Temporary disability (TD) is the wage-replacement check while an injured worker heals: two-thirds of average weekly earnings (Labor Code §4653), within the year’s statutory minimum and maximum. It doesn’t run forever. Labor Code §4656 caps it — and how long the cap allows depends on when the injury happened and what kind of injury it is.
104 weeks, within five years of the injury
For an injury on or after January 1, 2008, the rule is §4656(c)(2): “Aggregate disability payments for a single injury occurring on or after January 1, 2008, causing temporary disability shall not extend for more than 104 compensable weeks within a period of five years from the date of injury.”
That sentence sets two limits at once. One is a count: no more than 104 compensable weeks of TD for the injury, in aggregate — every period TD was paid adds to the same total, so a worker who returns to work and later comes off again picks up the count where it stopped. The other is a window: those weeks fall within five years of the date of injury, not five years from the first check.
Injuries before 2008
For injuries from April 19, 2004 through 2007, §4656(c)(1) also allows 104 compensable weeks, but measured “within a period of two years from the date of commencement of temporary disability payment” — a clock that starts with the first TD payment rather than the injury. Older injuries carry 240-week limits within five years of the injury: before 1979 for temporary disability (§4656(a)), and from 1979 to April 19, 2004 for temporary partial disability (§4656(b)).
The nine conditions that get 240 weeks
Section 4656(c)(3) raises the cap to 240 compensable weeks within five years of the date of injury, for an injury on or after April 19, 2004, when the employee suffers from any of these: (A) acute and chronic hepatitis B; (B) acute and chronic hepatitis C; (C) amputations; (D) severe burns; (E) human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); (F) high-velocity eye injuries; (G) chemical burns to the eyes; (H) pulmonary fibrosis; (I) chronic lung disease.
Those nine are the list. An injury that isn’t one of them stays on the 104-week cap, however serious it is.
Cancer in firefighters and peace officers: 240 weeks
Subdivision (d), for injuries on or after January 1, 2023, reaches a different group: “for an employee who suffers from an injury or condition defined in Section 3212.1, aggregate disability payments … shall not extend for more than 240 compensable weeks.” Section 3212.1 is the cancer presumption: cancer, including leukemia, that develops or manifests while an active firefighter of a covered department, certain peace officers, or an Office of Emergency Services fire and rescue coordinator is in service, after exposure to a known carcinogen — presumed to arise out of the employment, though the presumption is disputable (§3212.1(b), (d)). One difference from (c)(3) is worth noticing: subdivision (d)’s text names no five-year window.
What the cap limits — and what it doesn’t
Section 4656 limits temporary disability payments. Permanent disability is a separate benefit with its own schedule of weeks — TD vs. PD walks the hand-off between them. Medical treatment is separate too: the employer must provide treatment “reasonably required to cure or relieve the injured worker from the effects of the worker’s injury” (§4600(a)), and §4656 doesn’t touch that duty. The “five years” here is also not the five years of the five-year rule — the §5410 and §§5803–5804 window for reopening an award is a different clock with a different job.
What the cap is worth in dollars
At 2026 rates, TD pays between $264.61 and $1,764.11 a week. The cap’s ceiling, at each end and for one typical wage:
Work out a weekly rate from any wage with the TD rate calculator, or start from hourly or annual pay with the AWW calculator.
Tracking the weeks
The count is where disputes start: periods overlap, payments stop and restart, and the five-year mark creeps up. The TD exposure section of the calculator is free — enter each TD period and it merges overlapping days, totals the weeks, and shows how many are left under the 104-week cap, or under 240 with the serious-injury box ticked (it applies (c)(3)’s five-year window). For injuries from 2008 on, it also shows the date the five-year window closes. Descriptive summary of Labor Code §4656; not legal advice.