The two court days for electronic service end January 1, 2027

For any document electronically served on or after January 1, 2027, no statute adds two court days to a California deadline. AB 540 (Stats. 2026, ch. 263) rewrites CCP 1010.6(a)(3) so that it keeps only the rule on when electronic service is complete, and the extension in former subdivision (a)(3)(B) is gone. The committee analysis describes the change as one about noticed motions. The text reaches every period that ran from electronic service, including discovery responses and the 45 days to move to compel further responses, and the second of those is the one that cannot be fixed.

Last reviewed October 2026 Statewide Report an error How this is verified

What changed: The two-court-day extension for electronic service is deleted AB 540, Stats. 2026, ch. 263, sec. 4, rewriting CCP 1010.6(a)(3). Approved and filed September 18, 2026
When: January 1, 2027 No urgency clause and no operative-date clause, so the default rule applies: a regular-session statute takes effect January 1 after a 90-day period from enactment. Cal. Const., art. IV, sec. 8(c)(1)
Notice of motion, e-served: 16 court days before the hearing, nothing added CCP 1005(b), which now says its overnight extension applies "excluding electronic service." Counted backward from the hearing under CCP 12c(a)
Summary judgment, e-served: 81 days, nothing added CCP 437c(a)(2), same "excluding electronic service" language on the overnight clause
Discovery responses and motions to compel: No two court days after an e-served set or an e-served response The extension came only from former CCP 1010.6(a)(3)(B). The 45-day limit in CCP 2031.310(c) waives the right to compel if missed
Mail and overnight: Unchanged CCP 1013(a) for mail; the mail and overnight additions written into CCP 1005(b) and CCP 437c(a)(2) themselves
Served after hours or on a weekend: Still deemed served the next court day CCP 1010.6(a)(4), carried forward word for word
Service in December 2026, deadline in January 2027: No published decision AB 540 has no transition clause. Do not rely on the two days for anything due on or after January 1, 2027

On this page

What the statute now says

Electronic service is complete when it is sent, and that is the whole rule.

Until the end of 2026, CCP 1010.6(a)(3) had three parts. Subparagraph (A) made electronic service complete at transmission. Subparagraph (B) extended "any period of notice, or any right or duty to do any act or make any response within any period or on a date certain after the service of the document" by two court days, except for a notice of intention to move for a new trial, a notice of intention to move to vacate under section 663a, and a notice of appeal. Subparagraph (C) said the extension applied "in the absence of a specific exception provided by any other statute or rule of court."

AB 540 rewrites the paragraph as a single sentence. If a document may be served by mail, express mail, overnight delivery, or fax, "electronic service of that document is deemed complete at the time of the electronic transmission of the document or at the time that the electronic notification of service of the document is sent." That is all of new CCP 1010.6(a)(3). Subparagraphs (B) and (C) are not renumbered somewhere else. They are gone.

The bill also adds the words "excluding electronic service" to the overnight-delivery clause in CCP 1005(b) and in CCP 437c(a)(2), so that no one reads electronic service as "another method of delivery providing for overnight delivery."

The Assembly floor analysis on concurrence (August 30, 2026) lists the first major provision as eliminating "the two-court day extension to respond to certain noticed motions served by electronic means," and says the change tracks the 2016 federal amendment that dropped the three added days for electronic service. The Legislative Counsel's Digest calls it a clarification. Neither description limits the text. The deletion is not confined to motions, and the analysis does not say what happens to the other periods the old subparagraph reached.

Rule 2.251 does not keep the extension alive

California Rules of Court, rule 2.251(i)(1) says electronic service "is complete as provided in Code of Civil Procedure section 1010.6 and the rules in this chapter." The rule has no extension of its own. It points back to the statute, and from January 1, 2027 the statute has none. Read from the Judicial Council's Title 2 PDF, which shows rule 2.251 last amended effective January 1, 2022.

CCP 1013(g) says electronic service is permitted "pursuant to Section 1010.6 and the rules on electronic service in the California Rules of Court." It adds no days either.

Every deadline it reaches

Anything that used to run two court days longer after electronic service runs to the plain number.

The old extension was general. It attached to any period that ran from service of a document, unless another statute or rule carved it out. California courts applied it that way. Kahn v. The Dewey Group (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 227, 235, used it to extend the time to file a memorandum of costs after an electronically served notice of entry of judgment. Cole v. Superior Court (2022) 87 Cal.App.5th 84 applied it to the summary judgment notice period. Those decisions construe text that no longer exists for service on or after January 1, 2027.

Deadline	E-served through Dec. 31, 2026	E-served on or after Jan. 1, 2027
Notice of motion, CCP 1005(b)	16 court days plus 2 court days	16 court days
Summary judgment notice, CCP 437c(a)(2)	81 days plus 2 court days	81 days
Response to interrogatories, CCP 2030.260(a)	30 days plus 2 court days	30 days
Motion to compel further, inspection demands, CCP 2031.310(c)	45 days plus 2 court days	45 days
New trial, section 663a, notice of appeal	No extension	No extension

Each row carries its own trigger and its own day count, and the site does not do the arithmetic. Read the right-hand column: for electronic service, the number in the statute is now the number.

The dates themselves Hearing date in, the 16, the nine and the five back out, with judicial holidays in place. Check that the service-method setting matches the date of service. Civil motion deadlines under CCP 1005

Motions

An e-served notice of motion is due on the 16th court day before the hearing, the same day as personal delivery.

CCP 1005(b) still adds 5, 10, 12 or 20 calendar days for mail, depending on where the papers go, and 2 calendar days for fax, express mail or other overnight delivery. Electronic service now gets neither. Count backward from the hearing, excluding the hearing day, under CCP 12c(a).

Summary judgment works the same way. CCP 437c(a)(2) keeps 5, 10 or 20 days for mail and 2 court days for overnight delivery, and the overnight clause now says "excluding electronic service." Eighty-one days means 81 days. The opposition at 20 days and the reply at 11 run backward from the hearing and were never triggered by service.

One open question on this site goes away. The motion clock guide presents as unsettled whether the old extension reached the nine-court-day opposition and the five-court-day reply under CCP 1005(b). For papers served on or after January 1, 2027 there is no extension to reach them.

Proof of service and the five court days

Rule 3.1300(c), as cross-referenced in rule 2.251(j)(2), requires proof of electronic service of the moving papers to be filed at least five court days before the hearing. AB 540 does not touch that rule. It is a filing deadline that runs backward from the hearing, not a period that runs from service.

The motion clock in full Sixteen, nine and five, why section 1013 is excluded by name, and the next-business-day rule for opposition and reply. The 16-court-day motion clock

Discovery

The Civil Discovery Act never had its own electronic service extension, so it loses the two days with nothing to replace them.

CCP 2016.050 applies sections 1011 and 1013 to discovery. It does not mention section 1010.6. The two court days that practitioners add to a response date after an e-served set came from former CCP 1010.6(a)(3)(B) alone. From January 1, 2027, a set of interrogatories e-served on a Monday is answered 30 days later under CCP 2030.260(a), and the same holds for inspection demands and requests for admission. Mail service still adds five calendar days in state under CCP 1013(a).

The deadline that matters most is the one you calendar for yourself. Under CCP 2031.310(c), unless notice of a motion to compel a further response is given "within 45 days of the service of the verified response, or any supplemental verified response, or on or before any specific later date to which the demanding party and the responding party have agreed in writing, the demanding party waives any right to compel a further response." CCP 2030.300(c) (interrogatories) and CCP 2033.290(c) (requests for admission) say the same thing. A docketing rule that still adds two court days to an e-served response in 2027 puts the motion two court days past the waiver date.

The written-agreement route in the same subdivision is the cure before the fact. If meet and confer is running long, get the extension in writing, with a date.

The 45 days What starts the clock, what extends it in writing, and why a late motion cannot be saved. The 45-day deadline to compel further

Response due dates Service date and method in, due date out. The calculator adds two court days for electronic service made by December 31, 2026 and nothing for service after that. Discovery response deadlines

The changeover

No published decision decides which rule governs a document e-served in late 2026 when the period ends in 2027.

AB 540 has five sections and none of them is a transition or savings clause. The general rule in CCP 3 is that no part of the code "is retroactive, unless expressly so declared." The more natural reading is that service completed in 2026 carries the 2026 rule, because the extension attached when the document was served. That is an inference from the statute, not a holding, and the other reading (the period is measured under the law in force when it ends) is not frivolous.

The practical answer does not depend on which reading wins. If you are serving, do not count on the opposing side having two extra court days for anything that falls due on or after January 1, 2027. If you are responding or moving, do not take them either. Calendar the earlier date in both directions and the question never has to be litigated.

Watch the motions noticed in the last two weeks of December. January 1, 2027 is a Friday and a court holiday, so the first court days of the year arrive in a cluster, and that is exactly where a 2026 count and a 2027 count produce different hearing dates.

What breaks if you get this wrong

Three mistakes, and which of them can still be fixed.

Not curable

Adding two court days to the 45 days after an e-served discovery response served in 2027

The motion is late and the right to compel is waived. CCP 2031.310(c); former CCP 1010.6(a)(3)(B) no longer supplies the days. Get a written extension before the 45th day, not after.

Curable, on motion

Serving responses to e-served interrogatories two court days after the 30th day, in 2027

The response is untimely, and every objection is waived, including privilege and work product. CCP 2030.290(a). Relief requires a later response in substantial compliance and a showing of mistake, inadvertence, or excusable neglect. CCP 2030.290(a)(1), (a)(2).

Curable, while time allows

Counting a December 2026 e-service under the old rule for a deadline that lands in January 2027

No published decision on the transition. CCP 3 favors the old rule for service completed before January 1, but the safe practice is to meet the earlier date.

Before January 1, 2027

Find every rule in your docketing system that adds two court days for electronic service.
Key it to the date of service, so that service on or after January 1, 2027 adds nothing.
Re-run every response date and motion-to-compel date on discovery e-served in late December.
Re-check the hearing dates on motions you plan to e-serve in the last two weeks of 2026.
Get written extensions of the 45 days with a specific date, rather than counting on two extra court days.
Update templates and proofs of service that recite the old extension.

The local layer

The change is statewide and statutory. The San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino local rules were not checked for language reciting the old extension on this review. If a department's standing order or a local form recites two court days for electronic service, the statute controls for service on or after January 1, 2027, and the form is out of date.