Workplace safety and the household chef in California
A briefing for households in California and the business managers who look after them.
Since 1 July 2025, California’s workplace-safety law has reached people who work in private homes. For a household with a private chef, whether it applies depends less on the kitchen or the cooking than on a single question: who employs the chef.
What changed
A law known as SB 1350 extended the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Act to household domestic workers who are employed by a business. Cal/OSHA, the agency that enforces it, says that a business employing household staff on a temporary or permanent basis is now treated as an employer under Title 8 of the state’s regulations, the main body of California’s workplace-safety rules.
Households that hire directly keep an exemption. The law itself, Labor Code section 6303, writes that exemption for individuals who, in their own residences, privately employ someone for ordinary household tasks, and it names cooking among them. Where a homeowner or renter employs someone in their own home for what the law calls ordinary household domestic tasks, Title 8 does not apply, and Cal/OSHA lists cooking among those tasks, alongside housecleaning, caregiving and routine gardening.
Who employs the chef
At this level, a chef is often paid by someone other than the family itself: a company the family owns, a family office, or a firm that manages the estate. The same kitchen and the same chef can fall on either side of the line depending on whose payroll the chef is on.
- The chef is employed by you personally, to cook in your own home: this is the exemption Cal/OSHA describes for households that hire directly.
- The chef is employed by a business: Cal/OSHA treats the business as an employer under Title 8.
- The chef cooks at a property held for rental income rather than as your residence: Cal/OSHA notes that such work was never exempt and is not exempt now.
Where the chef is employed by a trust, an LLC or a family office that serves only your own household, the answer is less settled, because the exemption is written for individuals hiring privately in their own home. That is a question for your adviser to settle before the chef starts.
What an employer does
Where Title 8 applies, Cal/OSHA’s fact sheet for businesses lists the core duties. For a private kitchen, with its knives, open flame and hot oil, they come down to a few practical things:
- A written Injury and Illness Prevention Program. It sets out how hazards are found and checked, how they are put right in good time, how the chef and anyone supervising them are trained, and how safety is talked about between them.
- A look at the kitchen with safety in mind, and safe equipment that is kept in good order, with protective equipment provided and paid for where the rules call for it.
- Reporting a serious injury quickly. The regulation asks for a report to Cal/OSHA as soon as practically possible and no later than eight hours after the employer knows of it, or twenty-four hours in exigent circumstances.
A chef who raises a safety concern, declines unsafe work or takes part in a Cal/OSHA inquiry is protected from retaliation, whatever their immigration status.
What a household does
- Confirm who the chef’s employer of record is: you personally, a trust or LLC, a family office, or a management firm.
- If it is a business, ask your business manager or adviser whether a written prevention program covers the kitchen. Cal/OSHA’s consultation service helps employers with this free of charge, at 1-800-963-9424 or infocons@dir.ca.gov.
- Agree in advance who would make the report if the chef were seriously hurt, and how, so that the eight-hour window is never in doubt.
For a household already thinking carefully about its chef’s hours, this is a short addition. Our guide to live-in chef hours covers the schedule itself. When you are ready to begin a search, tell us about your household.
This briefing is general information, not legal advice. Your employment adviser should confirm how these rules apply to your household.
Related guides
Sources
- Labor Code section 6303, as amended by SB 1350 (Stats. 2024, ch. 895)
- Cal/OSHA, SB 1350 and Protecting Domestic Service Workers: Fact Sheet for Homeowners (June 2025)
- Cal/OSHA, SB 1350 and Protecting Domestic Service Workers: Fact Sheet for Businesses (June 2025)
- Cal/OSHA, Domestic Service Workers: Frequently Asked Questions
- Title 8, California Code of Regulations, section 3203: Injury and Illness Prevention Program
- Title 8, California Code of Regulations, section 342: reporting work-connected injuries
- Cal/OSHA Consultation Services