Which ASCE 41 edition applies to your California retrofit?

The change

The January 2026 errata to the 2025 California Existing Building Code is mostly housekeeping — name updates, corrected cross-references. One line in Chapter 16 matters more than it looks. The errata updated the Chapter 16 Matrix Adoption Table to include ASCE/SEI 41-2017, deleted the referenced sections for the ASME elevator and platform-lift standards (A17.1, A17.3 and A18.1), and corrected several California Building Code references.

Here's the thing: that one addition means Chapter 16 now lists three editions of ASCE/SEI 41 — 2013, 2017 and 2023 — side by side. ASCE 41 is Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit of Existing Buildings, the standard your evaluation or voluntary retrofit runs on. And the right edition isn't "use the newest." It depends on who regulates the building.

How the Matrix Adoption Table answers "which edition"

The Matrix Adoption Table (MAT) at the front of Chapter 16 is a grid: standards down the side, state agencies across the top. An X means the agency adopts that row. A † means the opposite — the table's own legend reads, "The state agency does not adopt sections identified with the following symbol: †." Read the three ASCE 41 rows together and the picture is clear:

• ASCE 41-2013 carries a single X, under OSHPD 1 — the legacy edition tied to general acute care hospital buildings.
• ASCE 41-2017 is daggered across every California agency in its row: BSC, HCD, DSA-SS, DSA-SS/CC and OSHPD all decline it.
• ASCE 41-2023 carries the X's — BSC, HCD, DSA-SS, DSA-SS/CC and OSHPD 1, 1R, 2, 4 and 5.

The standalone reference list later in the chapter says the same thing in plain text. The 2013 entry is tagged [OSHPD 1]; the 2023 entry is tagged [BSC, DSA-SS, DSA-SS/CC, HCD, OSHPD 1, 1R, 2, 4 and 5]. The 2017 entry carries no agency tag at all.

Verified against the live Chapter 16 text (2025 CEBC, with January 2026 Errata): the 41-2017 row is marked † for BSC, HCD, DSA and OSHPD, while the 41-2023 row is marked X for those same agencies.

So why does 2017 appear at all? California builds this code on the 2024 International Existing Building Code, and the 2017 row most likely reflects the unamended model-code reference. Either way, California's agencies dagger it out and adopt 2023 instead. OSHPD, on the acute-care hospital side, is the one place the older 2013 edition still lives.

One label to pin down: in the MAT the hospital column reads OSHPD, but Section 1.10 names the agency Health Care Access and Information / Office of Statewide Hospital Planning and Development. OSHPD is the predecessor name; HCAI is the same office.

Where the edition actually bites

This isn't academic. The edition you cite flows straight into the analysis:

• Full seismic criteria (§304.3.1). One compliant path is ASCE 41 using a Tier 3 procedure and both levels of the two-level performance objective in Table 304.3.1 for the building's risk category — for Risk Category IV, that's Immediate Occupancy (S-1) at the BSE-1N hazard level and Life Safety (S-3) at BSE-2N.
• Reduced criteria (§304.3.2). ASCE 41 with the objectives in Table 304.3.2 (BSE-1E / BSE-2E). For unreinforced masonry bearing-wall buildings in Risk Category I or II, this is also where Appendix A, Chapter A1 enters as an alternative path.
• Change of occupancy (§1006.3). Push a building into Risk Category IV in Seismic Design Category D or F, and nonstructural components serving the changed area must meet CBC §1613 or ASCE 41 at an operational nonstructural performance objective with the BSE-1N hazard level.

Cite the wrong edition's section, table or hazard-level notation and you've handed a plan checker an easy correction.

The practical read

If you design under a local building department, the controlling reference for state-adopted seismic work is ASCE 41-2023. Public schools (DSA-SS), community colleges (DSA-SS/CC) and HCD housing land in the same place. Hospitals under HCAI use 2023, and acute-care buildings still reference 2013 as well. Nobody in California adopts 2017 — that's the model-code edition the state overrides. Appendix A provisions apply only where specifically adopted, so confirm scope with your Authority Having Jurisdiction before you lock in your criteria.

What CrossBeam does with it

CrossBeam tracks which edition of a referenced standard each California agency actually adopts, so the version you start a submittal with is the version the reviewer will hold you to. When an errata quietly slips a new edition into a Matrix Adoption Table, you see the one that binds your project — not just the year printed in the model code.