Personal Service in California: What CCP §415.10 Requires

Personal service is the baseline method of serving a summons in California, and the statute governing it is remarkably short. Code of Civil Procedure section 415.10 fits in four sentences, and most of what people believe about personal service — announcements, refusals, signatures, witnesses — is not in it. This post covers what the section says, who may do the serving, and how a completed serve gets proved to the court.

The statute, in full

Section 415.10 provides that a summons may be served by personal delivery of a copy of the summons and of the complaint to the person to be served. Service in this manner is deemed complete at the time of that delivery. The date of the personal delivery is to be entered on or affixed to the face of the copy of the summons at the time of delivery — and the statute then adds that service of a summons without that date is nonetheless valid and effective.

That is the whole section, and four separate requirements live inside it.

1. Both documents, not just the summons

The statute names a copy of the summons and of the complaint. Personal service under section 415.10 is delivery of the pair; handing over a summons alone is not what the section describes. In practice a serve often includes other papers too — a civil case cover sheet, an ADR package, a cross-complaint — and the proof of service form has a checklist for exactly that.

2. Delivery to the person to be served

Section 415.10 supplies the manner of service, not the identity of the person to be served. For an individual defendant that is the defendant; for an entity, a separate statute answers it. Section 416.10, for example, allows a summons to be served on a corporation by delivering a copy of the summons and the complaint to the person designated as the corporation's agent for service of process, or to specified officers — a list running from the president or chief executive officer through the secretary, treasurer, controller and general manager, and including any person the corporation has authorized to receive service. The delivery mechanism is the same; only the question of whose hands it goes into changes. We cover that in Serving a Corporation in California.

3. Service is complete at the moment of delivery

This is the practical advantage of personal service over every other method: no waiting period, no follow-up mailing, no acknowledgment to wait for. Substituted service under section 415.20 requires leaving the papers and then mailing a copy; service by mail with a notice and acknowledgment depends on the acknowledgment coming back. Personal service is finished when the papers change hands, which is why it is attempted first when timing matters.

4. The date on the summons — required, but not fatal

The statute directs that the date of delivery be written on or affixed to the face of the served copy of the summons, at the time of delivery — then expressly saves a service where that did not happen: a summons served without the date is still valid and effective. Both halves are in the section. The instruction is real and a careful server follows it, but the omission is not a defect that undoes the service.

Who is allowed to serve

Section 415.10 says nothing about who does the delivering. That comes from section 414.10, which is one sentence: a summons may be served by any person who is at least 18 years of age and not a party to the action. Two requirements, and the second is the one that trips people up. A plaintiff cannot serve their own summons. Neither can a co-plaintiff. A friend, a relative, or an employee of the plaintiff who is not themselves a party can — the statute sets no other qualification.

Registered process servers

Being permitted to serve and being registered are different things. Under Business and Professions Code section 22350, a natural person who makes more than 10 services of process in California in one calendar year for compensation attributable to the service of process must file and maintain a verified certificate of registration as a process server with the county clerk of the county where they live or have their principal place of business. A corporation or partnership deriving or expecting compensation from service of process in the state must register in the county of its principal place of business.

The chapter exempts several categories, among them a sheriff, marshal, or government employee acting within the course and scope of employment; an attorney and their employees serving process in cases the attorney is handling; a person specially appointed by a court to serve its process; and a licensed private investigator and their employees.

The certificate itself is not a formality. Under section 22351 an individual registrant must state, under penalty of perjury, that they have not been convicted of a felony — or produce a certificate of rehabilitation, expungement, or pardon — along with a statement that they have been a California resident for the year immediately preceding the filing and will perform their duties in compliance with the law governing service of process in this state.

Proving it: the personal service box on POS-010

A completed serve enters the court record through a proof of service. For a summons that is Judicial Council form POS-010, Proof of Service of Summons — adopted for mandatory use, citing Code of Civil Procedure section 417.10 on its face, and stating at the top that a separate proof is required for each party served.

For a personal serve, the form asks for a specific and short list:

Item 1 — a declaration that at the time of service the server was at least 18 years of age and not a party to the action, tracking section 414.10 exactly.
Item 2 — what was served: summons, complaint, ADR package, civil case cover sheet (complex cases only), cross-complaint, or other documents specified.
Items 3 and 4 — the party served, named as shown on the documents served; any person served on the party's behalf, with their relationship to it; and the address where the party was served.
Item 5a — the personal service box: that the server personally delivered the documents in item 2 to the party or to the person authorized to receive service of process for the party, on a date at a time. Both the date and the time are called for.
Item 6 — how the "Notice to the Person Served" on the summons was completed, where an entity serve identifies its governing statute.
Item 7 — the server: name, address, telephone number, the fee charged for service, and their registration status — not registered, exempt under Business and Professions Code section 22350(b), or a registered California process server, with registration number and county.
Item 8 or 9 — the declaration under penalty of perjury under California law; a sheriff or marshal certifies instead.

Notice what item 5a does not ask for: no signature from the person served, no witness, no account of what was said. It asks who delivered what, to whom, where, and exactly when. For the other boxes — and the separate form used once a case is underway — see Proof of Service in California: POS-010, POS-040, and When Each Applies.

When personal service does not happen

A server who cannot reach the person is not out of options, but the alternatives carry their own conditions. Substituted service on an individual under section 415.20 becomes available only when the papers cannot with reasonable diligence be personally delivered — the attempts at personal service are its precondition. A server trying to reach a fictional defendant, Harlan Voss, and documenting each visit is building the diligence record a later substituted serve rests on. That mechanism, including the mandatory follow-up mailing and the changes taking effect January 1, 2027, is covered in Substituted Service in California.

Legal Hub Group's process serving service logs every attempt with a GPS fix and a time stamp, and the completed proof of service is generated from that field record rather than reconstructed afterward — so the date and time on item 5a come from the serve itself. If the proof needs to hold up, that is what holds it up.

This is general information, not legal advice.