California Workers' Compensation Rates

Current as of August 19, 2026.

Read this first: which rate applies to you depends on which benefit it is.

Temporary disability uses the rate in effect on your date of injury, and it does not change afterward — with one exception below. Permanent disability uses the schedule in effect on your date of injury. Mileage uses the rate in effect on the date you traveled, regardless of your date of injury.

Most rate pages get this wrong, and it is the difference between a correct figure and a confidently wrong one.

Temporary disability — 2026

Temporary disability is two-thirds of your average weekly earnings, subject to a statutory floor and ceiling. It is not taxed.

Source: DWC Newsline 2025-116, November 21, 2025. State average weekly wage $1,789 (+4.98826%).

Prior years

A trap in the 2022 figures. DWC first announced that 2022 rates would remain unchanged at $203.44 / $1,356.31 (Newsline 2021-93), relying on data showing the state average weekly wage declining. That was superseded by Newsline 2021-109 (October 25, 2021), which announced an increase to $230.95 / $1,539.71 on a corrected figure. Several commercial charts still publish the withdrawn numbers.

The one exception to "date of injury governs"

Where a temporary TOTAL disability payment is made two years or more after the date of injury, that payment is computed at the earnings figures in effect on the date the payment is made — not the injury year's. § 4661.5. Two conditions, both easy to miss: the payment has to fall two years or more past the date of injury, and the rule reaches temporary total disability. A 2025 injury paid in 2026 does not get the 2026 cap.

A worker injured in 2020 (max $1,299.43) who is still receiving temporary disability in 2026 should be paid at $1,764.11 — a difference of $464.68 per week, roughly $24,163 a year.

This is checkable against your payment history, and it is missed.

How long it lasts

Generally 104 compensable weeks within five years of the date of injury.

Nine conditions get 240 weeks instead under § 4656(c)(3): acute and chronic hepatitis B · acute and chronic hepatitis C · amputations · severe burns · HIV · high-velocity eye injuries · chemical burns to the eyes · pulmonary fibrosis · chronic lung disease.

136 additional weeks. At the 2026 maximum, $239,918.96. Why this is missed so often.

Permanent disability — weekly rates

Permanent disability is also two-thirds of average weekly earnings, but against a different and much lower set of earnings limits, which do not adjust annually.

Derived from the average weekly earnings limits in Labor Code § 4453(b) at two-thirds.

Note the gap. The 2026 temporary disability maximum is $1,764.11 a week. The permanent disability maximum is $290.00 a week. They are not the same benefit and they are not close.

How a rating becomes money

The percentage converts to weeks, and the weeks convert to dollars.

The § 4658 schedule is CUMULATIVE, not flat.

Labor Code § 4658 provides that the figures "shall be cumulative." Higher ratings earn more weeks per point — 3 weeks per point in the lowest band, rising to 16 weeks per point from 70% to 99.75% — and each band's weeks are added to the bands below it, not substituted for them.

A calculator that multiplies the whole rating by a single band's figure is wrong in both directions, and that error is on the current site and on several competitors'.

Verified anchor values (weeks of permanent disability):

Then: weeks × your weekly PD rate = the award, less permanent disability advances already paid. The full arithmetic. · How to read your rating string.

Life pension — 70% to 99%

Labor Code § 4659(a): "1.5 percent of the average weekly earnings for each 1 percent of disability in excess of 60 percent" — paid for life after the permanent disability award is exhausted.

And the average weekly earnings in that formula are capped at $515.38, a figure unchanged since January 1, 2006.

It escalates. § 4659(c) increases life pension and total disability payments annually by the percentage increase in the state average weekly wage. Under Baker v. WCAB (2011) 52 Cal.4th 434, those increases commence on the January 1 following the date the worker first becomes entitled to and actually begins receiving the payments — not retroactively.

100% permanent total disability

§ 4659(b): the indemnity based on average weekly earnings under § 4453 is paid during the remainder of life — the temporary disability rate, for life.

Roughly $1,460 a week. About $76,000 a year. For one rating point.

It is the largest discontinuity in California workers' compensation. What has to be proved to cross it.

Death benefits

Paid in installments at the temporary disability rate, not less than $224 per week.

And payments to totally dependent minors continue until the youngest turns 18 — past the face amount — for life where a dependent child is incapacitated from earning.

The deadline is the danger. § 5406(b) bars proceedings more than one year after the date of death, nor more than 240 weeks from the date of injury. The 240 weeks is not absolute — § 5406(a) excepts §§ 5406.5, 5406.6 and 5406.7, and § 5406.7 reaches 420 weeks for a death from a § 3212.1 cancer, § 3212.6 tuberculosis or § 3212.8 blood-borne infectious disease. Why that can expire before the death.

Amounts are for injuries on or after January 1, 2006 and have not changed since.

Medical mileage

Uses the rate in effect on the date of travel — not your date of injury.

Sources: DWC Newsline 2026-60 and 2026-02.

The rate changed twice in 2026. Plus parking and bridge tolls.

And for an employer-requested examination, § 4600(e) provides more than mileage: "all reasonable expenses of transportation, meals, and lodging incident to reporting for the examination, together with one day of temporary disability indemnity for each day of wages lost." The mileage and tolls are to be paid when you are notified of the appointment — not afterward. More.

Penalties

How penalties work. · Serious and willful misconduct.