California 2025 Semi-Monthly payroll calendar

How to use this California 2025 calendar

This calendar represents the semi-monthly pay schedule we recommend for California small businesses and startups in 2025. The pay periods follow the 1st-to-15th and 16th-to-end-of-month semi-monthly cadence required or expected by most state wage payment statutes, and the pay dates already account for the eleven observed federal holidays and weekend bank closures throughout 2025. Print this page (Ctrl/⌘+P) for a clean, single-color reference you can drop into your payroll binder.

To adopt this calendar:

• Set your time-card cutoff at the end of each pay period — typically end of business on the period's last day, or the morning after at the latest. Compare time-tracking software if you don't already have a system for this.
• Run payroll one to three business days before each pay date so funds settle in employee accounts on the published date. Most direct-deposit ACH credits require a 1–2 business day lead; same-day ACH or wire transfers can shorten that window if you need to recover from a missed deadline.
• Schedule your IRS payroll tax deposit using whichever column above matches your IRS classification (semi-weekly or monthly). New employers default to monthly until their lookback-period total exceeds $50,000.
• Reconcile against the California wage payment rule shown above. The rule sets a floor — you can always pay more frequently, but never less.
• If your business prefers to pay on a fixed weekday (e.g., always Friday), shift the entire pay-date column accordingly and re-apply the prior-business-day rule for any holiday conflicts.

Federal payroll tax deposits in 2025

Pay dates drive your federal payroll tax deposit deadlines. The IRS classifies most small employers as either monthly depositors (deposit by the 15th of the following month) or semi-weekly depositors (deposit by Wednesday for pay dates Wednesday–Friday, or by Friday for pay dates Saturday–Tuesday). New employers default to monthly until their lookback period — July 1 of the second prior year through June 30 of the prior year — shows more than $50,000 of total federal payroll tax liability, at which point they automatically convert to semi-weekly for the next calendar year.

The deposit deadlines in the table above are computed from the pay dates on this calendar and shifted forward whenever the deadline itself lands on a weekend or federal holiday — the same banking-day rule the IRS applies in §31.6302-1(c)(2). Use the column that matches your classification and consult IRS Publication 15 (Circular E) or your payroll provider for the next-day deposit rule that applies whenever a single payroll triggers $100,000 or more of accumulated tax liability.

Quick reference: California employer obligations (2025)

Reference data; verify current rates with the California labor department before adopting.

Looking at a different California schedule?

Compare this calendar to other California options:

• California 2025 Biweekly schedule →
• California Semi-Monthly overview (all years)
• All California calendars
• All semi-monthly calendars
• All 2025 calendars
• 2025 federal holiday reference

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