RBS training becomes mandatory on July 1, 2022. This new state mandate will require specific staff who work at on-premises alcoholic beverage businesses to successfully complete an ABC approved RBS training program and exam no later than August 31, 2022.

If you are required to take an RBS class for employment, the RBS course must be certified by the ABC. 

Alcohol servers, managers of alcohol servers who work at on-premises business, such as: restaurants, bars, fast casual dining, tasting rooms (including off-sales locations), hotels, and stadiums.

An alcohol server, as defined under AB 1221 includes anyone who does any of the following: 

1. Checks customer identification for purposes of alcoholic beverage service or entry to an ABC on-premises licensed establishment
2. Takes customer alcoholic beverage orders
3. Pours alcoholic beverages for customers, or 
4. Delivers alcoholic beverages to customers

A manager means any person who trains, directly hires, or oversees alcohol servers at an ABC licensed premises, or any person who trains alcohol servers how to perform the service of alcohol for consumption for an ABC on-premises licensee, including but not limited to, when to check identification or when to refuse service to a patron.

Please click here for Three Steps to Get RBS Certified. 

Certification is valid for 3 years. The certification must be renewed prior to its expiration to remain valid. 

Your training certificate is recorded on your ABC Server Dashboard in the training history at the bottom of the page. The ABC is using digital certificates, which will be housed in the ABC RBS Portal. 

Your employer will be able to check and confirm your certification via the ABC Licensee Login on the ABC RBS Portal, which will be available later in 2021 as it gets closer to the legal requirement for the mandatory statewide training. In the interim, if you want, you may take a screenshot of your ABC Server Dashboard and provide that to your employer.

A person must complete a certified RBS-course and complete their application on the ABC website before they can take the ABC’s exam.

• The ABC charges $3 during the application enrollment to cover the cost of administering the exam.

• The ABC Exam must be successfully completed to become certified.

• A person must take the ABC Exam within 30-days of completing the RBS course.

• The ABC Exam consists of 50-question. These questions are randomly selected from a database of 500 ABC Exam questions.

• To pass the ABC Exam, a person must correctly answer a minimum of 35 questions (which is 70% correctly answered).

• If needed, the person is given a total of three attempts to pass the ABC Exam. If unsuccessful after three attempts, the person must retake a certified RBS course.