The California memorandum of costs, and the motion to tax
A prevailing party is entitled to costs as a matter of right, and collects them by serving and filing a verified memorandum of costs within 15 days after service of the notice of entry of judgment. The deadline is not jurisdictional and it is still mandatory, and the two published lines on how a late one gets excused have never been reconciled.
- Who is entitled
- The prevailing party, as a matter of right, in four defined categories: net monetary recovery, a defendant who gets a dismissal, a defendant where neither side gets relief, and a defendant against plaintiffs who recover nothing from that defendant CCP 1032(a)(4) and CCP 1032(b)
- Outside those four
- Non-monetary relief, or any other situation: the court decides who prevailed and may allow, deny or apportion CCP 1032(a)(4), last paragraph
- Your deadline
- 15 days after service of the notice of entry of judgment or dismissal, or 180 days after entry of judgment, whichever is first Rule 3.1700(a)(1). Calendar days. The trigger is service of the notice, not entry
- Service extensions
- Rule 3.1700 extends the motion-to-tax period for mail and electronic service by name, and says nothing about extending the memorandum deadline Compare rule 3.1700(b)(1) with rule 3.1700(a)(1)
- Their deadline
- 15 days after service of the cost memorandum, extended by CCP 1013 for mail and CCP 1010.6(a)(3) for electronic service Rule 3.1700(b)(1)
- No timely motion to tax
- The clerk must immediately enter the costs on the judgment. There is no judicial involvement at all Rule 3.1700(b)(4)
- The burden
- If the item appears on its face to be a proper charge, the verified memorandum is prima facie evidence and the objector has to show it unnecessary or unreasonable. If it does not, the burden is yours Nelson v. Anderson (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 111, 131-132
- Discretionary awards
- A memorandum of costs is the wrong document. The clerk has no authority to enter a cost award that requires a judicial finding Neeble-Diamond v. Hotel California By the Sea, LLC (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 551, 558
On this page
Costs are the part of a case that gets handled at the end of a long week, by whoever is available, from a form. And the entitlement is the easiest thing in the chapter: win, and you get your allowable costs, no motion required. CCP 1032(b) says a prevailing party "is entitled as a matter of right to recover costs in any action or proceeding" except as otherwise expressly provided by statute.
Everything that goes wrong here goes wrong on the procedure, not the entitlement. A clock, a vehicle, or a burden.
The two clocks, and the third one people confuse with them
Fifteen days to claim, fifteen days to object, and a separate and much longer clock for attorney fees that require a judicial determination.
"A prevailing party who claims costs must serve and file a memorandum of costs within 15 days after the date of service of the notice of entry of judgment or dismissal by the clerk under Code of Civil Procedure section 664.5 or the date of service of written notice of entry of judgment or dismissal, or within 180 days after entry of judgment, whichever is first."
Three facts about that period, because a number without them is incomplete. The trigger is service of the notice of entry, by the clerk under CCP 664.5 or by a party, not entry of the judgment itself. The period runs in calendar days. And the rule's own text extends the period for mail and electronic service in subdivision (b)(1), which governs the motion to tax, while saying nothing of the kind in subdivision (a)(1), which governs the memorandum.
The 180-day outside limit is the backstop for the case where nobody ever serves notice of entry. It is not an alternative you can elect. Whichever of the two comes first is your deadline.
| Step | Period | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Serve and file the memorandum of costs | 15 days after service of notice of entry of judgment or dismissal, or 180 days after entry, whichever is first | Rule 3.1700(a)(1) |
| Serve and file a motion to strike or tax costs | 15 days after service of the cost memorandum, extended for mail under CCP 1013 and for electronic service under CCP 1010.6(a)(3) | Rule 3.1700(b)(1) |
| Extend either period by agreement | Any length, but confirmed in writing, specifying the extended date for service, and filed with the clerk | Rule 3.1700(b)(3) |
| Extend either period without an agreement | The court may extend, not to exceed 30 days | Rule 3.1700(b)(3) |
| Clerk enters costs on the judgment | After the time for a motion to tax has passed, or after determination of the motion, immediately | Rule 3.1700(b)(4) |
| Move for attorney fees that need a court determination | Within the time for filing a notice of appeal | Rule 3.1702(b)(1) |
The fee clock is not the cost clock and the two get run together constantly. Under rule 3.1702(b)(1) a noticed motion for attorney fees through rendition of judgment is due within the time for filing a notice of appeal, and the trial judge may extend that for good cause under rule 3.1702(d). But rule 3.1702(e) sends fees the other way where no judicial determination is needed: "If a party is entitled to statutory or contractual attorney's fees that are fixed without the necessity of a court determination, the fees must be claimed in the memorandum of costs." So a fee fixed by formula rides on the fifteen-day clock, not the appeal clock.
What the July 2025 amendment to rule 3.1700 did
Rule 3.1700 was amended effective 1 July 2025. The change was a cross-reference correction inside subdivision (b)(1): the electronic service extension now points at CCP 1010.6(a)(3) rather than the former CCP 1010.6(a)(4).
It changes nothing about the length of any period. It matters only if you are quoting the rule in a brief, or working from a form or a practice guide printed before mid-2025, in which case the citation in front of you is to a subdivision that no longer carries the extension.
Postjudgment costs live in a different statute
Rule 3.1700 is titled "Prejudgment costs" and that is what it governs. Costs of enforcing a judgment are claimed under CCP 685.070, which runs on its own schedule: the memorandum comes before the judgment is fully satisfied but no later than two years after the costs were incurred, and the judgment debtor has ten days to move to tax.
CCP 685.070 was amended by Stats. 2024, ch. 514 (A.B. 2837), effective 1 January 2025. If you are working from an older form or checklist on enforcement costs, check the section text.
Allowable, not allowable, and discretionary
Three lists and one standard. The standard is where the argument actually happens.
CCP 1033.5(a) runs from paragraph (1) to paragraph (16) and is the list you get as of right: filing, motion and jury fees at (a)(1); juror food and lodging at (a)(2); taking, recording and transcribing necessary depositions at (a)(3); service of process at (a)(4); attachment expenses including keeper's fees at (a)(5); premiums on necessary surety bonds at (a)(6); ordinary witness fees under Gov. Code 68093 at (a)(7); court-ordered expert witness fees at (a)(8); court-ordered transcripts at (a)(9); attorney fees when authorized by contract, statute or law at (a)(10); statutory court reporter fees at (a)(11); court interpreter fees at (a)(12); models, enlargements and photocopies of exhibits and the electronic presentation of exhibits at (a)(13); court-required electronic filing fees at (a)(14); electronic document hosting at (a)(15); and anything else a statute requires to be awarded at (a)(16).
CCP 1033.5(b) is the short list of things that are not allowable unless expressly authorized by law: fees of experts not ordered by the court at (b)(1), investigation expenses in preparing for trial at (b)(2), postage, telephone and photocopying charges other than for exhibits at (b)(3), juror investigation and voir dire preparation at (b)(4), and transcripts not ordered by the court at (b)(5).
Then the standard, which applies to everything:
"(2) Allowable costs shall be reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation rather than merely convenient or beneficial to its preparation. (3) Allowable costs shall be reasonable in amount."
CCP 1033.5(c)(1) makes a cost allowable whether or not it has been paid, so long as it was incurred, and CCP 1033.5(c)(4) puts items not mentioned in the section, and items assessed on application, in the court's discretion to allow or deny.
Where the necessity standard is usually fought
The line between reasonably necessary and merely convenient is the workhorse objection on a motion to tax, and Ladas v. California State Automobile Assn. (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 761, 773-776 is the case people cite for it. Two of its holdings are worth knowing by heart because they come up every time.
Attorney meals at a local deposition are out. At 774 to 775: subdivision (a)(3) allows the cost of taking and transcribing depositions and travel expenses to attend them, but "it does not mention meals eaten while attending local depositions. Nor can meal expenses be justified as 'necessary to conduct the litigation' since attorneys have to eat, whether they are conducting litigation or not."
Local travel is out too. At 775 to 776, on 1,680.21 dollars of parking, cab fares and mileage unrelated to depositions: "[t]he only travel expenses authorized by section 1033.5 are those to attend depositions," and "[r]outine expenses for local travel by attorneys or other firm employees are not reasonably necessary to the conduct of litigation."
The two most litigated items in practice are usually deposition costs under (a)(3) for depositions that were never used, and exhibit costs under (a)(13) for exhibits that never went in. On (a)(13) the statute itself supplies the test: those items "may be allowed if they were reasonably helpful to aid the trier of fact," which is a different question from whether they were used.
The burden, and where it flips
The verified memorandum is evidence. Which side has to produce more of it depends on whether the item looks proper on its face.
Rule 3.1700(a)(1) requires the memorandum to "be verified by a statement of the party, attorney, or agent that to the best of his or her knowledge the items of cost are correct and were necessarily incurred in the case." That verification is not a formality. It is the evidence.
Rappenecker v. Sea-Land Service, Inc. (1979) 93 Cal.App.3d 256, 266 puts it as a conditional: "If the items on a verified cost bill appear proper charges, they are prima facie evidence that the costs, expenses and services therein listed were necessarily incurred," and "the normal procedure to challenge individual items is by a motion to tax costs." Neeble-Diamond v. Hotel California By the Sea, LLC (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 551, 558 quotes that passage and applies it.
Read the "if" clause. Nelson v. Anderson (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 111, 131 is the modern statement and it sets out the sequence: "The court's first determination, therefore, is whether the statute expressly allows the particular item, and whether it appears proper on its face. If so, the burden is on the objecting party to show them to be unnecessary or unreasonable."
And the flip side, from the same page: Nelson accepts that "the mere filing of a motion to tax costs may be a 'proper objection' to an item, the necessity of which appears doubtful, or which does not appear to be proper on its face." On those facts the verified cost bill was insufficient because it did not disclose the method of service, so the claiming party carried the burden of establishing the necessity and reasonableness of its service costs. At page 132 the same thing happened to messenger fees the trial court found of doubtful necessity and unreasonable on their face.
Which means the amount of detail on the form is a strategic choice, not clerical. A line item specific enough to look proper on its face carries the presumption. A bare total for an allowable category invites the objection that puts the item in issue and hands you the burden. Ladas v. California State Automobile Assn. (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 761, 774 states both halves in one sentence: proper-looking charges put the burden on the party seeking to tax, and items "properly objected to" are "put in issue and the burden of proof is on the party claiming them as costs."
City of Downey v. Gonzales (1968) 262 Cal.App.2d 563, 572 remains good law on the objector's half and is worth quoting for the last sentence rather than the first: the burden is on the party moving to retax to prove the charge is not a legal or proper one, and "[i]t is error to strike an item in a cost bill if there is no evidence in the record to disprove the necessity for incurring the item." Nelson at 131 is the citation contemporary departments expect.
And the documentation point, because it produces unnecessary work in both directions. Bach v. County of Butte (1989) 215 Cal.App.3d 294, 308, quoted in Alan S. v. Superior Court (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 238: invoices and statements need not be attached to the memorandum, and "documentation must be submitted only when a party dissatisfied with the costs claimed in the memorandum challenges them by filing a motion to tax costs." Do not paper the memorandum. Do have the backup ready to file within days.
The objector has a specificity duty of its own. Under rule 3.1700(b)(2), unless the objection goes to the entire memorandum, the motion must refer to each item by the same number and in the same order as the memorandum, and must state why the item is objectionable. A motion that gestures at the total is not a motion to tax anything in particular.
A late memorandum, and the split on how you get relieved
Not jurisdictional. Mandatory. Those two words are doing a lot of work, and the published authority on what they add up to does not agree.
On the characterization, the cases are uniform. Hydratec, Inc. v. Sun Valley 260 Orchard & Vineyard Co. (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 924, 929: "The time provisions relating to the filing of a memorandum of costs, while not jurisdictional, are mandatory." Sanabria v. Embrey (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 422, 425 says the same thing and then does something with it, reversing an award of costs and fees where the memorandum was filed roughly 169 days after written notice of entry of dismissal was served. Gunlock Corp. v. Walk on Water, Inc. (1993) 15 Cal.App.4th 1301, 1304 supplies the non-jurisdictional half.
What splits is the route out.
| Case | How a late memorandum gets excused |
|---|---|
| Hoover Community Hotel Development Corp. v. Thomson (1985) 168 Cal.App.3d 485, 488 (2d Dist. Div. 2) | The limitation is not jurisdictional and the trial court "has broad discretion in allowing relief from a late filing where there is an absence of a showing of prejudice to the opposing party." |
| Russell v. Trans Pacific Group (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 1717, 1729-1730 | Because the provisions are mandatory, they cannot be disregarded as a matter of general discretion. Relief runs through CCP 473 and needs mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect. Bare absence of prejudice is not enough. |
Two other things a late or early filing does not do.
Filing early is not a problem. Haley v. Casa Del Rey Homeowners Assn. (2007) 153 Cal.App.4th 863, 880 holds that the time limitations are not jurisdictional and that a prematurely filed memorandum is "a mere irregularity at best" that is not reversible error absent prejudice, with courts treating an early cost bill as timely filed. Lowry v. Port San Luis Harbor Dist. (2020) 56 Cal.App.5th 211, 222 applied it, on facts where the memorandum went in before judgment was entered and the court heard costs afterward.
And rule 3.1700(b)(3) now supplies a limited route that did not exist when Hoover was decided. Absent an agreement, the court may extend either period by up to 30 days. That is an extension asked for in advance, not relief from a deadline already blown, and 30 days is the ceiling, but it is the cleanest fix available and it is underused.
When a memorandum is the wrong document
The clerk's entry of costs is ministerial. A cost award that requires a judge to decide something cannot be obtained from a ministerial act.
This is the most useful thing to come out of the recent case law and it cuts both ways depending on which side of it you are on. Neeble-Diamond v. Hotel California By the Sea, LLC (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 551 reversed an order adding costs to a judgment. A prevailing FEHA defendant sought its costs by memorandum. Under the FEHA cost provision the court first has to find the plaintiff's claims frivolous, unreasonable or groundless, which is a discretionary judicial determination. The Court of Appeal held that a memorandum of costs, which operates as a request for the clerk to make a mandatory ministerial entry under rule 3.1700(b)(4), is an ineffective vehicle for that award: the plaintiff was under no obligation to respond to it and the clerk had no authority to enter the costs. The petition for review was denied on 15 May 2024.
Stated as narrowly as the case supports: Neeble-Diamond holds that a memorandum is ineffective for the discretionary FEHA award in front of it, and reasons from the ministerial character of rule 3.1700(b)(4) entry. It does not catalogue every award that falls on the discretionary side of that line. Expert fees not ordered by the court, sought under CCP 998(d), are the obvious next candidate, because that subdivision is written in discretionary terms, but no published decision has extended Neeble-Diamond to them.
The 998 overlay, in one place
CCP 998(a) works by adjusting the same chapter this page is about: "the costs allowed under Sections 1031 and 1032 shall be withheld or augmented as provided in this section."
Under CCP 998(c)(1), a plaintiff who does not accept a defendant's offer and fails to obtain a more favourable judgment "shall not recover their postoffer costs and shall pay the defendant's costs from the time of the offer," and under CCP 998(e) those costs come off any damages awarded, with a net judgment to the defendant if they exceed the award. In deciding whether the judgment was more favourable, postoffer costs are excluded, CCP 998(c)(2)(A).
Running the other way, CCP 998(d) lets the court, in its discretion, require a defendant who did not accept a plaintiff's offer and failed to beat it to pay a reasonable sum for the plaintiff's postoffer expert witness costs. That is how expert fees that CCP 1033.5(b)(1) excludes become recoverable at all.
Two recent Supreme Court decisions matter here. Madrigal v. Hyundai Motor America (2025) 17 Cal.5th 592 holds that 998 cost shifting is not confined to cases resolved by trial or arbitration and can reach a case resolved by stipulated settlement that leaves costs and fees for later judicial determination, while also holding that where the parties themselves allocated costs in the settlement, the court is not authorised to award them differently.
And the burden on the 998 half runs the other way from the burden on the memorandum. In Gorobets v. Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC (Cal., 6 Aug. 2026, No. S287946) 2026 WL 2267423, the Supreme Court held that an offer giving the offeree a choice among alternative terms is not categorically invalid, that the offer is valid only if at least one set of its terms was capable of valuation at the time it was made, and that the offeror bears the burden of showing the offer was valid and sufficiently certain. No official reports citation had issued as at the review date on this page.
What breaks if you get this wrong
Four ways a cost award you had coming does not arrive.
Filing the memorandum after the fifteen days
Sanabria v. Embrey (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 422, 425 reversed the award outright where the memorandum came roughly 169 days after service of written notice of dismissal, on the ground that the time provisions are mandatory. Hoover would let a trial court relieve the lapse on an absence of prejudice; Russell v. Trans Pacific Group (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 1717 would require a CCP 473 showing. You do not get to pick which line the department follows.
Claiming a discretionary award on the cost memorandum
Neeble-Diamond v. Hotel California By the Sea, LLC (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 551 held a memorandum is an ineffective vehicle where the award requires a judicial finding: the clerk cannot enter it and the other side need not respond. By the time that is sorted out, the window for the noticed motion under rule 3.1702(b)(1) may have closed too.
Letting the fifteen days to move to tax run
Rule 3.1700(b)(4): after the time for a motion to strike or tax has passed, "the clerk must immediately enter the costs on the judgment." As Neeble-Diamond puts it, where no timely motion is filed the court has no involvement with the cost award at all. There is nothing for a judge to exercise discretion over, because nobody asked.
Assuming a service extension bought you time on your own memorandum
Rule 3.1700(b)(1) extends the objector's period for mail under CCP 1013 and for electronic service under CCP 1010.6(a)(3). Rule 3.1700(a)(1) contains no equivalent. If you have days rather than weeks, rule 3.1700(b)(3) lets you paper a written extension with the other side, or ask the court for up to 30 days, and either is easier to obtain before the deadline than after it.
The week the judgment is entered
- Find the service date on the notice of entry, and calendar fifteen calendar days from it. Not from entry, and not from when you read it.
- Also calendar 180 days from entry, and use whichever comes first.
- Sort your claim into two piles, costs the clerk can enter under CCP 1033.5(a) and awards a judge has to make. Only the first pile goes on the memorandum.
- Check every item against subdivision (b) before it goes on the form, and against the reasonably-necessary standard in CCP 1033.5(c)(2) after.
- Verify it, in the words rule 3.1700(a)(1) uses. Do not attach the invoices.
- Assemble the backup anyway and keep it ready, because you have fifteen days plus their service extension before you know whether you need it.
- If fees are fixed by formula, put them on the memorandum under rule 3.1702(e). If they need a court determination, calendar the notice-of-appeal date instead.
- If you are already late, brief both routes, the CCP 473 showing and the absence of prejudice, and do not rely on the department preferring one.
- On the receiving end, diary fifteen days from service of the memorandum, add the extension for the service method used, and number your objections to match theirs.
The local layer
Everything above is statewide. Rule 3.1700 is a rule of court and it applies everywhere, and the Judicial Council form is the same form in every county.
What varies is not the rule, it is what a department expects to see behind the numbers. This site does not state which counties require more documentation than the rule does, because that is a department-level practice rather than a published rule, and a confident wrong sentence about it is worse than no sentence. For any county other than San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino, the statewide rule above is where this page stops.
The costs chapter is generous and the procedure around it is not. Both fifteen-day periods are short, one of them gets a service extension and the other does not, and the document that carries a routine award cannot carry a discretionary one. Every loss on this page is procedural, which is the same as saying every one of them was avoidable.