

Marital status sits on the list of questions California employers can’t legally ask, whether you’re single, married, divorced, or engaged.

FEHA treats marital status as a protected category, right alongside questions about your children, their ages, or your plans to have more.

Off the table.

A narrow exception covers anti-nepotism policies, so a company that already bars spouses from supervising each other can ask if a relative already works there.

That’s about the policy, not your love life.

7. Your Medical History

No health questionnaire, no physical, no question about a medical condition, not before a California employer has already extended the job offer.

FEHA bars the question directly: No asking about medications, past surgeries, mental health treatment, or a diagnosis, and no medical exam before an offer exists.

What they can ask is narrower.

An employer can describe the job’s essential functions, lifting a certain weight or standing for a shift, and ask whether you can perform them, with or without a reasonable accommodation.

That’s the line, and it isn’t unique to California.

The federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) draws the same pre-offer line nationwide, so an applicant in Ohio gets a similar shield.

FEHA still adds California value on top of it: It kicks in at employers with five or more workers instead of the federal law’s fifteen, and its definition of “disability” covers more conditions than the ADA’s does.

Ability, not diagnosis.

8. Your Past Cannabis Use

Since January 1, 2024, a California employer can’t ask a job applicant a single question about prior cannabis use.

Not on paper.

Not out loud, either.

Government Code 12954, added by Senate Bill 700, spells it out: An employer can’t request information from an applicant about their past use of marijuana, on or off the clock.

Building and construction trades sit outside the rule, along with jobs that need a federal background investigation or security clearance.

A companion law passed the same year goes a step further after you’re hired.

It bars an employer from firing or disciplining you over off-duty use or a drug test that only catches nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites, the kind standard urine tests pick up long after any high has worn off.

9. Your Credit History

Regular access to $10,000 or more in cash a day is the bar a job has to clear before a California employer can run your credit.

Labor Code 1024.5 limits the question to a short list of jobs: Management roles, law enforcement, positions a law requires it for, and jobs with regular access to money or sensitive records.

A cashier handling the store’s petty cash drawer doesn’t clear that bar.

Many retail and restaurant jobs never touch that threshold either.

Nowhere close.

10. Your Genetic Information

California law also blocks employers from asking for a genetic test result, or asking about diseases that run in your family.

Family history counts too.

The California Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, known as CalGINA, folded genetic information into FEHA back in 2012, reaching further than the federal genetic-privacy law it’s modeled on.

Federal law caps how much someone can collect over a genetic-discrimination claim.