California Franchise Tax Board, quoted verbatim
Capital gains tax in California
What California Franchise Tax Board publishes about each capital gains question, quoted from its own page and dated: 1 of 6 questions answered on the pages read here, the rest recorded as absences naming the page that was read.
- answers quoted word for word
- 1
- questions the guidance does not answer
- 5
- the day these pages were read
- 2026-09-11
Where this jurisdiction stands
Taxes a capital gain at the ordinary income rate, with no separate capital gains rate
Every question, as California Franchise Tax Board states it
| The question | What the authority says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The rate on a long-term gain | California does not have a lower rate for capital gains. All capital gains are taxed as ordinary income. | California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and lossesread September 2026 |
| When a gain counts as long-term | California Franchise Tax Board does not publish this on the page read here (California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and losses, read September 2026). The Franchise Tax Board's capital gains and losses page draws no long-term or short-term line at all, because California has no separate rate for one: it states only that all capital gains are taxed as ordinary income. The federal holding period still decides the federal rate on the same gain. | California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and lossesread September 2026 |
| Selling your main home | California Franchise Tax Board does not publish this on the page read here (California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and losses, read September 2026). The page does not mention the sale of a main home or any state equivalent of the federal exclusion; it directs the reader to the federal Schedule D and to California Schedule D (540) where the two treatments differ. | California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and lossesread September 2026 |
| Deferring the gain on an investment property | California Franchise Tax Board does not publish this on the page read here (California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and losses, read September 2026). Nothing on this page addresses a like-kind exchange or a deferral of the gain; California's own like-kind reporting obligation is carried on a separate form and is not quoted here. | California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and lossesread September 2026 |
| Setting losses against gains | California Franchise Tax Board does not publish this on the page read here (California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and losses, read September 2026). The page states that all taxpayers must report gains AND losses, but publishes no loss limit or carry-forward figure of its own on this page. | California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and lossesread September 2026 |
| The extra tax on investment income | California Franchise Tax Board does not publish this on the page read here (California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and losses, read September 2026). California levies no separate surtax on investment income and this page names none; the 3.8% charge a Californian may face is the federal Net Investment Income Tax. | California Franchise Tax Board - Capital gains and lossesread September 2026 |
An absence here means we have no quotation, never that the gain is untaxed.
Cite or embed this figure
California: 1 capital gains treatments quoted verbatim from the authority's own page and 5 recorded absences (Capital Gains Tax HQ US Capital Gains Tax Record).
Cite as: "Capital Gains Tax HQ US Capital Gains Tax Record: California", updated 2026-09-11, https://capitalgainstaxhq.com/tax/california/.
Download the California table (CSV), free to reuse with citation.