How long does workers’ comp last in California? Four clocks, and what ends each one

How long does workers’ comp last? Four answers to one question

Each benefit has its own start, its own length and its own end.

The answer most people find first is the wrong one for them. Search for how long workers’ comp lasts and you will mostly read about 104 weeks. That is the limit on temporary disability, the checks that replace part of your wages while you cannot work. It is real, and for many people it is the clock that matters most in the first year. But it says nothing about the permanent disability that follows, the medical care that can go on for decades, or how long you have to go back to the Appeals Board if the injury gets worse.

The four clocks, side by side:

• Temporary disability. Up to 104 weeks of checks, inside a window of five years from the date of injury, and 240 weeks for a short list of severe injuries. It ends when you go back to work, when a doctor finds you permanent and stationary, or when the weeks run out.
• Permanent disability. A number of weeks set by your rating, paid at its own weekly rate. It generally starts when temporary disability ends and stops after the last of those weeks. At 70% and above, a life pensionLife pension Payable at 70%–99% after the PD award is exhausted. § 4659(a): 1.5% of average weekly earnings per point above 60 — with earnings capped at $515.38 since 2006. follows.
• Medical care. Treatment for the injury, for as long as it is reasonably required. It has no end date, unless a settlement closes it.
• The five years. The period in which an award can be reopened because the injury has caused new and further disability. It runs from the date of injury, not from the settlement.

Two run from the injury, and they run regardless. The 104 weeks and the five-year reopening window are both counted from the date you were hurt. They keep running while the claim is delayed, while it is denied and while it is being fought over. That is why the date of injury is the first thing to write down, and the first thing a lawyer will ask you.

The date of injury is not always the day you remember. For an injury that built up over months or years of work, the law sets the date of injury by its own rule, and it can fall later than your last day on the job.

Hurt by years of work, not one day? Cumulative trauma, and the date that decides it How long will my case take?

How long does temporary disability last?

Up to 104 weeks, but inside five years that start on the day you were hurt.

The limit. For injuries on or after January 1, 2008, temporary disability is limited to 104 compensable weeks within five years of the date of injury. It is two-thirds of your average weekly wage, between $264.61 and $1,764.11 a week for a 2026 injury, paid every two weeks while a doctor says you cannot work or cannot do your job.

It is not two years from the first check. The 104 weeks sit inside a window that opens on the day of the injury and closes five years later, whether or not anything was being paid. A worker whose claim was denied and fought over for four years has, in practical terms, about one year left in which to be paid. The clock ran while the case was argued.

Partial weeks count too. If a doctor releases you to modified work at lower pay, temporary partial disability pays two-thirds of the difference. Those weeks count against the same 104.

The longer limit, for a closed list. Nine conditions get 240 weeks within the five years: acute and chronic hepatitis B, acute and chronic hepatitis C, HIV, amputations, severe burns, high-velocity eye injuries, chemical burns to the eyes, pulmonary fibrosis and chronic lung disease. A cancer covered by the presumption for firefighters and certain peace officers, for injuries on or after January 1, 2023, gets up to 240 weeks with no five-year window at all.

What does not extend it. The list is closed. A devastating spinal cord injury gets 104 weeks; an amputation gets 240. Weeks spent waiting for treatment that was wrongly denied, then approved on Independent Medical ReviewIMR Independent Medical Review. The appeal from a UR denial. 30 days (10 if the dispute is only over drugs on the MTUS Drug List)., still count against the 104. Two bills that would have changed that both failed. Those are poor odds, and it is better to know them in the first month than in the hundredth week.

The 104 is a ceiling, not an amount you are owed. Temporary disability is paid only for weeks in which you are temporarily disabled. If you go back to work after twelve weeks, you were owed twelve weeks, and the other ninety-two are not a balance anyone pays out. They stay available only if the injury puts you off work again inside the five years.

A raise on long claims. If temporary total disability is still being paid two years or more after the injury, each payment is computed at the rate limits in force on the day it is paid, not those of the year you were hurt. The Court of Appeal said so in Hofmeister v. WCABWCAB Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The court system that decides these cases. 23 district offices statewide., decided in 1984. The raise is owed without anyone asking, and it is routinely missed.

Temporary disability: the rates and the 104-week limit The 2026 temporary disability rates, and which year’s rate you get

What happens when the 104 weeks run out

The checks stop, and a different benefit at a different rate usually begins.

Payments stop even if you still cannot work. That is the hard part of the limit, and it should not arrive as a surprise. Most people do not reach it: their temporary disability ends earlier, when a doctor finds them permanent and stationary or releases them to work. For those who do reach it, the end of the 104 weeks is not the end of the case.

Permanent and stationary does not mean healed. It means your condition has reached a plateau, and a doctor can now measure what is left. That finding usually ends temporary disability and opens the next clock. The first permanent disability payment is generally due within 14 days after the last temporary disability payment, with exceptions where the employer offers work at 85 to 100% of what you earned before.

The next check is usually much smaller. Permanent disability is two-thirds of the same wage, but between $160 and $290 a week, figures frozen since January 1, 2014. A worker whose temporary disability check was $800 a week may see $290. Plan for the gap, and do not settle in a hurry to close it.

A written notice is owed. When the checks change or stop, the claims administratorClaims administrator / adjuster The person handling your claim for the insurer or self-insured employer. has to tell you in writing why, and what comes next. If the reason on the notice is wrong, it can be disputed, but some of the deadlines are short.

The voucher, if you cannot go back. If your employer does not offer work within your restrictions, you may be owed a supplemental job displacement voucher for retraining. It has its own deadlines, and they start from the permanent and stationary report.

Workers’ comp checks stopped? Why they end, and what comes next The supplemental job displacement voucher

How long permanent disability pays

A rating is a number of weeks, and the weeks grow faster as the rating climbs.

The rating becomes weeks. Your permanent disability rating is a percentage, built by a doctor’s measurement and a schedule’s adjustments. The law converts that percentage into a number of weeks, and the weeks are paid at your permanent disability rate. The statute says the weeks “shall be cumulative”: each band of points adds weeks at its own pace, and the pace rises as the rating climbs.

How fast the weeks add up:

• Below 10%, each point adds 3 weeks.
• From 10% to 14.75%, 4 weeks a point.
• From 15% to 24.75%, 5 weeks a point.
• From 25% to 29.75%, 6 weeks a point.
• From 30% to 49.75%, 7 weeks a point.
• From 50% to 69.75%, 8 weeks a point.
• From 70% to 99.75%, 16 weeks a point.

What that means in time. A 5% rating pays 15 weeks, a few months of checks. A 15% rating pays 50.50 weeks, about a year. A 25% rating pays 100.75 weeks, about two. A 50% rating pays 271.25 weeks, more than five years. A 70% rating pays 433.25 weeks, more than eight, and then a life pension begins.

Paid every two weeks, or all at once. If the case ends in Stipulations with Request for AwardStips — Stipulations with Request for Award An agreed percentage paid over time, with future medical left open, and reopening available within five years of the date of injury. These are not two prices for the same thing., the remaining permanent disability is paid to you every two weeks until the weeks run out. If it ends in a Compromise and Release, it is folded into a lump sum. Either way, permanent disability already paid as an advance counts against the award.

The weeks do not depend on your wage. The rating sets the weeks. Your wage sets only the weekly rate, between $160 and $290. Two workers with the same rating get the same number of weeks; the one who earned more may get more each week, up to the cap.

Asking how long workers’ comp lasts is really asking which clock you are on, and what will stop it.

Permanent disability: how the rating is built What your permanent disability rating means, number by number

When workers’ comp pays for life

At 70% a pension follows the weeks, and at 100% the checks never end.

The life pension, at 70% and above. A rating of 70% or more earns a life pension on top of the permanent disability weeks. It begins when those weeks run out and is paid for the rest of your life. It also rises each year with the state average weekly wage. Under Baker v. WCAB, decided by the California Supreme Court in 2011, the increases begin on the January 1 after you actually start receiving the pension.

Permanent total disabilityPTD Permanent Total Disability. 100%. Paid at the temporary disability rate for life., at 100%. A worker found 100% permanently disabled is paid at the temporary disability rate for the remainder of life, with the same annual increases. In 2026 that can be as much as $1,764.11 a week. Some injuries are conclusively presumed total, such as the loss of both eyes or both hands; otherwise 100% is proved with medical and vocational evidence.

The difference one point makes. Between 99% and 100% there is no partial credit. That is why a case near the top is built carefully, and why a settlement of a case rated 70% or higher should never be signed without the life pension calculated in writing.

100% permanent total disability What a settlement is built from, and the life pension

How long workers’ comp medical care lasts

For as long as the injury needs it, unless a settlement closes it.

There is no end date in the law. The employer’s obligation is to provide treatment reasonably required to cure or relieve the effects of the injury. Nothing in it ends at 104 weeks, at the last permanent disability check or at five years. Medical treatment for the injury continues for life, unless it is settled away.

What can close it: a Compromise and Release. In a Compromise and Release you take a lump sum, and future medical care for the injury is bought out and becomes your responsibility, permanently. It does not come back because the injury got worse. That is the trade: money now, in exchange for the care later.

What keeps it open: Stipulations with Request for Award. You agree on the permanent disability percentage, it is paid to you every two weeks, and your right to future medical care for the injury stays open. Asking for treatment years later is not reopening the case. Your doctor requests it, and if it is denied, the dispute goes through utilization reviewUR Utilization Review. The process that approves, modifies, or denies each treatment request. A modification is a denial of what it left out. and independent medical review.

The five years do not close medical care. This is the misunderstanding that costs people most. The five-year limit on reopening an award for new and further disability does not end future medical care under a Stipulated award. If the award left it open, it stays open after the fifth anniversary of the injury.

Open does not mean unlimited. Each treatment still has to be requested by your doctor and approved as reasonably required, and some kinds of care, such as chiropractic and physical therapy, are limited in the number of visits.

Medical treatment: what the employer owes Treatment denied? Utilization review and IMR, step by step

How long a workers’ comp case stays open

Five years from the injury, for an award that has to be changed.

The window. The Appeals Board keeps continuing jurisdiction over an award for five years from the date of injury. Inside that window, a petition can ask it to increase the award because the original injury has caused new and further disability: a gradual increase in disability, a return of temporary disability, a new need for treatment, or a temporary disability that became permanent.

From the injury, not the settlement. The five years are counted from the date of injury. Not from the settlement, not from the award and not from the last check. A case that took three years to settle leaves about two in which to reopen it.

The worsening has to happen inside it, too. The petition must be filed within the five years, and the change in your condition must have happened within them. A petition filed in time can be decided after the five years have passed.

Which settlement you signed decides most of it. Stipulations leave the right to reopen in place. A Compromise and Release generally forecloses it, leaving only a narrow petition to set the settlement aside for good cause, which must also be filed within five years of the injury.

Some claims keep their own clocks. A claim against the Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust FundSIBTF Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund. Pays where a pre-existing disability plus an industrial injury produce a substantially greater disability. Rewritten by SB 171 in July 2026., for a worker who had a disability before the work injury, survives either settlement and has its own limit: five years from the work injury, or six months from the resolution of permanent disability, whichever is later.

Settled, and it got worse? Reopening a workers’ comp case Already settled: what is left

One injury, four clocks

An illustrative case, counted from the date she was hurt.

The facts (illustrative). The forklift driver was hurt on March 2, 2026. Her average weekly wage was $1,200, so her temporary disability rate was $800 a week, two-thirds of it, and her permanent disability rate was $290, the maximum. She was off work for 60 weeks, and then her doctor found her permanent and stationary.

Clock one, temporary disability. It was paid for 60 weeks, until the end of April 2027, and stopped when she was found permanent and stationary. She used 60 of her 104 weeks. The other 44 are not owed to her. They stay available only if the injury takes her off work again before March 2, 2031.

Clock two, permanent disability. Her back was rated 15%. That is 50.50 weeks at $290, or $14,645. The first payment was due within 14 days of her last temporary disability check, and paid every two weeks, the 50.50 weeks run into the spring of 2028.

Clock three, medical care. She settled by Stipulations with Request for Award, so future medical care for her back stayed open. It does not end in 2028, when the last permanent disability check is paid, or in 2031, when the five years close. It continues as long as her back needs care that is reasonably required.

Clock four, the five years. Her window to reopen the award closes on March 2, 2031, five years from the day she was hurt. If her back gets worse before then, and the medical evidence shows it, she can petition for new and further disability before that date.

What would have changed it. Had she signed a Compromise and Release, clock three would have ended the day the judge approved it, and clock four would have closed with it, for all practical purposes. Had her claim been denied for her first three years, clock one would have had about two years left to run. Had her rating been 70%, clock two would have run for 433.25 weeks and then a life pension would have begun.

How much is my workers’ comp case worth? One case, worked from the paycheck to the final check

When you do not need a lawyer for this

Counting the clocks is something you can do yourself.

You can count most of it. Your date of injury is on your claim form. The weeks of temporary disability paid are on the benefit notices. The weeks your rating pays are in the table above. The fifth anniversary of your injury is a date on a calendar. If your checks were right and on time, you went back to work, and your rating is low, you may not need anyone to tell you how long anything lasts.

The state answers questions for free. The Division of Workers’ Compensation’s Information and Assistance officers help workers who do not have a lawyer, including with a rating.

When a consultation is worth having. When you are approaching the 104 weeks and cannot work; when the claim was denied or delayed for a long time and the five years are running; when you are offered a Compromise and Release that closes medical care you will need; when the rating is near 70%; when temporary disability has been paid for more than two years at the old rate; or when your condition is getting worse and the fifth anniversary is near. A consultation with this office costs nothing, and if there is nothing to gain, we will say so.

When you don’t need a lawyer, and what changes the answer

A file for counting your clocks:

• Your date of injury — From the claim form, and for a cumulative injury the date the law sets.
• Every benefit notice — The weeks of temporary disability paid, total and partial, and the reason any payment changed.
• The permanent and stationary report — The date it was received, and the rating, if one has been issued.
• The rating, as weeks — The number of weeks it pays, and the date the last of them will be paid.
• The settlement papers — The title on the first page: Stipulations with Request for Award, or Compromise and Release.
• The fifth anniversary — The date five years after your injury, on your calendar.