Under the CCPA, an online retailer had $26 million gross revenue in 2025 — does it meet the revenue threshold for 2026, and why?

## The text and the adjustment Threshold (A) in Civil Code `1798.140(d)(1)(A)` reads: 'As of January 1 of the calendar year, had annual gross revenues in excess of twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000) in the preceding calendar year, as adjusted pursuant to subdivision (d) of Section 1798.199.95.' The last clause means the printed figure is not the operative one. `1798.199.95(d)` directs the **California Privacy Protection Agency** to adjust the figure: 1. **When:** on January 1, 2025, and on January 1 of every odd-numbered year after that. 2. **How:** by the percentage change in the California Consumer Price Index (All Items, All Urban Consumers), taken August to August over the prior two years, rounded to the nearest whole dollar. 3. **Publication:** the agency posts the adjusted figures on its website no later than January 15 of the year they take effect. 4. **Procedure:** the adjustments are not subject to the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act. The agency's 2025 adjustment raised the revenue figure from **$25,000,000 to $26,625,000**, effective 2025-01-01. The next adjustment is due on 2027-01-01, so $26,625,000 is the figure in force throughout 2026. ## Applying it to the retailer The retailer had $26 million in gross revenue in 2025. For calendar year 2026, the test asks, as of January 1, 2026, whether 2025 gross revenue was **in excess of** the adjusted figure. $26,000,000 is above the statutory $25,000,000 but below $26,625,000, so threshold (A) is **not met** for 2026. | Measure | Figure | Use in the 2026 test | |---|---|---| | Statutory figure as printed | $25,000,000 | Not the comparison: ignores the adjustment | | Adjusted figure from 2025-01-01 | $26,625,000 | The operative comparison | | Retailer's 2025 gross revenue | $26,000,000 | Below the operative figure, so (A) fails | That does not end the analysis: - **Threshold (B)** may still apply. An online retailer that runs third-party advertising pixels may be **sharing** the personal information of 100,000 or more California consumers or households a year. - **Threshold (C)** applies if half or more of its revenue came from selling or sharing personal information. - **Next year:** if 2026 gross revenue exceeds the figure in force on 2027-01-01, after that year's adjustment, threshold (A) is met for 2027. ## What 'gross revenue' means here - **Gross, not net.** The text says annual gross revenues: top-line revenue, not profit. - **Not confined to California.** The statutory text does not limit the figure to revenue earned in California; the California connection is a separate element, 'does business in the State of California'. - **The preceding calendar year.** The test looks back one calendar year from January 1, so status for a year is fixed at its start by last year's figure, not by revenue earned during the year. - **Affiliates are a different route.** A commonly branded affiliate under common control is drawn in by `1798.140(d)(2)` when the business shares consumers' personal information with it; that route does not ask the affiliate to meet a threshold of its own. ## Only one threshold moves `1798.199.95(d)(1)` lists what the agency adjusts: the revenue figure in `1798.140(d)(1)(A)` and several other monetary amounts elsewhere in the title (damages, administrative fines, civil penalties and board compensation). The **100,000** consumers-or-households count in (B) and the **50 percent** share in (C) are not monetary amounts and do not change. ## Why interviewers ask this It tests whether a candidate reads the statute as amended and adjusted rather than as remembered. A compliance-scoping script, a vendor questionnaire or a design document that hard-codes $25 million gives the wrong answer near the line, and goes wrong again after each odd-year adjustment. The robust design stores the figure with its **effective date** and its **source**, and re-runs the scoping test every January 1 against the preceding year's revenue.