Debt collection agencies in California

Yes, since 2022. Financial Code Section 100001 says that "No person shall engage in the business of debt collection in this state without first obtaining a license pursuant to this division." The division is the Debt Collection Licensing Act and the license is issued by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. The Act does not apply to depository institutions, to finance lenders, residential mortgage lenders, real estate licensees, rental-purchase businesses and nonjudicial foreclosure trustees, to the collection of covered commercial debt, or to debt collection already regulated under Division 12.5 of the Financial Code, so a bank, a licensed lender or a commercial collector can lawfully hold no debt collector license.

Search the company name on the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation's Regulated Entities List, filtered to Debt Collectors, which lists every license currently in force with its license number and original license date. Each licensee also has its own record page on the department's site. California license numbers are five digits, a hyphen and two digits, and Civil Code Section 1788.11 requires a collector to show that number on every written or digital communication to a debtor in at least 12-point type, so the number on a letter can be checked against the list.

Because the license is new. California licensed no collection agencies for thirty years before the Debt Collection Licensing Act, which became operative on 1 January 2022, and the earliest licenses on the department's register are dated January 2023. A band measures how long the state's register has vouched for an agency, not how long the business has existed, so every California agency sits in the under-five-years band until 2028 at the earliest. The year each agency was founded is on its profile, and its history in other covered states is on those states' pages.

The department's list carries only licenses currently in force, and it publishes no ending word or date. When a license leaves the list, this site records the last date it was listed and says exactly that. It does not say the license was revoked, suspended or surrendered, because those are different things under the Act and the list does not say which; a revocation or suspension is stated only where a department order says so.

For a lawsuit it depends on the kind of debt. Code of Civil Procedure Section 337 gives four years on "an action upon any contract, obligation or liability founded upon an instrument in writing" and Section 339 gives two years on one not founded on a written instrument. Once the four-year period has run, Section 337(d) says "a person shall not bring suit or initiate an arbitration or other legal proceeding to collect the debt." The full rules are quoted on the California debt law page.