Quick answer. Enter each recordable case on the OSHA 300 log and the 301 within 7 calendar days of learning about it (1904.29(b)(3)). Post last year's 300A summary from February 1 through April 30, even if every total is zero (1904.32(b)(6)). If your establishment is covered, submit the data electronically through OSHA's Injury Tracking Application by March 2 (1904.41(c)). Keep the 300 log, the privacy case list, the 300A and the 301s for five years following the end of the year they cover, and keep the 300 updated during those five years (1904.33).
Who has to keep the log
Every employer covered by the OSH Act keeps injury and illness records unless one of two exemptions applies (29 CFR 1904.1 and 1904.2):
- Ten or fewer employees at all times during the previous calendar year, counting the whole company, not the site, and counting part-time, seasonal and temporary workers you supervise. If you had eleven people on the payroll for one week in July, you keep the log this year.
- Partially exempt industries, the low-hazard list in Appendix A to Subpart B: most offices, many retail stores, some services. Construction, manufacturing, warehousing, trucking, utilities and agriculture are not on it.
Both exemptions have the same two holes. Everyone, exempt or not, reports a death, an in-patient hospitalization, an amputation or the loss of an eye to OSHA (1904.39). And if OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics writes and asks you to keep records for a survey, you keep them for that year (1904.41, 1904.42).
State-plan states use the same forms with their own numbers (California calls it the Cal/OSHA 300 under 8 CCR §14300). The rules below are federal; the state versions match them on everything here unless we say otherwise.
The three forms
| Form | What it is | When |
|---|---|---|
| OSHA 300 | The log. One line per recordable case: who, when, what happened, what kind of case, how many days. | Within 7 calendar days of learning about the case (1904.29(b)(3)). |
| OSHA 301 | The incident report. One page per case with the details. Your workers' comp first report of injury can substitute if it has every field the 301 has (1904.29(b)(4)). | Same 7 days. |
| OSHA 300A | The annual summary. Totals from the log, average employees, total hours worked, signed by a company executive. | Posted February 1 through April 30, even if the totals are zero (1904.32). |
One log per establishment that will be open a year or longer (1904.30). Construction companies with jobs that come and go keep one log for the company, or one per division or region, and can keep it at the office as long as they can enter a case within 7 days and produce the log when asked.
What counts as recordable
A case goes on the log when all three are true (1904.4 through 1904.7): it is work-related, it is a new case, and it results in at least one of these:
- Death
- Days away from work
- Restricted work or transfer to another job
- Medical treatment beyond first aid
- Loss of consciousness
- A significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional, even with no treatment: a fractured or cracked bone or tooth, a punctured eardrum, cancer, a chronic irreversible disease
Four kinds of cases have their own rules on top of that: needlesticks and cuts from contaminated sharps (always recordable, 1904.8), medical removal under a substance standard like lead (1904.9), hearing loss of 10 dB or more that leaves total hearing at 25 dB or more from audiometric zero (1904.10), and tuberculosis after a known exposure (1904.11).
Recordable is not the same as compensable, and it is not an admission of anything. The log is a count of what happened at work. Whether workers' comp pays, whether the worker was at fault, and whether you violated a rule are separate questions. Do not wait for the comp decision to make the entry; you have 7 days.
First aid or medical treatment: the list
This is the call that decides most cases. OSHA settled it by writing a closed list: if the treatment is on the list, it is first aid and the case is not recordable on that basis. If it is not on the list, it is medical treatment and the case goes on the log. The list is 1904.7(b)(5)(ii), and it does not matter who gives the treatment or where.
| First aid (not recordable by itself) | Medical treatment (recordable) |
|---|---|
| Non-prescription medication at non-prescription strength | Any prescription medication, even a single dose, or non-prescription medicine at prescription strength |
| Tetanus shot | Other shots or vaccines given for the injury, such as hepatitis B or rabies |
| Cleaning, flushing or soaking a wound on the skin surface | Stitches, staples, surgical glue, or any wound closure other than the items on the left |
| Bandages, gauze, Band-Aids, butterfly strips and Steri-Strips | |
| Hot or cold therapy | Physical therapy or chiropractic treatment |
| Non-rigid support: elastic bandage, wrap, non-rigid back belt | Rigid support: a cast, a splint, an orthopedic boot |
| Temporary immobilization while transporting the person (splint, sling, neck collar, backboard) | |
| Drilling a fingernail or toenail to relieve pressure; draining fluid from a blister | |
| Eye patch | |
| Removing foreign bodies from the eye with irrigation or a cotton swab | Removing foreign bodies from the eye any other way |
| Removing splinters or foreign material from skin by irrigation, tweezers, cotton swabs or other simple means | Cutting or other procedures to remove embedded material |
| Finger guards | |
| Massage | |
| Drinking fluids to relieve heat stress | IV fluids |
Two things that look like treatment but are not: a visit to a doctor, by itself, and diagnostic procedures like X-rays, blood tests and MRIs, including a prescription given only for diagnosis. A negative X-ray after a fall with an ice pack and ibuprofen is first aid. The same fall with a fracture on the X-ray is recordable because of the diagnosis, treatment or not.
Was it work-related?
If it happened in the work environment, OSHA presumes it is work-related unless one of the listed exceptions fits (1904.5). The exceptions people actually use:
- The person was there as a member of the public, not as an employee.
- The symptoms came up at work but were entirely from something outside work, like a condition that flared up with no work event. "Entirely" is a high bar.
- Eating or drinking their own food, or preparing it for themselves. Choking on a sandwich in the break room is not recordable; getting burned by the company's coffee urn is.
- Personal tasks outside working hours while on the premises.
- Personal grooming, self-medication for a non-work condition, or an intentional self-inflicted injury.
- A motor vehicle accident in the company parking lot or on the access road while commuting.
- Common cold or flu.
- A mental illness, unless a licensed professional treating the worker says it is work-related.
- Voluntary wellness, fitness or recreation activities, including the company softball game.
Travel is work-related when the person is working: the drive between job sites is, the hotel after checking in is not (1904.5(b)(6)). A work-related injury to someone working from home counts when it is directly related to the work rather than the home (1904.5(b)(7)). Aggravation of an old injury counts as work-related when a work event made it worse (1904.5(b)(4) and 1904.6).
Counting days
Days away and days restricted are calendar days, starting the day after the injury, counting weekends and days the person wasn't scheduled, up to a cap of 180 days per case (1904.7(b)(3) and (b)(4)). If the doctor says stay home and the worker comes in anyway, you count the days the doctor said. If the doctor says work and the employee stays home, you don't. Restricted work means the person couldn't do a routine function of their job, or couldn't work a full shift, because of the injury. "Light duty" is restricted work. Update the log as the days accumulate; you will need the total for the 300A.
The dates
| When | What | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Within 7 calendar days | Enter the case on the 300 and fill out the 301 (or the equivalent form). | 1904.29(b)(3) |
| February 1 to April 30 | Post last year's 300A where you post notices to employees, at every establishment, even with zero cases. Before posting, a company executive reviews the log and certifies the summary: the owner, an officer, the highest-ranking person at the establishment, or that person's supervisor. | 1904.32 |
| March 2 | Submit last year's data electronically through OSHA's Injury Tracking Application if your establishment is covered (see below). | 1904.41 |
| Within 8 hours | Report any work-related fatality to OSHA. | 1904.39 |
| Within 24 hours | Report any work-related in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye. | 1904.39 |
| 5 years | Keep the 300, 301s and 300A for the five years after the year they cover, and keep updating the 300 for changes during that time. | 1904.33 |
| End of the next business day | Give an employee, former employee or their representative a copy of the 300 log when they ask. The 301 for their own case too. | 1904.35 |
Who submits electronically
- Establishments with 20 to 249 employees in the industries listed in Appendix A to Subpart E, which includes all of construction (NAICS 23), manufacturing, warehousing, trucking and many others: submit the 300A.
- Establishments with 250 or more employees in any industry that has to keep records: submit the 300A.
- Establishments with 100 or more employees in the higher-hazard industries in Appendix B to Subpart E (foundation, structure and building exterior contractors at NAICS 2381, general freight trucking, many manufacturing codes and others): submit the 300, the 301s and the 300A.
Count employees at the establishment at peak during the year, including part-time and temps you supervise. OSHA's ITA Coverage Application on osha.gov tells you whether a given establishment is covered. State-plan states adopted the same requirement; a few submit through their own systems, so check yours. Missed the date? Submit anyway. Late is better than absent, and OSHA says so on the ITA page.
What you report to OSHA by phone
This is separate from the log and applies to every employer, including those exempt from recordkeeping. A fatality within 8 hours of learning about it, and within 30 days of the incident. An in-patient hospitalization (admitted for care, not just observation or an ER visit), an amputation, or the loss of an eye within 24 hours, and within 24 hours of the incident. Call the nearest OSHA area office, the 24-hour number 1-800-321-OSHA (6742), or use the online form. Heart attacks at work get reported too; OSHA decides whether to investigate. Motor vehicle accidents on public roads and commercial-airline incidents are the main exceptions. In a state-plan state you report to the state agency, and some are stricter: California wants every serious injury reported within 8 hours (8 CCR §342), and Washington wants hospitalizations within 8 hours (WAC 296-27-031).
Several sites, temps, and privacy cases
- Temporary workers go on the log of whoever supervises them day to day. If your lead tells the temp what to do, the case is yours, not the staffing agency's (1904.31).
- Contractors' employees go on their employer's log, not yours, unless you supervise them directly.
- Privacy cases: write "privacy case" instead of the name on the 300 and keep a separate confidential list. Required for injuries to intimate body parts or the reproductive system, sexual assaults, mental illnesses, HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis, needlesticks and sharps injuries, and any other illness the employee asks you to keep private (1904.29(b)(7)).
- Several short-term job sites: one company log, or one per region or division. Record the site name in the "where the event occurred" column so you can sort later.
Mistakes on most logs we open
- No 300A posted because "nothing happened." Zero is still posted, February 1, signed.
- First-aid cases on the log, which inflates the rate your insurance and your GC see, and medical-treatment cases left off because the worker "didn't miss any time."
- Restricted duty not counted. If the worker is on light duty, it is a recordable restricted case, and the days count.
- Waiting for the workers' comp carrier to accept the claim before entering the case.
- Days away stopped at 30 or at "when he came back," not updated after the fact.
- The March 2 electronic submission forgotten because the 300A is "posted on the wall."
- Only full-time employees counted for the 10-employee and 20-employee thresholds.
- A fatality or hospitalization reported to the comp carrier and the client, but not to OSHA inside the 8 or 24 hours.
- The 2024 log thrown out in 2026. Five years.
Incident reports that fill out the 300, 301 and 300A
In 29Safety the foreman reports the incident from the phone with photos, the system asks the first-aid questions in order and decides recordable or not with the rule cited, and the 300, 301 and 300A fill themselves in. The 300A is ready to print and sign on February 1, and the counts are there for the March 2 submission.
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Questions we get
Do I need to keep an OSHA 300 log with 12 employees?
Yes, unless your industry is on the partially exempt list in Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 1904. The size exemption is ten or fewer employees at all times during the previous calendar year, company-wide, counting part-time, seasonal and temporary workers you supervise. Construction, manufacturing, warehousing and trucking are not partially exempt.
Is a prescription recordable?
Yes. Any prescription medication given for a work-related injury or illness is medical treatment under 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(5), even a single dose, even if the worker never fills it. The exceptions are a prescription given only for diagnostic purposes and non-prescription medicine at non-prescription strength.
Do I have to post the 300A if we had no injuries?
Yes. Every establishment that has to keep records posts the 300A from February 1 to April 30 with zeros in the totals, certified by a company executive (29 CFR 1904.32).
Where do I submit the 300A electronically?
Through OSHA's Injury Tracking Application (ITA) at osha.gov/injuryreporting, by March 2 each year, if your establishment is covered: 20 to 249 employees in the Appendix A industries, which include construction, 250 or more in any industry that keeps records, or 100 or more in the Appendix B industries, which also submit the 300 and 301 data. State-plan states have adopted the same requirement.
Does a workers' compensation claim mean the case is recordable?
No, and the reverse is also true. Recordability is decided by the OSHA criteria in 1904.4 through 1904.7, not by whether the claim was filed, accepted or denied. Make the log entry within 7 days and change it later if the facts change.
How long do I keep the records?
Five years following the end of the calendar year they cover (29 CFR 1904.33): the 300 log, the privacy case list, the 300A and the 301s. The 2025 records are kept through December 31, 2030. During those five years you keep updating the 300 log when a case changes, for example when the days away total goes up or a case turns out not to be recordable. You do not have to update the 300A or the 301s, though you may.
What is the purpose of the OSHA 300 log?
Part 1904 exists to make employers record and report work-related fatalities, injuries and illnesses (29 CFR 1904.0), and the 300 log is where that record lives. OSHA's form says the log is used to classify work-related injuries and illnesses and to note the extent and severity of each case. Its totals become the 300A posted for your workers and, for covered establishments, the data sent to OSHA. Recording a case does not mean the employer or the worker was at fault, that a rule was broken, or that workers' comp has to pay.
How do I fill out the OSHA 300 log, column by column?
One line per recordable case. Column A is the case number; B the employee's name, or "privacy case" for the cases listed in 1904.29(b)(7); C the job title (the form's own example is "Welder"); D the date of injury or onset of illness; E where the event occurred; F what the injury or illness was, the body part, and the object or substance that caused it. Then check only one of G through J for the most serious outcome: death, days away from work, job transfer or restriction, or other recordable case. K and L are the number of days away and days on transfer or restriction, and M marks one type: injury, skin disorder, respiratory condition, poisoning, hearing loss, or all other illnesses. The filled-out 2025 log at the top of this page shows every column.
Is there an OSHA decision tree for what goes on the log?
Yes, in 1904.4(b)(2). It asks, in order: did the employee have an injury or illness; is it work-related (1904.5); is it a new case (1904.6); and does it meet the general recording criteria (1904.7) or one of the specific cases in 1904.8 through 1904.12, such as needlesticks and hearing loss. Yes to all four, and it goes on the log. Then classify it by the most serious outcome, checking only one of columns G through J.
How do I count days away from work?
Calendar days, starting the day after the injury, including weekends, holidays and days off if the worker could not have worked them because of the injury. If a doctor recommends days away and the worker comes in anyway, record the days the doctor recommended; if the doctor clears the worker and they stay home, stop counting on the date the doctor said. Estimate for a long absence and update the count later, and stop at 180 days (29 CFR 1904.7(b)(3)). Hurt on a Monday and back to work the next Monday is 6 days away. Days of restricted work or job transfer are counted the same way, in column L.
Not sure how this applies to your work? in the chat, or email safetyteam@29safety.com.