Who Has to Keep OSHA Injury and Illness Records

Most employers keep the OSHA 300 Log. Two partial exemptions cut some out: one by company size, one by industry. Both leave the exempt employer with duties that don't go away, which is where the exemption is easiest to over-read.

The ten-or-fewer test is company-wide, and it's a peak, not an average

29 CFR 1904.1(a)(1) states the size exemption in one sentence: "If your company had 10 or fewer employees at all times during the last calendar year, you do not need to keep OSHA injury and illness records unless OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics informs you in writing that you must keep records under § 1904.41 or § 1904.42." The phrase to read carefully is "at all times." This isn't an annual average, and it isn't a headcount on any one day you pick — it's the highest number of employees the company had at any single point during the year. Paragraph (b)(2) puts the test the same way: "To determine if you are exempt because of size, you need to determine your company's peak employment during the last calendar year." Add an eleventh employee for even one pay period, and the exemption is gone for the whole year, because paragraph (a)(2) says the opposite case plainly: "If your company had more than ten (10) employees at any time during the last calendar year, you must keep OSHA injury and illness records unless your establishment is classified as a partially exempt industry under § 1904.2."

The count is also company-wide, not per location. Paragraph (b)(1) is explicit: "The partial exemption for size is based on the number of employees in the entire company." A company with five small establishments and 3 employees at each one adds up to 15 company-wide, over the limit, even though no single location looks large. That's a different count from the annual average number of employees the OSHA 300A asks for, which the hours-worked calculator works out from payroll records — the 300A average can sit well under 10 while the year's peak headcount was higher, and it's the peak that decides this exemption.

The industry exemption applies establishment by establishment

29 CFR 1904.2 works differently: it looks at what an establishment does, not how many people work there. Paragraph (a)(1) states it: "If your business establishment is classified in a specific industry group listed in appendix A to this subpart, you do not need to keep OSHA injury and illness records unless the government asks you to keep the records under § 1904.41 or § 1904.42." Unlike the size test, this exemption is scoped to the establishment, not the company as a whole. Paragraph (b)(1) says so: "The partial industry classification exemption applies to individual business establishments. If a company has several business establishments engaged in different classes of business activities, some of the company's establishments may be required to keep records, while others may be partially exempt." A retail chain with a warehouse and several clothing stores could owe records for the warehouse and none for the stores, or the reverse, depending on which NAICS codes are on the list below.

Appendix A to Subpart B, in full

The list of exempt NAICS codes is long enough that a rough gloss, like some retail and service industries, would leave out exactly the codes a reader needs to check. The table below reproduces Non-Mandatory Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 1904 in full — every NAICS code and industry title excused from keeping OSHA injury and illness records under 1904.2, unless OSHA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or a state agency operating under either one's authority asks the establishment in writing to keep them anyway.

A partial exemption still comes with two duties

Neither exemption is a blanket exemption from OSHA recordkeeping law, only from the OSHA 300 Log itself. Two duties survive both the size exemption and the industry exemption.

The first is reporting. Paragraph (a)(1) of 1904.1 doesn't stop at excusing the log; it adds in the same breath that "all employers covered by the OSH Act must report to OSHA any work-related incident that results in a fatality, the in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees, an employee amputation, or an employee loss of an eye." That's the 29 CFR 1904.39 duty: the same 8-hour and 24-hour clocks that apply to an employer with a full log apply to one that keeps no log at all. Run a case through the recordability checker and it reminds you of both deadlines with every recordable result, whether or not your establishment is required to keep the log those results would otherwise go on.

The second is answering when asked. The same sentence in 1904.1(a)(1) that grants the size exemption qualifies it: records are excused "unless OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics informs you in writing that you must keep records under § 1904.41 or § 1904.42." 1904.2(a)(1) makes the same reservation for the industry exemption, in its own words: an exempt establishment still owes records "unless the government asks you to keep the records under § 1904.41 or § 1904.42." Both partial exemptions yield the moment OSHA, BLS, or a state agency operating under either one's authority selects an exempt establishment and tells it in writing to keep records or submit data. A partially exempt employer that's never been asked has nothing to send; one that has been asked in writing has to comply like any other.

Being partially exempt, in other words, means one less form to fill out every year, not an exit from OSHA recordkeeping law altogether.