California requires your final wages on the spot when you are fired or laid off — the day of discharge, at the place of discharge (§201).
Law: Cal. Lab. Code §§201–203, 227.3 · Rules checked October 2026
If you quit with at least 72 hours' notice, your check is due on your last day. Quit without that notice and it is due within 72 hours of quitting (§202).
Labor Code §203: for a willful failure to pay on time, the wages continue as a penalty — one full day's wages for each day the pay is late, up to 30 days. A genuine good-faith dispute over whether wages are owed is a defense, so read the number as the statutory maximum, not a promise.
Your state treats earned vacation as wages: if you had accrued, unused vacation when you left, it must be paid in your final check. Forfeiture clauses ("use it or lose it" at separation) are void here.
The free claim goes to California Labor Commissioner's Office (DLSE). It costs nothing and you do not need a lawyer; what you need is the amount computed, the demand already sent where your state rewards one, and the file assembled.
Filing window: 1095 days from the date the wages were due. DLSE wage claims generally reach back three years for wages and §203 penalties — file well inside that window.
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General information from the published statute — not legal advice. Penalty figures elsewhere on this site are statutory maximums, with willfulness conditions named where the statute names them.