Small Claims eFiling FAQ

No. eFiling is optional, but the court encourages it when the documents meet eligibility requirements.

The following documents cannot be eFiled:

• EJ-001 – Abstract of Judgment
• EJ-130 – Writ of Execution
• SC-145 – Request to Pay Judgment to Court
• SC-300 – Petition for Writ
• Challenges to a judge (under CCP §§170.1 and 170.3)
• Subpoenas and related documents (e.g., SC-107, SC-134, EJ-125)
• Sealed or provisionally sealed documents
• Documents for sealed cases
• Physical trial exhibits or items that can’t be viewed electronically
• Trial exhibits

Submit ineligible documents in-person, by mail, or through the court's drop box. Important: Bring trial exhibits with you to the hearing, along with copies for the other party, the judge, and yourself.

No. Use an approved Electronic Filing Service Provider (EFSP) to submit documents. To find a list of approved EFSPs and set up an account, visit Odyssey eFileCA.

The EFSP sends your documents to the Electronic Filing Manager (EFM) (currently Odyssey eFileCA), which delivers them to the court for review. A court clerk will then either accept the filing or reject it with reasons provided.

You can eFile documents 24/7. Documents received by 11:59:59 p.m. on a court day are marked as filed that day if accepted. Documents submitted on non-court days are filed on the next court day.

Note: The system may be temporarily offline from time to time for maintenance purposes

Your EFSP will email a confirmation with the date, time, and transaction ID. A separate notice will inform you whether the court accepted or rejected your filing.

Processing time depends on the type of document filed.

If your filing is rejected, the court will provide a notice explaining why. Fix the issue and resubmit your documents.

Common reasons include:

• Submitting multiple documents as one PDF
• Incorrect or mismatched data (e.g., case number, party info)
• Wrong payment option selected
• Incorrect case type, category, or court location
• Duplicate filings

Yes. You’ll pay court filing fees, an EFSP fee, and an EFM service fee. Court fees are waived if you submit a fee waiver. Check with your EFSP for details on their fees.

Yes. Submit the fee waiver request with your other documents. If approved, the fee waiver covers court fees, but your EFSP may still charge service fees.

Accepted documents are returned through your EFSP. Copies are also available through the Court Access Portal (CAP) or by requesting certified copies.

After your case is accepted, the court will assign a judge and send you a notice with the case number and judge’s information.

Yes. Once your case is accepted, it is assigned a trial date based on normal court processes.

No. Once submitted, a transaction cannot be canceled.

No. Self-represented parties must actively agree to accept electronic service. See California Rules of Court, rule 2.251(b)(1)(B).

Start by contacting your EFSP. If they can’t resolve your issue, contact the court at the phone number for your case’s assigned location.

All documents eFiled must be submitted in pdf format using Adobe Acrobat version 7 or higher, and must be in a text searchable (i.e., optical character recognition (OCR)). The court cannot accept documents that do not meet the required formatting.

The court also cannot accept documents with certain characteristics including, but not limited to: forms with fillable fields, a negative image, or an image that is saved as an "object" on the filed document. When using Judicial Council fillable forms, be sure the fields are inactive and no longer fillable before submitting your document for eFiling. For assistance with inactivating fillable fields, contact your EFSP.

Documents should be submitted electronically as you would at the clerk window. If a document would have been stapled together at filing, then it may be electronically submitted as one lead document. Anything that needs its own file stamp should be filed separately as a lead document that gets its own event code.

Multiple documents may be filed together in one envelope but each document that requires a file stamp needs its own event code. An envelope contains a document or group of documents that will be processed in one transaction for a single case number.

There is a 25 MB document limit and a 50 MB file limit. So no single document can be larger than 25 MB and no group of documents can be larger than 50 MB on a single electronic submission. Contact your EFSP for assistance in optimizing your files.

The signature requirements depend on whether a document must be signed under penalty of perjury and/or requires the signature solely of the eFiler or the eFiler and another party (i.e. a stipulation). Please see Code of Civil Procedure section 1010.6(e)(2) and Cal. Rules of Court 2.257 for information on signature requirements.

Please refer to your EFSP's website for guidance on how to properly redact information from documents.

Improperly redacting PDFs may place you or your client(s) at risk of releasing sensitive case information. To maintain confidentiality and ensure all redactions are appropriately applied, it is imperative that you remove metadata. Metadata is hidden information embedded within a document that, with a few clicks, may reveal a document's revision history, earlier drafts, information about the document author, file name, file path, date of creation, and so on. This information is still available and accessible, even if the document was converted to a PDF. It is your responsibility to learn more about metadata and how to remove it properly.

No. Documents should not be password protected and will be rejected if password protected.

No, unless the court requests otherwise.

eFiling does not change the rules regarding service.

If requested by the filing party and the applicable fee ($15.00) is paid by the eFiler, the court will attempt service of the original Plaintiff’s or Defendant’s Claim and Order by certified mail (Code Civ. Proc., § 116.340(a)(1)). Otherwise you are required to serve the document and the court will not serve it for you.

You must serve documents on other parties in the case in accordance with applicable statutes, Court Rules, and any Court orders.