What "headquartered in California" actually means for your paycheck
Pay frequency is governed primarily by the state where the employee physically works, not where the employer is incorporated. A company headquartered in California may run separate payroll calendars for staff in California, New York, or Massachusetts to comply with state-specific cadence floors. That said, the largest multi-state employers — including those listed below — typically adopt a single uniform payroll cadence across all locations to simplify administration. The most common simplification is to default to whichever cadence satisfies the strictest state minimum.
For the official state-by-state payday-requirement reference, see the U.S. Department of Labor's payday-requirements table and the NCSL summary of state payday laws. These are the canonical references HR teams use when designing multi-state payroll calendars.
Why a semimonthly schedule appears here
A semimonthly payroll schedule pays employees twice per month on fixed calendar dates, usually the 15th and the last business day, producing exactly 24 paychecks per year. Semimonthly is favored by banks, insurance carriers, technology companies, utilities, and consulting firms because it aligns naturally with monthly accounting closes.
Among the California-headquartered employers in PayPeriod Hub, the semimonthly cadence appears most often at companies whose workforces concentrate in salaried corporate, technology, finance, and professional-services roles. The pattern reflects industry structure more than state law.
All 80 California employers paying semimonthly
| Company | Industry | Payday | City | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8x8 | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Campbell | 2,300 |
| Activision Blizzard | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Monica | 17,000 |
| Adobe | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 30,000 |
| Affirm | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,400 |
| Alphabet | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Mountain View | 182,502 |
| Anaplan | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,500 |
| Apple | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Cupertino | 161,000 |
| Applied Materials | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Clara | 33,000 |
| Arista Networks | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Clara | 4,250 |
| Asana | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 1,800 |
| Autodesk | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 13,700 |
| Bill.com | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 2,700 |
| BlackLine | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Woodland Hills | 2,000 |
| Box | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Redwood City | 2,700 |
| Broadcom | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 37,000 |
| Cisco Systems | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 84,900 |
| Cloudflare | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 3,700 |
| Coinbase | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 3,526 |
| Confluent | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Mountain View | 2,940 |
| Coupa Software | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Mateo | 3,300 |
| DocuSign | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 6,900 |
| DoorDash | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 16,800 |
| Dropbox | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,700 |
| Edison International | Utilities | the 15th and last day of the month | Rosemead | 13,207 |
| Elastic | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Mountain View | 3,500 |
| Electronic Arts | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Redwood City | 13,700 |
| Fastly | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 1,100 |
| First American Financial | Insurance | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Ana | 22,000 |
| Five9 | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Ramon | 2,700 |
| Franklin Resources | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | San Mateo | 9,800 |
| GitLab | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,500 |
| HP | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Palo Alto | 58,000 |
| HashiCorp | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,400 |
| Houlihan Lokey | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | Los Angeles | 2,700 |
| Instacart | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 3,500 |
| Intel | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Clara | 124,800 |
| Intuit | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Mountain View | 18,200 |
| Juniper Networks | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Sunnyvale | 11,000 |
| LPL Financial | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | San Diego | 6,800 |
| Lam Research | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Fremont | 17,200 |
| Lyft | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,900 |
| Meta Platforms | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Menlo Park | 67,317 |
| NetApp | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 12,000 |
| Nvidia | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Clara | 26,196 |
| Okta | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 6,000 |
| Opendoor Technologies | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 1,600 |
| PG&E | Utilities | the 15th and last day of the month | Oakland | 28,000 |
| Palo Alto Networks | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Clara | 14,000 |
| PayPal | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 27,200 |
| Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 4,040 | |
| Procore Technologies | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Carpinteria | 3,800 |
| Qualcomm | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Diego | 50,000 |
| Qualys | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Foster City | 2,300 |
| Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,000 | |
| RingCentral | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Belmont | 4,750 |
| Robinhood Markets | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | Menlo Park | 2,300 |
| Roblox | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Mateo | 2,400 |
| Roku | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 3,650 |
| Salesforce | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 72,682 |
| Sempra Energy | Utilities | the 15th and last day of the month | San Diego | 19,000 |
| ServiceNow | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Clara | 22,668 |
| Slack Technologies | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 2,545 |
| Snap Inc. | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Santa Monica | 5,288 |
| SoFi Technologies | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 4,300 |
| Splunk | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 8,400 |
| Square (Block) | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Oakland | 12,000 |
| Twilio | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 7,900 |
| Twitter (X) | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 1,500 |
| Uber Technologies | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 32,200 |
| VMware | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Palo Alto | 38,300 |
| Veritone | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Irvine | 760 |
| Visa | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 26,500 |
| Wells Fargo | Financial Services | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 226,000 |
| Western Digital | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 51,000 |
| Workday | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | Pleasanton | 18,500 |
| Yelp | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Francisco | 4,690 |
| Zoom Video Communications | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 7,400 |
| Zscaler | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 6,900 |
| Zynga | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Mateo | 3,500 |
| eBay | Technology | the 15th and last day of the month | San Jose | 11,600 |
Related views
- All California employers regardless of cadence
- All companies that pay Semimonthly across every state
- The Semimonthly primer