Is Time Clock Rounding Still Legal in California?
By Ryan Danz, Founding Attorney, Employer Guidance Group PC
Disclaimer: This article is general information about California law — not legal advice, and not a substitute for having counsel review your specific policies. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Employment law changes frequently; consult a licensed California employment attorney about your situation before acting.
Your point-of-sale system or badge reader logs punches to the second. Your payroll system still rounds them to the nearest five, six, or fifteen minutes before it calculates pay. For more than a decade, that gap between what the clock saw and what the paycheck reflects was legally beside the point, as long as the rounding was neutral. It may not stay that way, and the California Supreme Court is the reason.
A pending case — fully briefed and awaiting oral argument — is positioned to decide whether neutral rounding survives at all once an employer's system already captures exact time. If you round hourly employees' time in California, the answer matters to every pay period in your four-year look-back, not just the ones ahead of you.
The rule employers have relied on since 2012
The current rule comes from See's Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 889, a Fourth District opinion. Borrowing from a federal wage-and-hour regulation, the court held that a rounding policy is lawful if it is facially neutral — it rounds up and down on the same terms — and, averaged over time, it does not systematically shortchange employees for time actually worked. A later case applying that same test, Silva v. See's Candy Shops, Inc. (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. 1, No. D068136, 2016), upheld a nearest-tenth-of-an-hour policy on that basis — an employer did not have to show every shift came out exact, only that the policy was neutral on its face and roughly a wash over time.
That has been the governing standard for over a decade. It is also the standard two pending appeals now ask the California Supreme Court to narrow or discard.
Why Camp v. Home Depot changed the conversation
In Camp v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 638 (Cal. Ct. App., 6th Dist., No. H049033), the Sixth District reversed summary judgment for the employer. The court's reasoning did not attack rounding in the abstract — it focused on the fact that Home Depot's own electronic timekeeping system already recorded exact clock-in and clock-out times before rounding was applied. If the exact figure already exists in the employer's own records, the court asked, what does rounding accomplish besides occasionally paying someone less than they worked? The opinion stopped short of banning rounding outright and invited the Supreme Court to resolve the question statewide — which is exactly what happened: the Supreme Court granted review on February 1, 2023 (Case No. S277518), on whether facially neutral rounding remains permissible at all.
A second case, Woodworth v. Loma Linda University Medical Center (2023) 93 Cal.App.5th 1038 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. 2, No. E072704), reached a similar conclusion on similar facts. The Supreme Court granted review there too (Case No. S281717), and briefing was ordered deferred until the court resolves Camp and a separate PAGA case, Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc. (Whether that holding applies retroactively to already-closed pay periods, rather than prospectively only, remains an open question — secondary sources differ, and employers should not assume either answer without counsel's guidance.)
Where things stand right now
As of the Supreme Court's own September 2026 pending-issues list, Camp is fully briefed and awaiting oral argument — no decision has issued. That means the rule most California employers built their timekeeping policies around is one ruling away from changing, and the Court could apply its decision to pay periods that already closed, not only the ones ahead. A ruling narrowing or eliminating the See's Candy defense lands on every rounding policy currently in use, with up to four years of potential underpayment behind it.
Note that this is separate from meal and rest break punches specifically, which California law already treats differently: rounding time records to assess whether a compliant meal or rest break was provided is barred outright, independent of whatever the Supreme Court decides on shift-punch rounding generally.
What this means for your timekeeping policy today
| Your situation | Exposure level | What to do now |
|---|---|---|
| Timekeeping system records exact clock times, then rounds before calculating pay | Highest — this is the Camp fact pattern | Consider paying actual recorded time instead of rounded time |
| Rounding increment is large (15 minutes) and skews in the employer's favor on audit | High | Re-audit neutrality now; do not wait for the ruling |
| Rounding increment is small (one to six minutes) and employer-side system cannot easily isolate exact punches | Moderate | Document the See's Candy neutrality analysis and keep it current |
| No rounding — system pays to-the-minute already | Lowest | Confirm payroll is configured to actually use exact minutes, not a rounded default |
The steps below are general information, not legal advice. Have counsel tailor them to your workforce and timekeeping practices before you act.
Action checklist
- Determine whether your timekeeping system captures exact clock times before any rounding is applied. If it does, you are in Camp's fact pattern, not just See's Candy's.
- Run your own neutrality audit: across a representative sample of pay periods, does rounding net out roughly even, or does it skew in the company's favor?
- Separate the two issues — shift-punch rounding (pending at the Supreme Court) and meal/rest break rounding (already prohibited) — and confirm your system doesn't round break-related punches at all.
- Quantify your four-year exposure now, while you still control the timeline, rather than after a demand letter or PAGA notice arrives.
- Calendar the Supreme Court's decision in Camp v. Home Depot and plan to update payroll configuration promptly once it issues — a lawful policy today is not guaranteed to stay lawful.
- Before changing (or keeping) a rounding policy across multiple locations or payroll systems, get counsel's sign-off — this is exactly the kind of practice that turns into a certified class or a PAGA representative action if it is wrong at scale.
If you want a straight answer on whether your current timekeeping setup can survive either outcome in Camp, that is the kind of question a wage-and-hour audit is built to answer before it becomes a demand letter. Visit our wage-and-hour audit page to scope one, or see our guide on wage and hour compliance generally. If a rounding practice has already generated a demand or a PAGA notice, our PAGA defense page covers what happens next. For anything specific to your payroll system, contact us directly.
Disclaimer
This article is general information about California law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Employer Guidance Group PC is not your attorney unless and until you have signed a written engagement agreement with the firm.
California employment law changes constantly. The information here may be incomplete, out of date, unverified, or incorrect, and it does not account for your specific facts — and outcomes turn on facts. Do not act, or refrain from acting, on the basis of this article. Consult a licensed attorney about your own situation before making any employment decision.
This communication may constitute attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.