California's Climate Disclosure Deadline Just Moved to November — Is Your Company Actually Covered?

This article summarizes current regulatory requirements and isn't legal or accounting advice. Any company evaluating its obligations under SB 253 or SB 261 should consult qualified counsel and its own compliance advisors, since these regulations remain under active rulemaking.

Key Takeaways

• California's SB 253 requires U.S. companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue that do business in California to disclose Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions — and the first-year reporting deadline has been pushed from August 10, 2026 to November 10, 2026.
• The revenue threshold is based on total global revenue, not California-specific revenue, meaning companies with no physical presence in California can still be covered if they do business in the state and clear the threshold.
• A related law, SB 261, requires companies over $500 million in revenue to publish biennial climate-risk reports — but its enforcement remains paused under a Ninth Circuit injunction, with no new deadline set as of this writing.
• Estimated compliance fees are roughly $3,106 per entity for SB 253 and $1,403 for SB 261, expected to be assessed around September 10, 2026.
• Non-compliance penalties can reach up to $500,000 per year for SB 253 violations and $50,000 per year for SB 261 violations, though CARB has signaled a good-faith grace period for this first reporting cycle.

What SB 253 and SB 261 actually require

California's Climate Accountability Package — SB 253 (the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act) and SB 261 (the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act) — was enacted in October 2023 and later amended by SB 219 in 2024. Together, the two laws represent the most comprehensive state-level corporate climate disclosure regime in the U.S.

SB 253 requires U.S. companies with more than $1 billion in total annual global revenue that do business in California to publicly disclose their Scope 1 (direct), Scope 2 (purchased energy), and eventually Scope 3 (supply chain and value chain) greenhouse gas emissions, along with independent third-party assurance of that data.

SB 261 applies to a wider set of companies — those with more than $500 million in total annual global revenue doing business in California — and requires a biennial public report on climate-related financial risk, aligned with an established framework such as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) or IFRS S2.

Both thresholds are calculated on total global revenue, not revenue generated specifically within California, and both apply based on gross receipts as defined under the California Revenue and Taxation Code. That detail matters more than it might first appear: a company headquartered anywhere in the U.S. with no California offices or facilities can still be a covered entity under either law, simply by doing business in the state and clearing the relevant revenue threshold.

The deadline that just moved — and why it matters if you were planning around August

The California Air Resources Board (CARB), the agency responsible for implementing both laws, adopted its initial implementing regulation on February 26, 2026, which set the first-year SB 253 Scope 1 and 2 reporting deadline at August 10, 2026 — itself already an extension from an original June 30, 2026 target. On June 24, 2026, CARB announced a further postponement of that deadline to November 10, 2026.

For any business that had been tracking the August 10 date specifically, that's a meaningful three-month extension — but it's not a sign that the requirement itself is going away. CARB has continued moving forward on implementation in other respects, including a public workshop held July 21, 2026, and subsequent proposed modifications to the regulatory text as recently as late July 2026. Businesses that had already built internal compliance timelines around the August date should treat the extension as additional runway to strengthen their data collection and assurance processes, not as a reason to deprioritize the requirement.

SB 261 is a different story: enforcement is currently paused

Unlike SB 253, SB 261's original January 1, 2026 statutory deadline for publishing climate-related financial risk reports is not currently being enforced. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted a preliminary injunction against SB 261 enforcement on November 18, 2025, and CARB confirmed in a December 1, 2025 Enforcement Advisory that it would not pursue enforcement against entities that missed the original deadline while that litigation proceeds. Oral argument in the underlying appeal was held January 9, 2026, but as of this writing, the Ninth Circuit has not issued a ruling that alters the injunction, and CARB has said it will provide an alternate reporting date once the litigation concludes.

Practically, that means SB 261-covered companies (the $500 million-plus revenue tier) currently face no active enforcement deadline — but also no guarantee about when that will change, or how much notice they'll get once it does. Some companies have chosen to file reports voluntarily during the pause; CARB has confirmed it is reviewing and publishing voluntary SB 261 submissions it receives, even though it isn't enforcing the underlying deadline.

What compliance actually costs, and what happens if a company doesn't comply

CARB has proposed administrative fees to fund the program: roughly $3,106 per entity for SB 253 compliance and $1,403 per entity for SB 261, both expected to be assessed around September 10, 2026, according to current CARB guidance — though these figures remain subject to the ongoing rulemaking process and aren't yet finalized.

The penalty structure for non-compliance is considerably more significant than the administrative fees: violations of SB 253 can carry penalties of up to $500,000 per reporting year, while SB 261 violations can carry penalties of up to $50,000 per reporting year. CARB has indicated that the first reporting cycle will include a good-faith compliance grace period, meaning companies making documented, genuine efforts to comply are less likely to face maximum penalties for early-cycle gaps — but that protection is generally understood to require demonstrable action now, not a wait-and-see approach.

What this means for your business right now

1. Confirm whether your company is actually covered, using global revenue, not just California revenue. Both thresholds ($1 billion for SB 253, $500 million for SB 261) apply to total global revenue for any U.S.-organized entity doing business in California — a common point of confusion is assuming the threshold applies only to California-specific operations.
2. Don't treat the SB 253 extension as reduced urgency. The deadline moved from August 10 to November 10, 2026, but the underlying Scope 1 and 2 disclosure obligation, and the third-party assurance requirement that comes with it, has not changed. Given how long it typically takes to build a defensible GHG emissions inventory under the GHG Protocol, the extra three months is better used for data quality than treated as slack.
3. Check your exemption status before assuming you're covered. Both laws exempt certain entity types, including tax-exempt nonprofits, government entities, insurance companies (which are separately regulated), and companies whose only California activity is remote employee payroll or wholesale electricity transactions — worth confirming with counsel rather than assuming coverage either way.
4. Don't assume SB 261's paused enforcement means the obligation has disappeared. With no ruling yet from the Ninth Circuit and CARB explicitly stating it will set a new deadline once litigation resolves, companies over the $500 million threshold face genuine uncertainty about timing, not a settled exemption — building the underlying climate-risk report now avoids a scramble once a new deadline is announced.
5. Track this even if you're not California-headquartered. Because the revenue thresholds capture companies nationally based on where they do business, not where they're incorporated or headquartered, a company with no California offices can still be squarely covered by either law.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does SB 253 apply to companies outside the United States? SB 253 applies specifically to U.S.-organized entities — companies incorporated or organized under U.S. law — that meet the revenue threshold and do business in California. A foreign-incorporated company generally would not be directly covered, though its U.S. subsidiary or U.S. operations could be, depending on how the entity is structured.

What counts as "doing business in California" for purposes of these laws? CARB's regulations and related guidance generally follow California's existing legal standards for what constitutes doing business in the state, which can include having a physical presence, generating a threshold amount of sales into California, or other established nexus factors — a determination that often benefits from counsel review given how fact-specific it can be.

Is Scope 3 emissions reporting required yet under SB 253? Scope 3 disclosure (covering a company's broader supply chain and value chain emissions) is expected to begin on a later timeline than the initial Scope 1 and 2 reporting deadline, with CARB continuing to determine the specific schedule through its ongoing rulemaking process.

What should a company do if it's unsure whether it meets the SB 253 or SB 261 revenue threshold? The thresholds are tied to the definition of "gross receipts" under California Revenue and Taxation Code §23120(f)(2), which is generally verifiable against a company's California Franchise Tax Board filings — a starting point for confirming coverage status before consulting counsel for a final determination.

Sources & References

• California Air Resources Board (CARB), Initial Regulation implementing SB 253 and SB 261 (adopted February 26, 2026)
• BDO, "California Climate Reporting: SB 261 & SB 253 Updates for 2026"
• Watershed, "A guide to California's climate disclosure rules (SB 253, SB 261, SB 219)"
• Greenberg Traurig LLP, "CARB Adopts Initial Climate Disclosure Reporting Regulations to Implement SB 253 and SB 261"
• Proskauer Rose LLP, "Updated Guidance on Compliance with California's Climate Disclosure Laws"
• PwC Viewpoint, "California climate reporting–SB 253 and SB 261 explained" (updated July 30, 2026)

Related Reading

For a related look at how a different California-originated regulatory shift is playing out for AI companies specifically, see PrimeWorldMedia's coverage of the AI meeting-notetaker consent lawsuits — both stories reflect a broader pattern of California regulators and courts moving faster on corporate accountability questions than federal rulemaking has to date.