Orange County
Bail Bonds

Orange County runs its own Uniform Bail Schedule — and it does not work like Riverside's or San Bernardino's. The current document is the 2026 Uniform Bail Schedule of the Superior Court of California, County of Orange, approved by the judges of the court under Penal Code §1269b(c) and effective January 1, 2026. There is no Cite and Release, Book and Release, or Pre-Arraignment Review track here — those are Riverside County categories and they do not apply in Orange County. Anyone telling you otherwise is reading the wrong county's rules.

• Misdemeanors and infractions ARE scheduled here. Unlike San Bernardino, where Section B provides that bail is generally not required on misdemeanors unless the offense is specifically listed, the Orange County schedule contains a full Misdemeanor and Infraction Bail Schedule with its own rules for determining the amount. Do not assume a misdemeanor in Santa Ana carries no bail because it would not in San Bernardino.
• Felony bail is capped per case, not stacked per count. The schedule provides that for felonies, the highest bail amount for any one felony offense plus enhancements applies — misdemeanor and infraction bail is not added on top when charged alongside a felony. Larceny and fraud offenses are the exception: bail is the scheduled amount or the amount of loss, whichever is higher. Offenses with no listed amount are set from the state prison top term, plus enhancements under PC §1192.7(c) and §667.5(c).
• Penal Code §1270.1 blocks deviation without a hearing in open court. The schedule states this expressly for violent felonies under PC §667.5(c), serious felonies under PC §1192.7(c) and §1192.8, and a specified list including PC §136.1(c), §243(e)(1), §273.5, §273.6, felony §422, and §646.9. On those charges nobody — not the jail, not a bondsman, not us — can move the number before a judge does.
• Two strikes and Proposition 36 add local procedure. Two or more prior strikes on a non-serious, non-violent felony sets bail at a flat $200,000, and serious or violent felonies with two or more strikes are treated as presumptive life. Certain Prop 36 (2024) offenses require an Orange County magistrate's approval before bail can be posted at all.
• Ability to pay appears — but narrowly. The Orange County schedule's individualized determination and ability-to-pay language sits in the probation-violation arraignment section, where the court considers what the person can reasonably afford in cash bail. That is narrower than a blanket In re Humphrey recital across all felony bail-setting. At and after first appearance, the judge may still set bail above or below the schedule under PC §1269b(b) and §1275.
• There is no zero-bail order in effect. Orange County's pandemic-era emergency bail reduction and own-recognizance order (Administrative Order 20-10) was rescinded effective June 20, 2020, after the Judicial Council voted to rescind the statewide Emergency Rule 4 bail schedule. The county reverted to the standard Uniform Bail Schedule and has stayed there. Orange County Pre-Trial Services can be reached 24 hours a day at (714) 647-4581, and OC Probation operates a Pretrial Assessment Release Service Program — but neither is a zero-bail policy.

When a bond is required, the premium is 10% of the bail amount, filed with the California Department of Insurance under Cal. Ins. Code §1800. That rate is the same at every licensed agency in California. Our down-payment tiers and no-collateral threshold work in Orange County exactly as they do everywhere else on this site.