Protective orders and restraining orders in California

Who can ask for one

California puts the relationship test in one place and makes it wide. Section 6211 of the Family Code defines domestic violence as abuse against any of six categories of person, and the dating category and the second-degree-relative category between them cover most situations people assume are excluded.

You do not have to have lived with the person, and you do not have to have been married to them.

What you have to show

This is where California is unusual. The conduct a judge can enjoin is listed in s. 6320(a), and the last item on that list — disturbing the peace of the other party — is defined in s. 6320(c) in a way that reaches behavior involving no violence at all.

The statute then lists what coercive control can look like: isolating the other party from friends, relatives or other sources of support; depriving them of basic necessities; controlling, regulating or monitoring their movements, communications, daily behavior, finances, economic resources or access to services; compelling conduct by force, threat of force or intimidation, including threats based on actual or suspected immigration status; and reproductive coercion — control over reproductive autonomy through force, threat or intimidation, including pressuring a person to become pregnant, interfering with contraception, or controlling the outcome of a pregnancy.

Immigration-status threats and reproductive coercion are named in the statute. Few states name either. If that is what is happening to you, it is not a side issue you have to translate into something else before a California court will hear it.

How long it lasts, and whether it can be extended

California orders run longer than almost anywhere else. Section 6345 caps a single order at five years, and renewal may be permanent.

Two features matter more than the headline number. First, on renewal you do not have to prove that further abuse happened — the test is a reasonable fear of future abuse if the order were to lapse. Second, there is a filing window: a renewal request is made in the three months before the order expires. Miss the window and the order cannot be extended; you would be starting again.

Put the expiry date in your calendar the day you receive the order, and set the reminder three months before it, not on the day itself.

What California’s own law says

California is strict here, and it builds in a paper trail with its own deadline.

The respondent must relinquish firearms and ammunition within 24 hours of being served — immediately, if the officer serving the order asks for them at the time — by surrendering them to local law enforcement or selling or storing them with a licensed dealer. Then the second deadline: within 48 hours of service, the respondent must file the receipt with the court that issued the order and with the law enforcement agency that served it.

Failure to file that receipt on time is itself a violation of the protective order. That is worth knowing, because it is a violation that leaves a documentary trace and does not depend on you witnessing anything.

Fees

There is no filing fee for a domestic violence restraining order in California, and there should be no charge for having the papers served. If a court, a clerk or a service says otherwise, that is worth questioning before you pay it. The federal funding condition set out further down this page is the reason nearly every state forbids the charge.

Self-help centers in California courts assist with the forms at no cost, and domestic violence advocates can often sit with you while you fill them in.

What a violation is, and what it carries

Violating a restraining order is prosecuted under Penal Code s. 273.6. The prosecution has to show that you knew about the order, were able to comply with it, and willfully broke it — an accidental encounter is not the offense.

A first violation is a misdemeanor: up to one year in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. Where the violation causes physical injury the exposure rises — a fine of up to $2,000 and a jail term with a thirty-day minimum, which a judge has some discretion to reduce, up to one year.

A second conviction within seven years, where the violation involved an act of violence or a credible threat of violence, becomes a wobbler — chargeable as a felony, carrying sixteen months, two years or three years, and a fine of up to $10,000.

The things that are different here

Five years, renewable permanently. The longest orders in the country, and renewal does not require proof of new abuse — only a reasonable fear of future abuse.

But there is a three-month window to renew. This is the trap. Miss it and you start over.

Coercive control is written into the statute, through the definition of disturbing the peace.

Immigration-status threats and reproductive coercion are named in the coercive-control list. Very few states name either one.

Electronic conduct is expressly covered — online accounts, text messages and internet-connected devices appear in the statute, as does conduct committed indirectly through a third party.

Twenty-four hours to relinquish, forty-eight to file the receipt, and failing to file the receipt is itself a violation of the order.

Section 6203, and the sentence that settles most arguments

Earlier on this page the conduct a court may enjoin is set out from s. 6320. The definition of abuse sits in a different section, and it is worth having both, because s. 6203 is what a court applies when deciding whether abuse occurred at all.

Look at the fourth limb. It folds the whole of s. 6320 — including disturbing the peace and therefore coercive control — back into the definition of abuse. The two sections are not alternatives; they lock together.

And then the sentence that ends most arguments about whether a situation is serious enough:

Eleven words of statute, stating plainly what a great many people are told is not true. In California, abuse does not require injury and does not require assault. If someone — a family member, a mediator, even a clerk — suggests that nothing can be done because you were never hit, that is s. 6203(b), and it is worth quoting.

Note also that the third limb covers apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury to that person or another. Fear for your child, or for someone else in the house, counts.

“Disturbing the peace of the other party” — § 6320(c)

“refers to conduct that, based on the totality of the circumstances, destroys the mental or emotional calm of the other party. This conduct may be committed directly or indirectly, including through the use of a third party, and by any method or through any means including, but not limited to, telephone, online accounts, text messages, internet-connected devices, including connected devices as defined in Section 22948.30 of the Business and Professions Code, or other electronic technologies.”

The words in bold were added by SB 50 (Stats. 2025, ch. 676), operative 1 January 2026. They matter because the abuse they describe is now common and was awkward to plead before: the thermostat turned up remotely, the doorbell camera used to log your comings and goings, the smart lock that stops working, the speaker that turns itself on. California has put that beyond argument.

Note also “indirectly, including through the use of a third party.” Getting a friend or relative to do the contacting is still the respondent’s conduct.

The five named examples of coercive control

The statute continues: coercive control is “a pattern of behavior that in purpose or effect unreasonably interferes with a person’s free will and personal liberty.” Then it lists examples — and these are the sentences to take into court, because they name things people often do not realize are legally recognized:

The list is expressly not exhaustive, and the test is “in purpose or effect” — so you do not have to prove they intended to control you, only that the behavior had that effect.

How to use this. Do not write “he was controlling.” Write the pattern, in the statute’s own categories: who you stopped seeing and why; what you were denied; what was monitored and how; what you were made to do. A declaration organized around these five headings is doing the judge’s analysis for them.

Animals — § 6320(b)

On a showing of good cause the court may grant you “the exclusive care, possession, or control of any animal” owned, possessed, leased, kept or held by either party or a minor child in either household, and may order the respondent to stay away from the animal and forbid them from “taking, transferring, encumbering, concealing, molesting, attacking, striking, threatening, harming, or otherwise disposing of” it. If a pet is being used as leverage, ask for this expressly.

§ 6389(c) — surrender is immediate, not within 24 hours

This is widely got wrong, including by people who should know. The statute says relinquishment “shall occur by immediately surrendering the firearm or ammunition in a safe manner, upon request of a law enforcement officer, to the control of the officer, after being served with the protective order.” And the officer is not merely permitted to ask: “A law enforcement officer serving a protective order that indicates that the respondent possesses weapons or ammunition shall request that the firearm or ammunition be immediately surrendered.”

The 24-hour rule is the fallback: “Alternatively, if a request is not made by a law enforcement officer, the relinquishment shall occur within 24 hours of being served with the order” — to local law enforcement, or by sale or transfer to a licensed dealer.

Which brings up the single most practical thing on this page. § 6389(c)(3) requires the Judicial Council forms to ask “the petitioner to describe the number, types, and locations of any firearms or ammunition presently known by the petitioner to be possessed or controlled by the respondent.” Fill that in as fully as you can. It is what makes the order one that “indicates that the respondent possesses weapons” — which is what converts the serving officer’s request from optional into mandatory. A blank box turns an immediate seizure into a 24-hour honor system.

The 48-hour receipt, filed in two places

Within 48 hours after being served — not 48 hours after surrendering — the respondent must file the receipt with both the issuing court and the law enforcement agency that served the order. The statute says of each: “Failure to timely file a receipt shall constitute a violation of the protective order.”

So there are two independent violations available if nothing is filed, quite apart from whether the guns were actually handed over. And § 6389(c)(4) puts a duty on the court: it “shall review the file to determine whether the receipt has been filed and inquire of the respondent whether they have complied with the requirement.” Violations must be reported to the prosecuting attorney within two business days of the hearing. If you are at a hearing and the judge has not asked, it is entirely proper to raise it.

The peace officer exemption — § 6389(h)

A court may exempt a particular firearm where the respondent is not otherwise prohibited under state or federal law and is a serving sworn peace officer required to carry as a condition of continued employment, whose employer cannot reassign them. The court must make findings by a preponderance of the evidence, in writing or on the record. Note the precondition: not otherwise prohibited under federal law. Where the federal bar at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) has attached, a state exemption cannot rescue it.

A note on California hotline numbers

We looked for a single statewide California domestic violence hotline to print here, and there is not one. The California Partnership to End Domestic Violence — the state coalition — does not operate a statewide crisis line; it maintains a map directing people to their local county hotline, and refers callers outside that to the national number. Its own line, (916) 444-7163, is a business and referral line staffed Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5pm, not a 24-hour crisis line.

So the number at the top of this page is the right one to use: the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-7233, 24 hours a day, or text START to 88788. They will connect you with services in your county. If you would rather find your local program directly, the Partnership’s find-help map at cpedv.org is the place to look.

An order from one state works in all of them

This is federal law and it does not change at a state line. An order issued by one state, tribe or territory must be enforced by every other as if that state had issued it. And you do not have to register it in the new state first — registration is optional, not a precondition to enforcement.

The same section also says the enforcing state must not tell the restrained person that the order has been registered there unless the protected person asks it to, and must not publish anything online that would be likely to reveal the protected person’s identity or location.