Fullerton City Jail Bail Bonds: How to Get Someone Out Fast

Bail can be posted at the Fullerton City Jail 24 hours a day, and once the bond is filed and booking is finished, release usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour. The jail sits inside Fullerton Police Department headquarters at 237 W. Commonwealth Avenue, and it is one of the few city jails in Orange County that houses both men and women. That local capacity is the whole opportunity: bond someone out in Fullerton and they walk in under an hour. Miss the window and they get transferred to the Orange County Intake Release Center in Santa Ana, where release after a transfer commonly stretches to 4–12 hours. Call 714-671-8920 any hour and a licensed agent starts the paperwork immediately.

Nobody plans to search for bail bonds at 2 a.m. That is exactly why we answer the phone.

Table of Contents

• Fullerton City Jail: the facts you need first
• The Fullerton release timeline, hour by hour
• How the Fullerton PD actually takes bail money (and what it refuses)
• The intoxication hold: why a paid bond sometimes doesn’t open the door
• Bail enhancements: when the number goes up mid-booking
• The transfer to Santa Ana and why timing decides everything
• North Justice Center: where the case goes next
• What a Fullerton bail bond costs
• Cal State Fullerton, downtown nightlife, and out-of-area co-signers
• How to start a Fullerton bail bond in five steps
• Frequently asked questions

Fullerton City Jail: the facts you need first

The Fullerton City Jail is a municipal facility operated by the Fullerton Police Department, not by the Orange County Sheriff. It is located at:

• Address: 237 W. Commonwealth Avenue, Fullerton, CA 92832
• Jail phone: (714) 738-6759 or (714) 738-6722
• Police non-emergency: (714) 738-6700
• Capacity: roughly 132 male and 70 female beds
• Bail posting: accepted 24 hours a day
• Lobby: closes around 10 p.m.; an exterior call box provides after-hours contact

Two details about this facility matter more than anything else on a competitor’s page.

First, Fullerton houses women. Most Orange County city jails are small male-only holding cells, which means a woman arrested in those cities is loaded into a transport van within hours. Fullerton is not that. With roughly 70 female beds, a woman booked in Fullerton can usually be bonded out of the local jail directly — a difference of many hours for her family.

Second, Fullerton is still a short-term facility. Whatever its size, a city jail is a holding jail. When capacity, the charge level, or the case requirements exceed what the city can handle, the arrestee goes into the Orange County Sheriff’s correctional system. The local release window is real, but it is a window, not a door that stays open.

The Fullerton release timeline, hour by hour

Families call expecting release to be instant. It isn’t, and knowing the actual sequence prevents a lot of panic:

1. Arrest and transport (0–45 minutes). The arrestee is brought to 237 W. Commonwealth and handed over to jail staff.
2. Booking (typically 2–4 hours). Fingerprints, photograph, property inventory, warrant check, medical screening, and entry into the jail system. Nobody is released before booking is complete — this is the single biggest source of confusion. A bond can be posted during booking, but it cannot shorten booking.
3. Bail is set and stated. The jailer advises the arrestee of the charges and the bail amount from the Orange County uniform bail schedule. This is also where a bail enhancement can appear.
4. Bond filed (15–30 minutes with a prepared agent). Paperwork, co-signer signature, premium arrangement, agent posts the surety bond at the jail.
5. Release processing (30 minutes to 1 hour). Property returned, paperwork signed, out the door.

Practical total for a routine Fullerton booking with a bond started early: roughly 3 to 6 hours from arrest to walking out. The variable that families can actually control is step 4 — how fast the bond is ready when booking finishes. Starting the paperwork while booking is still in progress is what turns a 6-hour night into a 3-hour one.

Jail processing moves slowly. Good bail bond companies try not to.

How the Fullerton PD actually takes bail money (and what it refuses)

This is the part almost every other Fullerton bail page skips, and it strands people at the counter at 3 a.m.

If you want to post the full cash bail yourself, the Fullerton Police Department accepts:

• Cash
• Cashier’s check
• Money order
• Personal check drawn on a California bank, up to $5,000

And two rules that catch people out:

• Checks and money orders are made payable to the “North Justice Center” — the courthouse, not the police department — unless the jail specifies otherwise.
• The Fullerton Police Department does not accept credit cards. Not for bail, not partially, not at all.

Think about what that means on a weekend night. Bail on a felony can sit in the tens of thousands of dollars. Nobody has that in cash at 2 a.m., banks are closed, the ATM caps out at a few hundred dollars, and the one payment method most households actually carry is explicitly refused at the window.

A surety bond sidesteps the entire problem. A licensed bail agent files the bond with the jail on your behalf; you pay a regulated percentage of the bail to the agency, not the full amount to the police department, and you pay it in ways a normal person can actually use. That’s the practical reason most Fullerton releases happen through a bond rather than a cash deposit. (For the broader math, see our guide to understanding bail costs.)

The intoxication hold: why a paid bond sometimes doesn’t open the door

Fullerton Police Department policy is explicit: all inmates booked in the city jail are eligible for release on bail or bond unless specified by a warrant, a court order, the bail schedule, or the level of the inmate’s intoxication makes it unsafe to release them.

That last clause deserves its own section, because of where this jail sits. Downtown Fullerton, a few blocks from police headquarters, is one of north Orange County’s densest bar and restaurant districts, and it draws crowds from across the county on Friday and Saturday nights. Public intoxication and DUI arrests are a meaningful share of what comes through that booking door on a weekend.

Here is what families need to understand: the bond being posted and the person walking out are two different events. If the jail determines someone is too intoxicated to safely release, they stay until they’ve sobered enough for staff to clear them — regardless of the fact that a licensed agent already filed a perfectly valid bond. This is not the bail agency stalling and it is not the jail losing the paperwork. It is a medical-safety call the jail is required to make.

The bond does not expire while you wait. It stays posted, and release happens the moment the hold clears. But it is why an honest answer to “how fast can you get him out?” on a Saturday at 1:30 a.m. sometimes has to include “that partly depends on how the booking nurse reads his condition.” A bail bonds company that promises you a 30-minute walk-out on a heavy public-intox booking is telling you what you want to hear, not what’s true. Vehicle holds can add similar delay on DUI arrests even after bail is posted.

Bail enhancements: when the number goes up mid-booking

The Fullerton Police Department warns directly that bail can be raised during the booking process under the California Penal Code, in cases where officers believe releasing the arrested person would likely result in the offense continuing. This is called a bail enhancement.

The practical consequence is one of the most common sources of mid-night confusion we see:

• A family member calls the jail at 12:40 a.m. and is told bail is $25,000.
• They arrange funds around that number.
• By 2:00 a.m. the paperwork reads $50,000, and everything they planned no longer fits.

Two rules protect you. Confirm the bail amount from the booking paperwork, not from the first phone call, and have your bail agent verify it with the jail before anyone transfers money. A licensed agent is on the phone with jail staff constantly and can usually tell within minutes whether an enhancement has been applied and what the current, real number is.

Bail enhancements are lawful and routine in California. They are not a sign that something has gone catastrophically wrong with the case. They are a sign that you need current information rather than the first number anyone quoted you.

The transfer to Santa Ana and why timing decides everything

When the Fullerton City Jail can’t keep someone — capacity, charge level, a hold, or a case that needs county resources — custody moves to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and the destination is the Intake Release Center at 550 N. Flower Street in Santa Ana, the county facility that accepts bail around the clock.

Same person. Same bail amount. Completely different night:

	Fullerton City Jail	After transfer to OC IRC, Santa Ana
Release after bond posted	~30 minutes–1 hour	Commonly 4–12 hours
Facility size	~200 beds	County intake for all of Orange County
Pickup location	237 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton	550 N. Flower St., Santa Ana
Queue ahead of you	A handful of bookings	Every agency in the county

The lesson is not complicated: the first few hours after a Fullerton arrest are worth more than any other hours in the process. A bond started while someone is still in the city jail is the difference between a family being home before sunrise and a family sitting in a parking lot in Santa Ana at noon.

We cover the county side of this in detail in our Orange County bail bonds guide, and the neighboring city jails work the same way — see Anaheim City Jail bail bonds and Santa Ana Police Jail bail bonds.

North Justice Center: where the case goes next

Fullerton arrests are handled by the North Justice Center, the Orange County Superior Court location at 1275 N. Berkeley Avenue, Fullerton, CA 92832. It covers criminal and traffic matters for Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, La Palma, Placentia and Yorba Linda, and it is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Three things worth knowing:

• It is the court that cash bail checks are made out to — which is why the money order at the police counter says “North Justice Center” on it.
• It is a full-security courthouse. Everyone entering is screened and hand-carried items go through X-ray. Arrive early for an arraignment.
• An arrest late on a Friday, without a bond, generally means waiting in custody through the weekend, because arraignment cannot happen until the court opens Monday morning. Posting bail is what avoids that wait.

One missed court date creates far bigger legal problems than the original arrest. Once a bond is posted, the court dates are the co-signer’s business too — put every one of them in a calendar the day you sign.

What a Fullerton bail bond costs

California bail bond premiums are a percentage of the full bail amount set by the Orange County uniform bail schedule, and the rates are filed with and regulated by the California Department of Insurance. The comparison that matters:

• Cash bail: you deposit the entire bail amount with the jail or the court, in cash, cashier’s check, money order, or a California personal check up to $5,000. It comes back after the case concludes, per the court’s rules.
• Surety bond: you pay a percentage of the bail to a licensed agency, which files the bond with the jail. The premium is the cost of the service and is not refunded.

Collateral may be required depending on the bail amount and the risk profile, and payment plans are commonly available for co-signers who can’t pay a premium in one go. Ask about both on the first call — a straight answer about cost in the first two minutes is a reasonable thing to expect from any bail bond company.

Cal State Fullerton, downtown nightlife, and out-of-area co-signers

Fullerton has a specific demographic problem that shapes a lot of these calls: a very large university population and a regional nightlife district, which together produce a steady stream of arrestees whose closest relatives are nowhere near Orange County.

A Cal State Fullerton student is booked at 1 a.m. The person who will co-sign is a parent in Sacramento, Phoenix, or overseas. Under an old-fashioned process, that parent would have to physically appear to sign — and the local release window would close long before they could get there.

It doesn’t work that way anymore. Bail paperwork and co-signer signatures are handled remotely by electronic signature, so a parent three time zones away can review the agreement, sign it on a phone, and have a bond on file at 237 W. Commonwealth within the hour. Online bail bond applications keep growing in California for exactly this reason: the families who need them most are usually the ones who can’t be in the room.

If you are the out-of-area co-signer, have these ready when you call: your own ID, the defendant’s full name and date of birth, the jail, and the booking number if you have it. You are being asked to guarantee that the defendant appears in court — so ask your questions before you sign, not after.

How to start a Fullerton bail bond in five steps

1. Call 714-671-8920. Any hour. Tell the agent the person is at the Fullerton City Jail.
2. Give what you know. Full name, date of birth, and the charges if you have them. Missing the booking number is fine — the agent can get it from the jail.
3. Let the agent confirm the current bail amount directly with jail staff, so a bail enhancement doesn’t blow up your plan halfway through.
4. Complete the co-signer paperwork. In person or by e-signature from anywhere.
5. The agent posts the bond at 237 W. Commonwealth and release processing begins as soon as booking is finished.

If you are in the first hour after an arrest and not sure what to do at all, start with 5 things to do after an arrest and our explainer on how bail works in California.

Frequently asked questions about Fullerton City Jail bail bonds

Where is the Fullerton City Jail located?

Inside Fullerton Police Department headquarters at 237 W. Commonwealth Avenue, Fullerton, CA 92832. The jail line is (714) 738-6759 or (714) 738-6722. The public lobby closes around 10 p.m., but an exterior call box provides after-hours access and bail is accepted 24 hours a day.

How long does it take to get out of Fullerton City Jail after bail is posted?

Typically about 30 minutes to an hour once booking is complete and the bond is filed. Booking itself usually takes another two to four hours and cannot be shortened. After a transfer to the Orange County Intake Release Center in Santa Ana, release commonly takes 4 to 12 hours instead.

Does the Fullerton Police Department accept credit cards for bail?

No. It accepts cash, a cashier’s check, a money order, or a personal check from a California bank up to $5,000 — and checks and money orders are made payable to the North Justice Center unless the jail specifies otherwise. Credit cards are not accepted. A surety bond removes the payment-method problem entirely.

Can someone be held in Fullerton jail even after bail is posted?

Yes. Fullerton PD policy allows release on bail or bond unless a warrant, court order, the bail schedule, or the person’s level of intoxication makes release unsafe. On a weekend night near the downtown bar district, the intoxication hold is the most common reason a paid bond doesn’t produce an immediate release. The bond stays posted; release happens once the hold clears.

How much does a Fullerton bail bond cost?

A percentage of the full bail amount from the Orange County uniform bail schedule, at rates regulated by the California Department of Insurance. On a $20,000 bail, that is dramatically less out of pocket than depositing $20,000 cash at the jail. Payment plans and collateral arrangements depend on the bail amount and the co-signer’s situation.

What is a bail enhancement and can it raise the bail in Fullerton?

Yes. Fullerton PD states bail may be raised during booking under the California Penal Code where officers believe release would likely result in the offense continuing. That is why the number quoted on a first phone call can differ from the booking paperwork an hour later. Always confirm the current figure before sending money.

Does the Fullerton City Jail hold women?

Yes — roughly 132 male and 70 female beds, making it one of the few Orange County city jails that houses both. A woman arrested in Fullerton is not automatically transported to the county system, so a local bond can often produce a local release.

What information do I need to start a Fullerton bail bond?

The defendant’s full name, date of birth, the jail, the booking number if you have it, and the charges. If you’re missing pieces, call anyway — a licensed agent can pull most of it from the jail. Paperwork and e-signature can be completed remotely for out-of-area co-signers.

Which court handles a Fullerton arrest?

The North Justice Center, 1275 N. Berkeley Avenue, Fullerton, CA 92832, which covers Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, La Palma, Placentia and Yorba Linda. It is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Bail money posted at the jail is made payable to that court.

Can I bail someone out of Fullerton jail in the middle of the night?

Yes. Bail is accepted at the Fullerton City Jail 24 hours a day, and the majority of bail calls in California happen outside normal business hours. Our line is answered around the clock at 714-671-8920.

About Big Boy Bail Bonds

Big Boy Bail Bonds, Inc. is a licensed California bail bond agency serving Orange County, Los Angeles County, Santa Clara County, Alameda County and communities across California. We have been writing bail in California since 2005 — more than twenty years of working with city jails, sheriff’s facilities and county courts, including the Fullerton City Jail, the Orange County Intake Release Center and the North Justice Center. Our agents answer the phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, because most arrests don’t happen during business hours. Call 714-671-8920.

Sources and further reading: City of Fullerton Police Department — Post Bail/Bond · Orange County Superior Court — North Justice Center. This article is general information about the bail process in California and is not legal advice.