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Bus. & Prof. Code, § 119 · Chapter 1. The Department

Bus. & Prof. Code, § 119

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

Any person who does any of the following is guilty of a misdemeanor:

(a) Displays or causes or permits to be displayed or has in the person’s possession either of the following:

(1) A canceled, revoked, suspended, or fraudulently altered license.

(2) A fictitious license or any document simulating a license or purporting to be or have been issued as a license.

(b) Lends the person’s license to any other person or knowingly permits the use thereof by another.

(c) Displays or represents any license not issued to the person as being the person’s license.

(d) Fails or refuses to surrender to the issuing authority upon its lawful written demand any license, registration, permit, or certificate which has been suspended, revoked, or canceled.

(e) Knowingly permits any unlawful use of a license issued to the person.

(f) Photographs, photostats, duplicates, manufactures, or in any way reproduces any license or facsimile thereof in a manner that it could be mistaken for a valid license, or displays or has in the person’s possession any such photograph, photostat, duplicate, reproduction, or facsimile unless authorized by this code.

(g) Buys or receives a fraudulent, forged, or counterfeited license knowing that it is fraudulent, forged, or counterfeited. For purposes of this subdivision, “fraudulent” means containing any misrepresentation of fact.

As used in this section, “license” includes “certificate,” “permit,” “authority,” and “registration” or any other indicia giving authorization to engage in a business or profession regulated by this code or referred to in Section 1000 or 3600.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 351, Sec. 22. (AB 496) Effective January 1, 2020.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&sectionNum=119.
Text hash
sha256 81a6e469dae565f3d35943c154044c75e108fe1c72bbab974f4aa00f927d7907
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.