OSHA 300 Log: How to Complete and Submit the Form Correctly

The OSHA 300 Log is the form employers use to record each work-related injury and illness that meets OSHA’s recording criteria under 29 CFR Part 1904. You enter each recordable case within 7 calendar days of learning that it meets OSHA’s recording criteria, total the log on Form 300A at year end, post that summary from February 1 through April 30, and submit it electronically by March 2 if your establishment meets OSHA’s size and industry thresholds.

Three forms work together under OSHA’s recordkeeping rule:

· OSHA Form 300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses): one line per recordable case, kept for each establishment.

· OSHA Form 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report): the detailed report for each case. An equivalent form, such as a state workers’ compensation first report of injury, an insurance form, or your own incident report form, can substitute if it contains the same information, is as readable and understandable, and is completed using the same instructions as Form 301 (Section 1904.29(b)(4)).

· OSHA Form 300A (Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses): the annual totals from the log, certified by a company executive and posted for employees.

Most errors come from the decisions behind the forms: whether a case is recordable, how it is classified, and how days are counted.

Who Has to Keep an OSHA 300 Log?

You must keep OSHA injury and illness records if your company had more than 10 employees at any time during the previous calendar year, unless your establishment is classified in a partially exempt, lower-hazard industry listed in Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 1904. Those industries are identified by NAICS code.

Two details catch employers off guard:

· The 10-employee test is company-wide. It counts total employees across all of your establishments, including part-time, seasonal, and temporary employees. A company with five sites of four people each is not exempt.

· Exempt employers still have obligations. Every employer covered by the OSH Act must report severe injuries to OSHA (a fatality within 8 hours; an in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye within 24 hours), and must keep records if OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics asks in writing.

You keep a separate 300 Log for each establishment expected to operate for one year or longer. If you operate in a State Plan state, recordability works the same way: every State Plan uses the federal criteria for deciding which cases are recordable. Differences show up in reporting, where some State Plans add requirements for reporting severe injuries directly to a state agency, so check your State Plan’s reporting rules.

What Makes an Injury or Illness Recordable?

A case goes on the 300 Log only if it passes three tests:

1. It is work-related. An event or exposure in the work environment caused or contributed to the condition or significantly aggravated a preexisting one. Section 1904.5 lists specific exceptions, such as an injury or illness that results solely from eating, drinking, or preparing food or drink for personal consumption. The exception does not cover illness caused by workplace contamination or food poisoning from food the employer supplied, even if the employee prepared it. Those cases are work-related.

2. It is a new case. The employee has not had a recorded case of the same type affecting the same body part, or the earlier case had fully resolved before the new event.

3. It meets the general recording criteria or applicable specific recording criteria. The case results in death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, work related loss of consciousness, or a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional (for example, a fracture, a punctured eardrum, cancer, or a chronic irreversible disease).

The medical treatment test causes the most disputes. OSHA defines first aid as a closed list in Section 1904.7. Anything not on the list counts as medical treatment. The list includes nonprescription medication at nonprescription strength, tetanus immunizations, cleaning or covering wounds, hot or cold therapy, non-rigid means of support, and removing foreign bodies from the eye with irrigation or a cotton swab. Two common misapplications:

· An over-the-counter drug given at prescription strength is medical treatment.

· If a physician or licensed health care professional recommends medical treatment, the case is recordable even if the employee does not follow the recommendation. For example, if a physician writes a prescription and the employee never fills it, the case is still recordable.

Section 1904 also sets specific recording criteria for needlesticks and sharps injuries involving another person’s blood or other potentially infectious material, medical removal under an OSHA standard, occupational hearing loss, and tuberculosis. For work related hearing loss, you record the case when an audiogram shows a Standard Threshold Shift (an average change of 10 dB or more at 2000, 3000, and 4000 Hz) and the employee’s total hearing level in that ear is 25 dB or more above audiometric zero, averaged at the same frequencies. If you plan to retest, you can wait for the result: when a retest within 30 days of the first audiogram does not confirm a recordable shift, you do not record the case, and when it does confirm one, you have 7 calendar days to record it. If you record a hearing loss case and later testing shows the shift is not persistent, you can line out or remove the entry.

How Do You Fill Out the OSHA 300 Log, Column by Column?

Enter each recordable case within seven calendar days of receiving information that the case meets OSHA’s recording criteria. The clock starts when you have that information, not on the date of the injury. For example, if a worker receives first aid for a cut on September 1 and a physician prescribes antibiotics for an infection on September 5, the 7 days start on September 5. The same deadline applies to the Form 301. You can download current fillable versions of all three forms from OSHA’s recordkeeping forms package.

Here is what goes in each column:

· Column A, Case number: a unique number that matches the case’s Form 301.

· Column B, Employee’s name: or “privacy case” (see below).

· Column C, Job title: for example, “forklift operator,” not “employee.”

· Column D, Date of injury or onset of illness.

· Column E, Where the event occurred: specific enough to locate it, such as “Line 3 packaging area.”

· Column F, Description: the injury or illness, the body part affected, and the object or substance that directly caused it (for example, “laceration to left palm from box cutter”).

· Columns G through J, Classification: check one box only, for the most serious outcome: death (G), days away from work (H), job transfer or restriction (I), or other recordable case (J).

· Columns K and L, Day counts: the number of days away from work (K) and days on job transfer or restriction (L).

· Column M, Injury or illness type: check one of six: injury, skin disorder, respiratory condition, poisoning, hearing loss, or all other illnesses.

How Do You Count Days Away and Restricted Days?

Count calendar days, not scheduled workdays. Start with the day after the injury or illness, and include weekends, holidays, and days off if the employee could not have worked. You may stop counting once days away plus days restricted or transferred reach 180 for that case. If the outcome changes later, update the classification and counts.

Which Cases are Privacy Concern Cases?

For privacy concern cases, write “privacy case” in Column B instead of the employee’s name and keep a separate, confidential list of case numbers and names. Section 1904.29 defines six types:

· An injury or illness to an intimate body part or the reproductive system

· An injury or illness resulting from a sexual assault

· Mental illnesses

· HIV infection, hepatitis, or tuberculosis

· Needlestick and sharps injuries contaminated with another person’s blood or other potentially infectious material

How Do You Complete OSHA Form 300A?

Form 300A is the annual summary. Section 1904.32 sets out four steps that happen after the calendar year ends:

1. Review the 300 Log for completeness and accuracy, and correct any deficiencies.

2. Create the summary by totaling each column of the log. OSHA’s fillable 300A totals the columns automatically, so check those totals against the log before you certify. Enter the establishment information, the annual average number of employees, and the total hours worked by all employees (including temporary workers). The worksheet on the form walks through both calculations.

3. Certify the summary. A company executive must sign it: an owner of the company (for sole proprietorships and partnerships), an officer of the corporation, the highest-ranking company official working at the establishment, or that person’s immediate supervisor. A safety manager who does not fit one of those roles cannot certify it.

4. Post it from February 1 through April 30 in the place where you customarily post employee notices.

If you had no recordable cases, you still complete, certify, and post the 300A with zeros. An empty year is not an exemption from the summary.

How Do You Submit OSHA 300 Data Electronically?

Covered establishments submit through OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application (ITA) by March 2 of the year after the calendar year the forms cover. For calendar year 2026 records, that deadline is March 2, 2027. OSHA does not accept paper forms by mail or completed forms by email. ITA supports three methods: manual entry, CSV file upload , and API transmission.

Under OSHA’s 2023 final rule, which took effect January 1, 2024, three groups must submit:

· Establishments with 250 or more employees in industries that must routinely keep OSHA records: Form 300A.

· Establishments with 20 to 249 employees in industries listed in Appendix A to Subpart E of Part 1904: Form 300A.

· Establishments with 100 or more employees in industries listed in Appendix B to Subpart E: Form 300A, plus case-level data from Forms 300 and 301.

Unlike the 10-employee recordkeeping test, these thresholds count employees per establishment, not company-wide. Each submission must include the establishment’s legal company name and EIN used by the establishment.

Electronic submission does not replace posting or retention, and severe injury reports under Section 1904.39 follow a separate process. The records you keep are also not the same as the data you submit. Your retained 300 Log and Forms 301 (or equivalent forms) stay complete, while the electronic submission leaves out employee names from the 300 data, and leaves out employee names and addresses, treating health care professional names, and treating facility information from the 301 data.

What Are the Most Common OSHA 300 Log Mistakes?

Recordkeeping happens all year. A year-end review can catch problems, but it cannot undo a missed deadline or a misclassified case. Mistakes to avoid:

· Mixing up headcount rules. Applying per-site headcount to the 10-employee exemption, or company-wide headcount to the ITA thresholds, gets both tests wrong. The exemption counts company-wide; ITA counts per establishment.

· Stretching the first aid list. Rigid means of support used to immobilize a body part, sutures, prescription medications, and physical therapy are not first aid.

· Classifying at the first outcome and never updating. A case recorded as “other recordable” that later results in restricted duty needs its classification and day counts updated.

· Counting workdays instead of calendar days. This undercounts Columns K and L, especially for employees on compressed schedules.

· Missing the 7-day window. The window gets missed when the person who maintains the log waits on unrelated processes, such as HR paperwork or a workers’ compensation claim, before recording. Workers’ compensation status has no bearing on whether a case is recordable, so record the case as soon as you know it meets the criteria.

How Long Do You Keep OSHA 300 Logs, and Who Can See Them?

Keep the 300 Log, the privacy case list, the 300A, and the 301 forms for five years following the end of the calendar year they cover. During that period, update stored 300 Logs if you discover a new recordable case or a change in a recorded case’s classification. You do not have to update the 300A or 301 forms.

Current and former employees and their personal representatives can request a copy of the 300 Log, and you must provide it by the end of the next business day. An employee can also request their own Form 301 on the same timeline. Section 1904.35 also requires a reasonable procedure for employees to report injuries and illnesses, and prohibits retaliating against employees who report. For more on why capturing every event matters, see the importance of recording workplace incidents and hazards.

How Does EHS Insight Support OSHA Recordkeeping?

The EHS Insight Incident Management module is designed to support OSHA recordkeeping based on your site settings. Its Incident Event form captures injury and illness details, including optional OSHA fields such as body part, treatment in an emergency room, and overnight hospital treatment. A dedicated classification step lets assigned reviewers classify each consequence.

Built-in reports generate the OSHA 300, 300A, and 301 forms from your classified incident data, so the log stays current all year instead of being assembled at year end. The OSHA ITA 300A and OSHA ITA 300/301 reports display the data required for OSHA’s ITA CSV import. The Core Module’s Work Hours forms track labor hours used for OSHA 300 and 300A reporting and incident rate calculations, and, when integrated with the Compliance Tasks Module, you can schedule recurring Work Hours submissions across business entities. See the OSHA compliance software page or OSHA incident reporting software: the complete guide for more.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between OSHA Form 300 and Form 300A?

Form 300 is the running log of each recordable case at an establishment. Form 300A is the annual summary of the log’s totals, plus average employment and hours worked, certified by a company executive and posted February 1 through April 30.

When is the OSHA 300A due?

Post the certified Form 300A from February 1 through April 30. If your establishment meets OSHA’s electronic submission thresholds, submit the 300A data through the Injury Tracking Application by March 2 of the year after the year the form covers. Establishments that must also submit Form 300 and 301 case data have the same March 2 deadline. For 2026 records, that means submitting by March 2, 2027.

Do I have to post a 300A if we had no recordable injuries?

Yes, if you are required to keep OSHA records. Enter zeros in the case totals, complete the establishment information, annual average employees, and total hours worked, have a company executive certify the form, and post it from February 1 through April 30. A year with no recordable cases is not an exemption from the summary.

Who has to submit OSHA 300A data electronically?

Establishments with 250 or more employees in industries required to keep records, and those with 20 to 249 employees in Appendix A to Subpart E industries. Establishments with 100 or more employees in Appendix B industries also submit Form 300 and 301 data.

Does a first aid case go on the OSHA 300 Log?

No. A case that requires only first aid, as defined by the closed list in 29 CFR 1904.7, is not recordable unless it meets another criterion, such as days away from work, restricted work, or loss of consciousness. Any treatment not on that list, such as sutures or prescription medication, counts as medical treatment and makes the case recordable.

How long do I have to keep OSHA 300 Logs?

Keep the 300 Log, the privacy case list, Form 300A, and Form 301 for five years following the end of the calendar year the records cover. During that period, update the stored 300 Logs if new cases or classification changes come to light. You do not have to update the 300A or 301 forms.