How Long Do You Have to Serve a Lawsuit in California?

Filing is the easy part. The clock that catches people out is the one that starts the moment the complaint hits the docket — and in California, the number most civil cases run on is 60 days.

California Rules of Court, rule 3.110(b) requires that the complaint be served on all named defendants, and that proofs of service be filed with the court, within 60 days after the complaint is filed. Two things are worth underlining there. First, it applies to all named defendants — a case with five defendants needs five completed serves, not one. Second, the deadline is not just service; it is service plus the filed proof. A serve completed on day 58 with the proof sitting on someone's desk on day 62 is still a miss on paper.

For a defendant brought in later by an amended complaint — or by a cross-complaint — the window is shorter: service and filing of the proof within 30 days after that pleading is filed.

Practically, this means the serve should be ordered in the first week or two, not the eighth. Three attempts spread across different days, a skip trace if the address turns out to be stale, and a substituted service with its mailing all take calendar time. Sixty days is comfortable if you start early and tight if you don't.

This is the part that gets misquoted most often online. Rule 3.110(a) states where the rule applies — and it expressly excludes:

Unlawful detainer actions. Evictions run on their own, far faster statutory track. Do not use 60 days as your planning number in a UD case.

Collections cases under rule 3.740(a). Those have their own case-management framework and service timelines.

Family Code proceedings. Dissolutions, custody matters, and other Family Code cases are governed elsewhere.

If your matter is one of these three, the 60-day figure is simply the wrong deadline, and confirming the correct one with counsel is worth the phone call.

Fix the address first. If attempts suggest the defendant has moved, more attempts at that address are wasted days. A skip trace finds the current residence or workplace so the remaining calendar goes toward a live address.

Build the diligence record. Substituted service under CCP § 415.20 becomes available after reasonable diligence in attempting personal service. The working standard — and the one California's AB 747 (SPARE Act) codifies, operative January 1, 2027 — is three attempts, on three different days, at three different times of day. Attempts that aren't documented don't count for much when a judge is reading them.

Escalate to a stakeout. For a defendant who is actively dodging, a stakeout completes personal service on the timeline you need rather than the timeline they prefer. Our full escalation ladder for hard serves is laid out in what happens when a process server can't find someone.

Until recently, a defendant who truly could not be located left one realistic option: service by publication under CCP § 415.50. Publication requires a court order, publication of the summons in a newspaper of general circulation once a week for four successive weeks, and service is not deemed complete until 28 days after the first publication. It is slow, it is expensive, and it starts running only after the motion is granted.

Effective January 1, 2026, Code of Civil Procedure § 413.30 as amended by SB 85 gives courts a faster alternative: on motion, a court may order service by email or other electronic technology where the plaintiff shows that the methods of service provided by statute have failed despite reasonable diligence. For a defendant who has gone dark physically but is demonstrably active at a known email address, that can compress weeks of publication into days.

The predicate is the same in both directions, though — the court has to see reasonable diligence. Documented attempts, a skip trace, and a stakeout log are what get an alternative-service motion granted. That work does not become optional because a newer option exists; it becomes the thing that unlocks it.