California's tire law, for the people who actually sell tires

What the regulation literally says about you

The program is codified at California Code of Regulations Title 20, Division 2, Chapter 14, Article 1, sections 3301 through 3310. Section 3301(a) sets the scope:

"This Article applies to all tire manufacturers, tire brand name owners, and tire retailers, of any replacement tire or any limited production tire … that is manufactured on or after January 1, 2029 and is sold or offered for sale in California, except as wholesale for final retail sale outside the state."

Section 3302 defines a tire retailer as a tire dealer or tire distributor, and a tire dealer as a person or entity selling and distributing replacement tires. If you sell tires in California, that is you.

Two details in that sentence matter more than they look:

• The regulated act is "sell or offer for sale" — not "install." The text never uses the word install.
• Wholesale for final retail sale outside California is carved out of every prohibition. If you distribute out of state, that channel is not covered.

Your actual obligation, in one sentence

Section 3309(a)(1) is the operative duty. A manufacturer, brand name owner or retailer may not sell or offer a tire for sale unless the basic model is listed in the database of approved tires described in section 3304.

That is the whole thing. You are not running ISO 28580 tests. You are not calculating a rolling resistance coefficient. You are not certifying anything. The manufacturer declares the tire's numbers and files them with the Commission; your job is to sell from the approved list. It is closer to checking a DOT code than to a compliance program.

The database does not exist yet in public form

Sections 3304 and 3305 create two lists — a database of approved tires and a database of archived tires — and require manufacturers to submit rolling resistance, wet grip and treadwear data by make, model and size under penalty of perjury. Whether the approved list will be publicly searchable is the single most important open question for your shop, because your entire duty depends on being able to read it. We have not found a commitment either way. We are chasing it.

Five things worth doing before 2029

1. Nothing urgent, and mean it. The first standard is more than two years out and attaches to manufacture date. Any vendor selling you a "compliance solution" this month is selling you a calendar.
2. Ask your distributors when they will expose the leaf rating and the coefficient in their catalog. The data has to reach the Commission anyway. The distributors who surface it in your ordering system first will save you the lookup, and that is a reasonable thing to ask for now.
3. Know which of your lines sit in the lenient categories. The limits are not one number. Light truck and commercial, long-life, low load index, ultra high-performance, run-flat and extended mobility each get their own ceiling, and all-season winter performance tires are exempt outright. The full table is on the home page.
4. Do not dump pre-2029 stock at a loss. It stays legal to sell. Section 3306(a)(1) says tires manufactured before January 1, 2029 have no energy performance standard requirement.
5. Watch docket 26-TIRE-01, not the news cycle. The dates already moved once: the April proposal said 2028 and 2031, and the July revision struck those for 2029 and 2033. Coverage citing 2028 is quoting a superseded draft.

What we cannot tell you yet, and will not pretend to

The enforcement machinery in section 3309 is inspection, testing, and requests for the test report behind a manufacturer's declaration. The stated consequence for a non-compliant model is that the Commission moves its listing from the approved database into the archived database.

Section 3309(i) does provide for referral to the Attorney General for enforcement, and the Commission's staff report is explicit that retailers are included in that path — staff may refer non-compliant manufacturers, brand name owners and retailers of tires illegally sold in California to the Attorney General's Office for legal action.

But no dollar amount appears in the regulation. Any monetary penalty would come from the underlying Public Resources Code authority (sections 25213, 25218(e), 25400, 25401, 25602 and 25770 through 25773). We have seen secondary descriptions of a civil penalty in the range of $2,500 per violation under the Commission's general enforcement statute, but we could not verify the statutory text ourselves, and the administrative penalty process we found is written for appliance efficiency standards, not for a tire rule adopted under sections 25770 to 25773. We are not publishing a figure we have not read. Anyone quoting you a specific fine today is going beyond the record.

Two retailer duties beyond the database check

• Advertising. Section 3309(h) bars claims inconsistent with the data reported for a tire. You cannot market a tire's efficiency in terms its filing does not support.
• Online and phone sales count, wherever you are. "Sold or offered for sale in California" expressly includes internet, telephone and mail order transactions regardless of the seller's physical location. An out-of-state e-commerce seller shipping into California is in scope. Conversely, wholesale for final retail sale outside the state is carved out of every prohibition.

One more thing that has not happened yet

The program is adopted but the rulemaking file has not gone to the Office of Administrative Law, and no Final Statement of Reasons has been filed. Until that review concludes, this is an adopted regulation, not yet law. It does not change your 2029 planning, but it does mean details can still move — they already did once, in July.

The wet grip standard your customers have not heard about

Rolling resistance took the headlines, but section 3308 adds a braking floor on the same date: a replacement tire manufactured on or after January 1, 2029 must have a relative wet grip braking performance index of at least 1.0. All-season winter performance tires, tires for authorized emergency vehicles, and approved last-resort tires are exempt.

Worth knowing at the counter. The most common customer objection to this rule is that efficient tires are unsafe tires, and the regulation sets an explicit wet braking minimum at the same moment it sets the efficiency one.

Sources

• CEC TN 271526 — Notice of Additional Public Comment Period and Summary of Changes (Jul 17, 2026) — contains the modified express terms
• CEC TN 272046 — Resolution adopting the Replacement Tire Efficiency Program (Aug 2026)
• CEC — RTEP proceeding, docket 26-TIRE-01
• Modern Tire Dealer — California Moves Ahead with Fuel Efficiency Mandate

Every regulatory quote on this page was read from the express terms filed in docket 26-TIRE-01, not from press coverage. This is reporting, not legal advice — for a compliance decision that carries real money, talk to a lawyer. Found an error? Tell us. We would rather be corrected than cited wrongly.