Tool
Appeal deadline calculator
Your regional center sent a Notice of Action: a decision to deny, reduce, or end a service, a budget, or a spending plan. Two clocks started the day you received it. This tool tells you the dates.
To keep your current services during the appeal
Last day to file an appeal at all
60 days after you received the notice. After this, the decision stands.
After you file
Expected timeline once your appeal is in, counted from your filing date. These are the deadlines the process is supposed to meet; the two dates above are the ones you must meet.
How to file
Appeals go to the Department of Developmental Services, not to your regional center. File online through the DDS Fair Hearings and Complaint Process page, by form DS 1821, or by email to appealrequest@dds.ca.gov. You can appeal even if you never received a written notice.
Ask for "aid paid pending" in the appeal itself if you want your current services to continue while it is decided. That request is what the 30-day deadline protects.
The Office of the Ombudsperson (1-877-658-9731) can explain the process and your options, but it is not part of the appeal and does not stop the clock.
The rules behind the dates
30 days, keep services in place. Welfare and Institutions Code section 4707(c): if the appeal is postmarked or received no later than 30 days after you receive the notice, and no later than the effective date of the action, the services you have now continue until the appeal is decided.
60 days, last day to appeal. Section 4710.5(a): a request for an informal meeting, mediation, or fair hearing must be made within 60 days after notification of the decision.
Two things the statute does not say. It does not say whether the days are calendar days or business days, and it does not say what happens when a deadline lands on a weekend. This tool counts calendar days and, if a deadline falls on a weekend, tells you to file by the Friday before. Filing early is never wrong.
The timeline after filing comes from Disability Rights California's summary of the March 2023 appeals changes, not from the statute text directly. Treat it as the expected shape of the process and confirm the counts in the DDS appeals information packet you receive after filing.