California Bankruptcy Exemptions
California opted out of the federal bankruptcy exemptions in Code of Civil Procedure section 703.130, so the choice a California filer is famous for – System 1 or System 2 – is a choice between two parts of California’s own Code of Civil Procedure, not a choice between California and the federal schedule at 11 U.S.C. section 522(d). System 1 is the Article 4 homestead in section 704.730, which is not a fixed number at all but a formula keyed to the countywide median sale price where the residence sits. System 2 is the flat list in section 703.140(b), whose real attraction is the wildcard at paragraph (b)(5), because it absorbs whatever homestead allowance the debtor does not use. The two halves even run on different inflation calendars: section 704.730(b) adjusts itself every January 1, while section 703.150 puts the 703.140(b) figures on a three-year April 1 cycle administered by the Judicial Council. None of that decides a creditor’s recovery on its own, because an exemption only ever reaches an asset the debtor schedules and claims. We are a public-records research firm working under a permissible purpose. On the creditor side of a California case we locate the debtor and document the recorded ownership picture – deeds and deeds of trust with their recording dates, county assessor records, Secretary of State entity filings, vehicles – and set it beside the schedules, so whatever is missing becomes visible to your counsel and the trustee. We quote the Code; we do not construe it. This page is general information about California law, not legal advice.
In One Screen
Section 703.130 says in one sentence that the federal exemptions at 11 U.S.C. section 522(d) are not authorized in this state. So a California debtor never picks between California and the federal set; the pick is section 704.730’s homestead against section 703.140(b)’s flat list, and it is all or nothing. Filers with real equity in a home take the 704 side, because its homestead is calculated from the countywide median sale price rather than a flat figure. Filers without that equity take the 703.140(b) side, because the unused homestead allowance flows into the wildcard at (b)(5). The figures on the two sides are refreshed by two different mechanisms on two different dates, so the amount that governs depends on the county and on the filing date. For a creditor the operative fact is narrower: an exemption protects a scheduled, claimed asset and nothing else. Our part is factual – locate the debtor, document what the county recorder, the assessor and the Secretary of State actually show, and set the dates side by side with the petition. The exemption calls belong to counsel, the trustee and the court. General information about California law, not legal advice.
Watch: Which System, Which County, Which Date
A two-minute read of how the California election works.
Watch Overview
California Opted Out – So the Choice Is Between Two California Systems
Code of Civil Procedure section 703.130, in full.
Most writing about California exemptions describes a choice without saying what the two options actually are, and readers reasonably assume one of them is the federal schedule. It is not. Section 703.130 is a single sentence and it closes that door: “Pursuant to the authority of paragraph (2) of subsection (b) of Section 522 of Title 11 of the United States Code, the exemptions set forth in subsection (d) of Section 522 of Title 11 of the United States Code (Bankruptcy) are not authorized in this state.” The credit line under it reads “Amended by Stats. 2009, Ch. 500, Sec. 14. (AB 1059) Effective January 1, 2010,” so this has been settled California law for well over a decade. The federal hook it invokes is 11 U.S.C. section 522(b)(2), which makes the federal list available unless the applicable State law “specifically does not so authorize.” California authored the sentence that does not so authorize.
What remains is an internal choice, and section 703.140(a) sets its terms. The exemptions in subdivision (b) “may be elected in lieu of all other exemptions provided by this chapter” – in lieu of, not in addition to. Subdivision (a)(1) makes spouses who file jointly elect one side together; (a)(3) gives an unmarried debtor the same either/or; and (a)(2)(A) requires both spouses to waive in writing before an individually filing spouse may take the (b) list. Subdivision (a)(2)(B) then carves out the separated case: no waiver is required from a debtor living separate and apart on the petition date “unless, on the petition date, the debtor and the debtor’s spouse shared an ownership interest in property that could be exempted as a homestead under Article 4.” That clause turns on who was on title on one specific day, which is a question the recorded chain answers and a schedule may not. The same chain answers a second question nobody puts on a form: whether the property was in the debtor’s name a year earlier at all. Where a residence or a rental parcel moved out of that name in the months before the petition, the recorder holds the factual layer underneath a pre-filing transfer question – who took title, what consideration the instrument recites, the date and hour it was recorded, and whether a deed of trust followed it in or out. We date and source those facts and stop there; whether a transfer is avoidable is a call for the trustee, your counsel and the court.
One federal rule still sits upstream of all of it. Under 11 U.S.C. section 522(b)(3)(A), a debtor gets the exemptions of the state where they were domiciled for the 730 days before filing, so a recent arrival may not reach California’s set at all; our Texas bankruptcy exemptions page develops that two-year domicile rule and its savings clause. And this page answers only the bankruptcy question – what a debtor may keep in a case under Title 11. What a judgment creditor can reach outside bankruptcy is a different statute and a different page: see California asset exemptions against creditors for the enforcement-of-judgment side, and our California judgment collection guide for the procedure that follows a money judgment.
Why Filers Choose System 2: The Wildcard at 703.140(b)(5)
The paragraph that swallows an unused homestead.
Read on its own, subdivision (b) looks like the weaker side. Its homestead at (b)(1) stands at $36,750 for real or personal property the debtor or a dependent uses as a residence, which is a fraction of what Article 4 offers a homeowner. The reason people still elect it sits four paragraphs down. Paragraph (b)(5) exempts the debtor’s aggregate interest, $1,950, “plus any unused amount of the exemption provided under paragraph (1), in any property.” A renter, or an owner whose equity has been consumed by deeds of trust, has an entire homestead allowance sitting unused – and (b)(5) converts it into protection for anything at all. That is why a debtor with no house and a bank balance elects the 703 side, and a debtor with equity does not.
Several other paragraphs on this side are drafted more generously than their reputation suggests, and the exact wording matters. Paragraph (b)(2) is $8,625 in value “in one or more motor vehicles” – plural, an aggregate across vehicles rather than a single-car allowance. Paragraph (b)(3) protects $925 in value in any particular item of household furnishings, goods, apparel, appliances, books, animals, crops or musical instruments, and states no aggregate ceiling at all. Paragraph (b)(4) covers jewelry at $2,175; (b)(6) covers implements, professional books and tools of the trade at $10,950; (b)(8) covers the accrued dividend, interest or loan value of an unmatured life insurance contract at $19,625. Paragraph (b)(10)(F) reaches vacation credits, accrued or unused vacation pay, sick leave, family leave or wages as defined in Labor Code section 200, at $8,625. Paragraph (b)(11)(E) covers a payment on account of personal bodily injury at $36,750. Every one of those amounts is the Judicial Council’s published figure effective April 1, 2025, not the older number still sitting in the printed code text – a distinction the next section takes apart. Paragraph (b)(12) protects a Golden State Scholarshare account subject to two look-back limits tied to the annual gift tax exclusion – one for contributions in the 365 days before filing, one for the window from 730 days to 366 days before it – and (b)(12)(D) adds a clause worth remembering: “This paragraph is not subject to the requirements of Section 703.150.” The Scholarshare paragraph sits outside the adjustment cycle that moves everything around it.
System 1’s Homestead Is a Formula, Not a Number
Code of Civil Procedure section 704.730(a).
Section 704.730(a) does not state an amount. It states a comparison: the exemption is “the greater of” (1) “the countywide median sale price for a single-family home in the calendar year prior to the calendar year in which the judgment debtor claims the exemption, not to exceed six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000)” and (2) “three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000).” Both figures are then adjusted for inflation under subdivision (b), so the printed $300,000 floor and $600,000 ceiling are the statute’s base values rather than today’s operative ones.
Three consequences follow, and they are the reason a California homestead cannot be looked up in a table. First, the exemption is county-specific: the same debtor with the same equity gets a different figure in Kern County than in Santa Clara County, because the countywide median is the input. Second, it is year-specific – the statute reaches back to the calendar year prior to the year of the claim, so the relevant median is already fixed by the time a petition is filed. Third, everything turns on equity, not value, which means the recorded liens and the dates they were recorded are what actually set the exposure. That is a records question rather than a legal one, and it is where a research file earns its place.
Article 4 is also broader than the homestead alone; section 703.140(a) says that in a Title 11 case all the exemptions of the chapter other than subdivision (b) apply, “including the homestead exemption,” whether or not any money judgment is being enforced. A debtor electing System 1 is therefore taking the whole Article 3 and Article 4 apparatus and giving up the (b)(5) wildcard entirely.
What Else System 1 Carries: The Article 3 List
Page 2 of EJ-156 – the half of the election most comparisons leave blank.
Choosing System 1 is not choosing a homestead and nothing else, and a comparison that prices only the homestead prices half the trade. Article 3 of the same chapter runs its own list, and the Judicial Council publishes those amounts on the second page of the same form. Several of them beat their System 2 counterparts outright.
The motor vehicle exemption in section 704.010 is $8,625, and the section is drafted to count equity, the proceeds of an execution sale and the proceeds of insurance or other indemnification for loss, damage or destruction as one pool – so a car that has already been totalled and paid out has not escaped the ceiling. Jewelry, heirlooms and works of art share a single $10,950 allowance under section 704.040. Trade property under section 704.060 is $10,950, rising to $21,900 where both spouses work in the same trade, business or profession – but with an internal sub-limit that catches people out: a commercial motor vehicle inside that allowance cannot exceed $4,850, or $9,700 in the common-trade case. Section 704.100 protects an aggregate $17,525 of loan value across unmatured life insurance policies, and section 704.113 covers vacation credits and accrued or unused vacation pay, sick leave and family leave at $8,625.
Two Article 3 provisions have no dollar figure at all, which is itself the answer to a question the tables never ask. Section 704.020 exempts household furnishings, appliances, provisions, wearing apparel and other personal effects where they are ordinarily and reasonably necessary to, and personally used by, the debtor and the family at the principal residence – a necessity test rather than a cap, which is a different instrument from (b)(3)’s $925 per item. Section 704.140 exempts a cause of action for personal injury outright and without a claim, while an award or settlement is exempt only “to the extent necessary for the support” of the debtor and dependents – so on the System 1 side a bodily injury recovery is measured by need rather than against the $36,750 that (b)(11)(E) supplies.
The deposit account is the one to watch, because it moves on a third calendar. Section 704.220 exempts $2,325 in a deposit account per judgment debtor automatically, with no claim required, and EJ-156 dates that amount to July 1, 2026 rather than April 1, 2025. It does not run on the Judicial Council’s three-year cycle at all: it is adjusted annually, effective each July 1, by the Department of Social Services under Welfare and Institutions Code section 11453, tracking the minimum basic standard of adequate care for a family of four. Where benefits are direct-deposited, section 704.080 layers larger automatic amounts on top – $2,175 for public benefits and $4,400 for social security with one designated payee, $3,250 and $6,575 respectively where two or more depositors are designated payees – and the greater of the applicable automatic exemptions is the one that applies. A creditor reading a California bank balance is therefore reading it against a figure that may have moved since the petition was filed, on a schedule that has nothing to do with section 703.150.
Two Calendars: January 1 Every Year, April 1 Every Three
Section 704.730(b) against section 703.150 – and how to tell which set governs a filing.
The two systems are refreshed by two entirely different mechanisms, which is why a figure quoted from one side of the Code says nothing about the other. Section 704.730(b) is self-executing: the amounts in that section “shall adjust annually for inflation, beginning on January 1, 2022, based on the change in the annual California Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, published by the Department of Industrial Relations, for the most recent one-year period ending on December 31 preceding the adjustment, with each adjusted amount rounded to the nearest twenty-five dollars ($25).” No agency has to act; the number moves on its own each January.
Section 703.150 works nothing like that. Subdivision (a) puts the section 703.140(b) figures on a cycle that runs “On April 1, 2004, and at each three-year interval ending on April 1 thereafter” – which lands on 2022, 2025 and next on 2028. Subdivision (b) runs a separate three-year cycle for the Article 3 amounts beginning April 1, 2007, and subdivision (c) a third for the figure in section 699.730(b)(7) beginning April 1, 2022. Under subdivision (d) it is the Judicial Council that determines each adjustment, on a three-year California CPI, rounded to $25. Subdivision (f) then makes the timing decisive: adjustments made under subdivision (a) “do not apply with respect to cases commenced before the date of the adjustment.” The set that governs is the set in force on the day the petition was filed.
Which figures this page prints, and why they are not the ones in the code
The amounts quoted on this page are the Judicial Council’s published figures, effective April 1, 2025. They come from form EJ-156, “Current Dollar Amounts of Exemptions From Enforcement of Judgments,” revised July 20, 2026, whose first page carries the section 703.140(b) list and whose second page carries the Article 3 amounts under section 704.010 et seq. The form states the rule on its face: unless a statute provides otherwise the amounts are effective April 1, 2025 and adjust at each three-year interval ending March 31, on a three-year California CPI, rounded to the nearest $25.
They are deliberately not the numbers printed in the body of section 703.140. The code text still carries an older set, under the credit line “Amended by Stats. 2022, Ch. 716, Sec. 2.5. (SB 1099) Effective January 1, 2023,” because a section 703.150 adjustment changes the operative amount without rewriting the section. Reading a California exemption figure out of the code text instead of off the published list is the most common way one goes stale, and it is why competing pages quote amounts that disagree with each other by a quarter.
The statute anticipates exactly this and answers it. Section 703.150(e) requires the Judicial Council to publish a list of the current dollar amounts under section 703.140(b) and Article 3 “together with the date of the next scheduled adjustment.” That published list, not the number printed in the code and not a number on a blog, is what a real filing is measured against – and because it must carry the next adjustment date, it tells you on sight whether it is current. Read it at Judicial Council form EJ-156. The statutory text of each section quoted here is published by the Legislature at section 703.130, section 703.140, section 704.730 and section 703.150, and the federal opt-out hook at 11 U.S.C. section 522.
System 1 and System 2, Side by Side
Judicial Council amounts effective April 1, 2025, from form EJ-156; the homestead formula is section 704.730’s own.
| Item | System 1 (Article 3 and Article 4) | System 2 (section 703.140(b)) |
|---|---|---|
| Homestead | Greater of the countywide median sale price for a single-family home in the prior calendar year, capped at $600,000, or $300,000 – section 704.730(a) Formula | $36,750 in a residence or a residential co-op interest – (b)(1) |
| Wildcard | None in Article 3 or Article 4 | $1,950 plus any unused (b)(1) amount, in any property – (b)(5) |
| Motor vehicles | $8,625, and the section counts equity, execution-sale proceeds and insurance or indemnification proceeds together – 704.010 | $8,625 across one or more vehicles – (b)(2) |
| Household goods | No dollar figure: 704.020 exempts household furnishings, appliances, provisions, apparel and personal effects that are ordinarily and reasonably necessary and personally used at the principal residence | $925 per item, no aggregate stated – (b)(3) |
| Jewelry | $10,950 for jewelry, heirlooms and works of art together – 704.040 | $2,175 – (b)(4) |
| Tools of the trade | $10,950 of property used in the debtor’s or a spouse’s trade, business or profession, with a commercial vehicle inside it capped at $4,850; $21,900 where both spouses work a common trade, commercial vehicle capped at $9,700 – 704.060 | $10,950 – (b)(6) |
| Life insurance loan value | $17,525 aggregate loan value across unmatured policies – 704.100 | $19,625 – (b)(8) |
| Personal bodily injury | No dollar figure: 704.140 exempts the cause of action outright and an award or settlement only “to the extent necessary for the support” of the debtor and dependents | $36,750 – (b)(11)(E) |
| Deposit account | $2,325 automatic, no claim required, per judgment debtor – 704.220, effective July 1, 2026 and adjusted annually by the Department of Social Services rather than on the Judicial Council cycle | No deposit-account paragraph; a bank balance is reached through the (b)(5) wildcard |
| Who moves the numbers | Self-executing every January 1 on a one-year California CPI – 704.730(b) | The Judicial Council, every third April 1, on a three-year California CPI – 703.150(a),(d) |
| Effect on pending cases | Governed by section 703.050 | Adjustments do not apply to cases commenced before the adjustment date – 703.150(f) |
The bottom two rows are the ones competitors leave out, and they are the ones that decide which table a case is read against. A page that prints a single figure with no cycle attached to it cannot tell you whether that figure was in force on the petition date.
Appreciation During the Case: Section 703.140(c)
Why the petition date is the only date that matters.
Subdivision (c) fixes valuation first – in a Title 11 case, the value of property claimed as exempt and the chapter’s exemptions are determined as of the date the bankruptcy petition is filed – and then adds a sentence that changes the arithmetic for a rising market: “In a case where the debtor’s equity in a residence is less than or equal to the amount of the debtor’s allowed homestead exemption as of the date the bankruptcy petition is filed, any appreciation in the value of the debtor’s interest in the property during the pendency of the case is exempt.”
Read that against the county formula in section 704.730(a) and the practical point emerges. If equity on the petition date was at or under the allowed homestead, later appreciation is not estate value waiting to be harvested. If equity on the petition date was above it, the excess was exposed from the start. Everything therefore rests on one measurement taken on one day – and equity on that day is a function of what was recorded, and when. A deed of trust recorded three weeks before the petition changes the answer; a reconveyance recorded three weeks after it does not. This is exactly the kind of question a recorded chain settles and a schedule merely asserts, which is why we date every instrument we report. Where the debtor has also left a judgment behind, the recorded picture is the same picture used in an asset search for judgment collection.
How We Build the California File
County first, because the statute is county-shaped.
Fix the County
Section 704.730(a)(1) is a countywide figure, so the county the residence sits in is the first fact established.
Pull the Recorded Chain
Deeds, deeds of trust, abstracts and reconveyances, each with its recording date, plus the assessor’s parcel record.
Look Behind the Name
Secretary of State filings for entities that hold title, and vehicles and other recorded holdings in the debtor’s name.
Date It Against the Petition
Every instrument placed on a timeline beside the filing date, sourced, with an honest confidence note.
Where the California File Changes the Answer
Six situations the schedules rarely settle on their own.
A Parcel in a Second County
A different countywide median, and a residence claim that can only attach to one home.
A Deed of Trust Recorded Late
An encumbrance dated close to the petition, which moves petition-date equity under 703.140(c).
An Unused Homestead Nobody Measured
The (b)(5) wildcard spillover is only as large as the equity gap actually is.
Title Held by an Entity
A parcel in the name of a California LLC that the schedules describe, if at all, as a membership interest.
Spouses Living Separate and Apart
Section 703.140(a)(2)(B) turns on shared homestead ownership on the petition date.
A Debtor Who Has Moved On
Notice and examination need a current address; locating someone in California is where that starts.
Who Uses This Work
Everyone whose next step depends on petition-date facts.
Creditors’ Counsel
Petition-date equity, sourced
Chapter 7 Trustees
Value above the claimed set
Secured Lenders
Lien position of record
Money-Judgment Holders
Where Article 4 leaves off
Forensic Accountants
A dated recorded chain
Trade Creditors
Entity-held California property
Tell us the county, the debtor’s name as it appears on the petition, and the lawful purpose behind the request, and we will build the recorded picture around it. A first read normally comes back within 24 hours, and it says plainly what we established and what we could not. For the wider mechanics of locating a person before any of this starts, see our skip tracing services.
What We Promise a California Matter
Every instrument we report comes back with the office it came from and the date it was recorded, because on a 703.140(c) question the date is the finding. We confirm a lawful purpose before a search begins and decline the request if there is not one. Nobody here holds a California private investigator’s license and none is claimed – this is county recorder, assessor, Secretary of State and court-index research, done openly. We never pretext, adopt a false identity, or persuade a clerk or an employer that we are someone entitled to ask; if a record is not lawfully available, it stays unopened. We decline location work where the picture suggests someone has moved to be safe rather than to avoid a creditor – a restraining order, an enrollment in California’s Safe at Home confidential-address program, a survivor of abuse who does not want to be found – and we say so rather than route around it. Our work is not a consumer report and cannot be used to decide credit, employment or tenancy; it is creditor and trustee research under a permissible purpose. And whether an exemption is valid, which system governs, and what any figure means for a given case belong to your attorney, to the trustee and to the court, not to us. Records research since 2004.
Questions We Get on California Files
Can a California filer ever use the federal exemptions in 11 U.S.C. 522(d)?
Not by choosing them. Code of Civil Procedure section 703.130 says the subsection (d) exemptions “are not authorized in this state,” which is the opt-out that 11 U.S.C. section 522(b)(2) invites a state to make. The only route back to the federal list runs through federal law rather than California law: section 522(b)(3)(C) lets a debtor elect subsection (d) where the two-year domicile rule would otherwise leave them with no exemptions at all. That is a domicile question, and it is developed on our Texas page. Whether it applies to a given debtor is for counsel, not for us.
If System 2’s homestead is so much smaller, why would anyone elect it?
Because of paragraph (b)(5). The wildcard is $1,950 “plus any unused amount of the exemption provided under paragraph (1), in any property,” and the unused amount it can absorb runs up to the full $36,750 of (b)(1). A debtor who rents, or whose equity has been consumed by recorded deeds of trust, has the entire (b)(1) allowance sitting idle, and (b)(5) turns it into protection for cash, a bank balance or anything else. The election is all or nothing under section 703.140(a), so it is a genuine trade: the Article 4 homestead on one side, the flexible wildcard on the other.
Why does the System 1 homestead depend on which county the house is in?
Because section 704.730(a)(1) uses “the countywide median sale price for a single-family home in the calendar year prior to the calendar year in which the judgment debtor claims the exemption,” capped at $600,000 as printed, and the debtor takes the greater of that or the printed $300,000. The median is a county input, so the same equity produces a different result in different counties, and the relevant year is already closed by the time a petition is filed. Establishing which county a residence sits in is the first thing we do on a California file.
Which set of dollar figures applies to a case filed today?
The set in force on the petition date. Section 703.150(f) states that adjustments made under subdivision (a) “do not apply with respect to cases commenced before the date of the adjustment.” The figures on this page are the Judicial Council’s published amounts effective April 1, 2025, taken from form EJ-156 rather than from the code text, which still carries an older set because an adjustment under section 703.150 moves the operative amount without rewriting the section. Section 703.150(e) requires that published list to state “the date of the next scheduled adjustment,” and on the current cycle that date is April 1, 2028. For a petition filed before April 1, 2025 the earlier set still governs, so the filing date decides which list to read.
If equity sat under the homestead at filing, can a creditor still reach later appreciation?
Section 703.140(c) addresses that directly: where the debtor’s equity in a residence is less than or equal to the allowed homestead exemption as of the petition date, appreciation during the pendency of the case is exempt. The whole question therefore collapses onto one day’s arithmetic, and equity on that day is a product of what was recorded and when. Our part is to establish those instruments and their dates. Whether the section applies, and to what, is a legal conclusion for counsel, the trustee and the court.
Will you tell us whether a claimed California exemption is valid?
No, and we would be the wrong people to ask. We quote the Code of Civil Procedure and we do not construe it. Deciding which system a debtor properly elected, whether a claim was correctly made, how a figure applies to a particular asset, or whether anything was concealed belongs to your bankruptcy counsel, the trustee, the United States Trustee and the court. What we supply is the factual layer underneath those decisions: who owned what, in which county, encumbered by what, on which dates.
Is a California asset file a consumer report?
No. A California asset file is not a consumer report, and this firm is not a consumer reporting agency within the meaning of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. A creditor or trustee in a bankruptcy matter has a permissible purpose for locating a debtor and documenting recorded holdings, and that is the only use our work is prepared for. It cannot be repurposed to decide whether to extend credit, whether to hire someone or whether to rent to them, and we will not supply it for those uses if asked.
What do you need to open a California file, and how long does it take?
The debtor’s name as it appears on the petition, the county or counties in play, the filing date, and the lawful purpose behind the request. From there a first read normally comes back within 24 hours, listing each record with the office it came from, the date it was recorded, and an honest note where confidence is lower. We would rather tell you a parcel is unconfirmed than let an unsourced line sit in a declaration your counsel has to stand behind.
Establish the County, the Liens and the Dates
A California exemption argument is settled by three facts a schedule does not prove: which county the residence sits in, what was recorded against it, and on what dates. Give us the debtor’s name, the counties in play and your lawful purpose, and we will build that record out of the recorder, the assessor, the Secretary of State and the court indexes, with a first read normally within 24 hours. The election, the figures and the legal conclusions stay where they belong: with counsel, with the trustee, with the court. Contact us and we will scope the search.
Start Your Request →
