Yes, price gouging is illegal in California. Under Penal Code §396, raising the price of covered goods and services by more than 10% after an emergency declaration is generally against the law, with a 180-day window for contractor and repair work instead of the standard 30 days. Report suspected violations to the California Attorney General at (800) 952-5225.
TL;DR:
- Price gouging laws in California prohibit raising prices by more than 10% on covered goods and services after an emergency declaration, with a 180-day window for repair-related work.
- The law covers essential items such as food, water, fuel, medical supplies, building materials, housing, and transportation, with rent increases capped at 10%.
- Protections start immediately after a declaration from state or local authorities and expire after 30 days, or 180 days for reconstruction, unless extended by officials.
- Violations can lead to criminal penalties of up to one year in jail and a $10,000 fine per violation, with enforcement through multiple authorities including private lawsuits.
- Consumers should document and report inflated prices promptly, while businesses must keep evidence of cost increases to defend legitimate pricing.
Table of Contents
- What Penal Code §396 requires: a quick statute summary
- Which goods and services fall under the price gouging law
- When protections start and how long they last
- Penalties and enforcement: who holds violators accountable
- How to report suspected price gouging and what to keep as evidence
- When higher prices are lawful: seller defenses and documentation
- Legal remedies and when to contact an attorney
- Historical context and past price gouging incidents in California
- How California’s price gouging law differs from other states
- Practical advice for consumers during a declared emergency
- How price gouging laws affect businesses and consumers
- Enforcement trends and what Californians should expect
- How Javitch Law Office can help with a price gouging claim
- Sources
- FAQ
What Penal Code §396 requires: a quick statute summary
The statute sets a hard ceiling: once a state, federal, or local emergency is declared, sellers cannot raise prices on covered goods and services by more than 10% above what they charged right before the declaration, according to the California Department of Justice. For items that did not exist on the market before the emergency, the price cannot exceed 50% above the seller’s actual cost.
Businesses may raise prices above these limits only when they can prove the increase directly reflects higher costs from a supplier or increased labor, not general inflation or opportunity.
Most goods and services fall under the standard 30-day protection period, but repair, restoration, and reconstruction services get 180 days because rebuilding takes longer than restocking a shelf. The burden of proof always sits with the seller. If a business cannot produce invoices or payroll records showing the cost increase was real, the 10% cap controls.
Which goods and services fall under the price gouging law
The statute is broad by design, covering the essentials people scramble for during a crisis rather than a narrow list of luxury items.
- Food and water, including bottled water and baby formula sold at retail.
- Emergency and medical supplies, from first-aid kits to prescription refills.
- Fuel, covering gasoline, diesel, and propane sold at the pump or by delivery.
- Building materials and repair services, including lumber, roofing, and contractor labor.
- Housing, including hotel rooms, short-term rentals, and residential leases.
- Transportation, towing, and storage, including freight and moving services.
Rental housing carries extra nuance. Daily rentals and newly listed units that were never previously rented are measured against HUD fair-market value rather than a prior price, according to Los Angeles County’s consumer protection office, which also caps most emergency-period rent increases at 10%.
When protections start and how long they last
Price gouging protections do not run indefinitely. They switch on the moment a qualifying emergency is declared and switch off after a set period unless someone extends them.
- Triggers: a declaration from the President, the California Governor, or a local city or county official can each start the clock.
- Standard window: 30 days from the date of declaration for most goods and services.
- Contractor exception: 180 days for repair, restoration, and reconstruction work tied to the disaster.
- Extensions: the Governor or local officials can renew protections in 30-day increments through executive order, as seen when Governor Newsom extended protections for survivors of the LA firestorms.
Before assuming the law still applies to a specific purchase, check the Cal OES price-gouging page for the current list of active proclamations. Protections can lapse well before the news coverage does, and county-level orders sometimes run on a different schedule than the statewide declaration.
Penalties and enforcement: who holds violators accountable
California treats price gouging as both a criminal and a civil matter, which gives prosecutors and private litigants separate paths to hold violators accountable.
A single violation can carry criminal penalties of up to one year in county jail and a fine of up to $10,000, according to the California Attorney General’s office. Civil penalties can add up to $2,500 per violation, plus restitution to affected consumers and injunctive relief under the state’s Unfair Competition Law.
Enforcement comes from several directions: the Attorney General’s office, local district attorneys and city attorneys, and consumers themselves through private civil suits. The law is not sitting idle. In 2026, Attorney General Bonta announced a $7 million settlement with LivCor, a property management company accused of using algorithmic software to coordinate rent increases across multiple properties, a sign that enforcement now extends well beyond corner stores marking up water during a wildfire.
How to report suspected price gouging and what to keep as evidence
If you think you have been overcharged during a declared emergency, act while the evidence is still fresh.
- Take a photo or screenshot of the price tag, receipt, or online listing, including the date and time.
- Save the original ad or price if you saw it before the increase, such as a cached webpage or a prior receipt.
- Write down the seller’s name, address, and the exact date of purchase.
- File a complaint at oag.ca.gov/report or call (800) 952-5225, and consider also notifying your local district attorney’s consumer protection unit.
Businesses that believe they were wrongly accused should keep the same kind of paper trail in reverse: supplier invoices, freight bills, and payroll records that show the cost increase was real and proportionate.
Pro Tip: Screenshot prices with the browser’s date and time bar visible, since a plain cropped image is easy to challenge later.
When higher prices are lawful: seller defenses and documentation
Not every price increase during an emergency is illegal. The statute allows sellers to pass along real cost increases, but only with proof.
- Supplier invoices showing the seller’s own wholesale cost went up.
- Freight and shipping bills reflecting higher delivery costs tied to the emergency.
- Payroll records documenting increased labor costs, such as overtime or hazard pay.
- A clear cost-plus calculation showing the new price reflects the added cost plus the seller’s normal markup, not an opportunistic jump.
General inflation, rising insurance premiums, or “everyone else raised their prices too” are not defenses on their own. Sellers relying on those arguments without contemporaneous documentation typically lose in both AG enforcement actions and private lawsuits.
Legal remedies and when to contact an attorney
Consumers and businesses have more than one lever to pull. Beyond AG and DA enforcement, private civil claims under the Unfair Competition Law can seek restitution, civil penalties, and injunctions, and price gouging patterns affecting many people often support a class action rather than a single lawsuit.
- Contact an attorney when the conduct looks systemic, such as a chain-wide policy or algorithmic rent pricing rather than a single clerk’s mistake.
- Contact an attorney when a landlord uses an emergency to push out tenants through pricing or eviction pressure.
- Contact an attorney when your documented losses are significant and restitution through a public complaint alone seems unlikely to cover them.
An attorney handling this kind of case typically preserves evidence properly, coordinates with or supplements an AG or DA investigation, and files a civil claim for restitution or injunctive relief. For related pricing issues outside a declared emergency, see how California’s 90-day price rule governs deceptive pricing more broadly, and how the state’s approach to junk fees uses similar AG enforcement tools.
Historical context and past price gouging incidents in California
California’s price gouging statute exists because the state has repeatedly needed it. Wildfires, earthquakes, and floods create the exact conditions where sellers of water, fuel, generators, and lodging can exploit scarcity, and the law has been tested after nearly every major disaster in recent decades.
The pattern repeats with each new emergency: a proclamation goes out, reports of inflated hotel rates or price-gouged bottled water follow within days, and the Attorney General’s office opens investigations into the most visible offenders. The 2025 Los Angeles firestorms produced exactly this sequence, with the Governor’s office extending consumer protections for survivors as displaced residents faced rental listings priced far above pre-fire rates, according to Cal OES. Hotel and short-term rental pricing draws particular scrutiny after wildfires and earthquakes because displaced households have little choice but to pay whatever is asked.
What has shifted more recently is the target. Early enforcement focused on retailers marking up bottled water or plywood in the days after a disaster. The 2026 LivCor settlement over algorithmic rent pricing shows the state now treats large-scale, software-driven pricing decisions by property managers as within the same statute, even when no single employee consciously set an illegal price.
How California’s price gouging law differs from other states
Some states use vaguer standards, like banning prices that are “unconscionably excessive” without a fixed percentage, which gives enforcers more discretion but less predictability for both businesses and consumers.
California also stands out for pairing the price cap with a companion housing rule: rent increases during a declared emergency are held to the same 10% ceiling, with special treatment for units not previously on the rental market. Not every state extends its price gouging law into residential rent this explicitly.
The state’s willingness to pursue large corporate and algorithmic pricing conduct, rather than only small retailers, also marks a difference in enforcement posture rather than statutory text. That said, price gouging protections in California sit alongside separate laws like the Tenant Protection Act and local rent stabilization ordinances, which can impose their own limits independent of any declared emergency, according to the Attorney General’s office.
Practical advice for consumers during a declared emergency
The best protection is knowing the price before you need the item, because comparison gets harder once panic buying starts.
Keep a mental (or actual) baseline of what gas, bottled water, and hotel rooms in your area normally cost, so a sudden jump is obvious rather than assumed to be normal surge pricing. Pay by card or app rather than cash when possible, since the transaction record becomes useful evidence if the price turns out to be unlawful. Before booking emergency lodging, check a few listings rather than the first one that appears, since price gouging often shows up as an outlier rather than an across-the-board increase.
If a price looks inflated, ask the seller directly why it increased. A legitimate answer will point to a specific supplier or shipping cost, not a shrug. Photograph the shelf tag or screenshot the listing immediately, since prices displayed online can change within hours and the original evidence disappears with it.
How price gouging laws affect businesses and consumers
For consumers, the law functions as a backstop during the exact moment they have the least negotiating power. Someone fleeing a wildfire with nowhere to stay cannot shop around the way they could on an ordinary Tuesday, and the 10% cap exists to prevent that vulnerability from turning into a windfall for whoever controls the last hotel room in town.
For legitimate businesses, the law creates a compliance obligation that intensifies right when operations are hardest to manage. A hardware store facing a genuine spike in supplier costs during a disaster still has to document that spike, calculate a compliant price, and be ready to defend it, which takes bookkeeping discipline many small operations are not used to keeping.
The net effect tends to favor consumers without crippling honest sellers, since the cost-based exception exists precisely so real cost increases can be passed along. The businesses that run into trouble are usually the ones that could not, or did not bother to, show their math.
Enforcement trends and what Californians should expect
Expect enforcement to keep moving up the supply chain, toward corporate landlords and pricing software rather than only individual retailers. The Attorney General’s Affordability Response Team signals more scrutiny of algorithmic pricing, and executive orders extending protections after major disasters will likely continue, meaning more investigations and better odds of restitution when the conduct is systemic.
— Mark
How Javitch Law Office can help with a price gouging claim
If you have preserved receipts, screenshots, or invoices showing a price jump during a declared emergency, or you run a business facing an accusation you believe is wrong, that documentation is exactly what turns a complaint into a case.
The law office handles consumer class actions and business litigation across California, working many price gouging and consumer harm matters on a contingency basis so clients pay nothing unless there is a recovery. The firm also represents businesses defending against pricing allegations that do not hold up under the statute’s cost-based exception. Start with a consumer class action case review to find out where your evidence stands, or explore business litigation representation if you are the one being accused. Landlord-side pricing disputes tied to eviction pressure can also raise separate retaliation issues worth reviewing together.
This article is general information, not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer. Consult a qualified legal professional about your own circumstances before acting on anything here.
Sources
FAQ
Does California have a price gouging law?
Yes, Penal Code §396 generally bars raising prices on covered goods and services by more than 10% after a declared emergency. It applies statewide once a qualifying federal, state, or local declaration is in effect.
What are examples of price gouging?
Hotels charging sharply inflated nightly rates to displaced families is another pattern regulators watch closely.
Can you go to jail for price gouging?
Yes, a price gouging conviction can carry up to one year in county jail and a fine of up to $10,000 per violation, according to the California Attorney General. Civil penalties, restitution, and injunctions are also available separately from criminal charges.
Why is everything so expensive in California right now?
Higher prices in California come from many factors, including housing costs, wildfire and disaster recovery, and general cost-of-living pressures, not all of which involve illegal conduct.
How long do California’s price gouging protections last?
Protections generally last 30 days from a qualifying emergency declaration, or 180 days for repair and reconstruction services, according to the statute. Local officials and the Governor can extend these windows through executive order, so it is worth checking current proclamations before assuming protections have expired.