Monica is a Marketing Manager at Frontline Data Solutions. She has a background in warehouse operations and bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University in both Supply Chain Management and International Studies.
Summary
Understanding what qualifies as an OSHA recordable incident is critical in any industrial safety program. Get it wrong, and you risk underreporting, overreporting, or producing documentation that can’t survive scrutiny. Get it right, and you build a recordkeeping foundation that holds up under inspections, audits, and investigations.
This post explains the full definition of an OSHA recordable incident, provides practical examples across common injury and illness types, walks through OSHA’s reporting requirements and timelines, and outlines what strong documentation looks like in practice.
Key Takeaways for Safety Managers and EHS Leaders
- An OSHA recordable incident is any work-related injury or illness that results in fatality, days away from work, restricted duty, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or certain diagnosed conditions.
- Not every workplace incident is OSHA recordable. The outcome, not just the event, determines recordability.
- Severe incidents, including fatalities and hospitalizations, carry mandatory reporting deadlines of 8 and 24 hours respectively.
- Strong documentation starts at intake. Inconsistent, incomplete, or delayed recordkeeping creates compliance exposure regardless of how well you manage the underlying incident.
- Automation and centralized systems reduce documentation failure and help safety teams produce audit-ready evidence on demand.
What Is an OSHA Recordable Incident?
An OSHA recordable incident is any work-related injury or illness that meets at least one of the criteria defined in OSHA’s recordkeeping standard (29 CFR 1904). The threshold for recordability is not whether an incident is serious or dramatic. It’s whether the outcome crosses specific clinical and operational thresholds.
There are two questions you need to consider when determining whether an incident is OSHA recordable. First, was the injury or illness work-related? Second, did the outcome meet any of OSHA’s defined criteria? Both conditions must be true.
Establish work-relatedness when an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or significantly contributed to the injury or illness. OSHA’s definition of the work environment is broad. It includes anywhere an employee is present as a condition of their employment, including remote work locations and travel.
OSHA Recordable Incident Criteria: The Full List
According to OSHA, a recordable incident is any work-related injury or illness that involves one or more of the following:
- A fatality
- Loss of consciousness
- Days away from work, restricted duty, or job transfer (DART)
- Medical treatment beyond first aid
- Diagnosis of a chronic irreversible disease or cancer
- Fracture or crack of a bone, including teeth
- Punctured eardrum
- Tuberculosis
- Medical removal
- Hearing loss
- Needlestick or sharps injury
If an incident satisfies any of these criteria and is work-related, you must document it on your OSHA logs. The criteria are threshold-based, not severity-based. A minor fracture still qualifies. A significant contusion that resolves with first aid does not.
What Counts as Medical Treatment Beyond First Aid?
This is one of the most common sources of confusion in OSHA recordkeeping. Medical treatment beyond first aid refers to any treatment that goes beyond what is listed in OSHA’s first aid definition, regardless of who provides it or where they provide it.
First aid includes things like:
- Over-the-counter medications at non-prescription strength
- Wound cleaning and bandaging
- Use of non-prescription eye patches
- Hot or cold therapy
- Drinking fluids for heat stress relief
- Non-rigid means of support
If the treatment given falls outside this list, it’s generally recordable. Prescription medication, stitches or staples, physical therapy, and X-rays ordered to diagnose a suspected fracture are examples that cross the threshold into recordable medical treatment.
Examples of OSHA Recordable Incidents
The following examples illustrate what qualifies as an OSHA recordable incident across common injury and illness categories.
- A broken leg, arm, collarbone, or wrist sustained during a workplace fall
- Hearing loss resulting from prolonged exposure to excessive noise levels on the job
- A concussion sustained when a falling object struck a worker’s head
- Cancer or chronic lung disease diagnosed because of occupational carcinogen exposure
- A chemical burn from a hazardous substance encountered during normal work tasks
- A back injury from lifting a heavy object that requires prescription medication or restricted duty
- A laceration that requires stitches or staples to close
- A needlestick injury to a healthcare or laboratory worker
- Punctured eardrum from a pressure event or occupational noise
- Occupational illness requiring medical removal from a job task or area
Why Outcome Determines Recordability
Consider this example. Two workers strain their backs while lifting a heavy object on the same shift. You give the first worker ibuprofen and an ice pack, and they return to full duty the next morning. The second worker has persistent pain. You prescribe a muscle relaxant, and they spend three days on restricted duty. Only the second incident is OSHA recordable. While the event was identical the outcome wasn’t.
This distinction matters for managers responding to incidents in real time. The question to ask is not how bad it looks at first. The question is “what treatment did the injury require and what restrictions, if any, did the worker have?” Always determine recordability according to what actually happened, not by what you expected.
OSHA Reporting Requirements: What to Report and When
OSHA recordkeeping and OSHA reporting are two distinct obligations that often get conflated. Recordkeeping refers to maintaining OSHA logs (Forms 300, 300A, and 301). Reporting refers to proactively notifying OSHA when specific severe events occur. Both obligations apply to covered employers, and both carry their own timelines.
| Incident Type | Reporting Deadline | How to Report |
|---|---|---|
| Workplace fatality | Within 8 hours | OSHA 24-hour hotline, local OSHA office, or online severe event reporting form |
| Inpatient hospitalization of any employee | Within 24 hours | OSHA 24-hour hotline, local OSHA office, or online severe event reporting form |
| Amputation | Within 24 hours | OSHA 24-hour hotline, local OSHA office, or online severe event reporting form |
| Loss of an eye | Within 24 hours | OSHA 24-hour hotline, local OSHA office, or online severe event reporting form |
| All other recordable incidents | Document in OSHA logs; retain for 5 years | OSHA Forms 300, 300A, and 301 |
To report severe events, you can call OSHA’s 24-hour hotline at 1-800-321-OSHA, contact your local OSHA office directly, or submit OSHA’s serious event reporting online form.
What Information is Required to Make a Report?
When reporting a severe event to OSHA, you will need to provide the following information:
- Name of your business
- Location, time, and date of the incident
- Type of incident (e.g., fatality, amputation, hospitalization)
- Number of employees affected
- A brief description of what occurred
- Contact information for a person OSHA can reach for follow-up
Having this information ready in advance, ideally through a standardized incident intake process, reduces the time it takes to complete the report accurately and reduces the risk of omissions.
OSHA Recordkeeping Forms: What You Are Required to Maintain
All recordable incidents must be documented on the appropriate OSHA recordkeeping forms. The core forms are:
- OSHA Form 300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses): The running log of all recordable incidents throughout the year.
- OSHA Form 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report): A detailed record for each individual recordable incident, capturing information about the employee, the event, and the outcome.
- OSHA Form 300A (Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses): An annual summary of totals from Form 300, which you must post in the workplace from February 1 through April 30 each year.
You must keep these records for five years. OSHA inspectors can request them at any time, and the inability to produce accurate, complete records is itself a citation risk independent of the underlying incident.
What Strong OSHA Recordable Documentation Looks Like in Practice
The most common documentation failures in OSHA recordkeeping are not the result of bad intentions. They come from systems with unclear ownership and intake processes that lack structure, instead relying on individual memory. Strong OSHA recordable documentation requires timely intake, clear ownership, consistency across the company, and supporting evidence.
Timely Intake
The details of an incident are most accurate in the first hours after it occurs. A standardized intake process that captures the event, the treatment provided, and the work-relatedness determination promptly reduces the risk of documentation gaps.
Clear Ownership
Every recordable incident should have a defined owner responsible for completing the OSHA forms, managing corrective actions, and ensuring documentation of close-out evidence. Shared or undefined ownership reliably produces missed steps and incomplete records.
Consistent Templates Across Sites
Multi-site operations that allow each location to develop their own documentation format create significant audit risk. Consistent templates ensure that your team captures all required information in the same structure, making it easier to review, aggregate, and produce on demand.
Supporting Evidence
OSHA forms are necessary but not sufficient on their own. Supporting evidence includes treatment records, witness statements, photographs, corrective action documentation, and any follow-up medical information that adds context to the recordability determination. Storing this evidence alongside your OSHA log entry so it’s accessible is key.
How Incident Management Systems Reduce OSHA Recordable Risk
The best practice for managing OSHA recordable incidents is to use incident management software that standardizes intake, routes tasks to the right owners, tracks corrective actions, and stores supporting evidence in a centralized, searchable location.
Software-based systems reduce the manual coordination burden that makes recordkeeping fail under pressure. When an inspector asks for records, the response shouldn’t require searching through email threads, shared drives, or a combination of spreadsheets that different people at different sites maintain. You records should be exportable, complete, and current.
If you’re not ready for a full software investment, a well-maintained, consistently formatted spreadsheet is the next best option over disorganized paper records or email-based tracking. The most important thing is a standardized process, regardless of the tool.
Who Should Understand OSHA Recordable Criteria?
OSHA recordable knowledge shouldn’t be limited to the EHS team. The first person to respond to an incident is often a supervisor, operations manager, or HR leader who may not have deep EHS training. If that person doesn’t know what qualifies as an OSHA recordable incident, you risk inconsistent treatment, delayed documentation, and decisions that compromise compliance.
The following roles should have (at minimum) a working understanding of OSHA recordable criteria and reporting obligations:
- EHS managers and coordinators
- Operations supervisors and shift leads
- Human resources leaders
- Plant and facility managers
- Contractors and their site supervisors where applicable
Training on what qualifies as an OSHA recordable incident does not need to be long. A focused session that covers the criteria, provides practical examples, and explains the intake process is enough to close the most common knowledge gaps.
How Frontline Supports OSHA Recordable Management
At Frontline Data Solutions, we help safety teams reduce the operational friction that makes OSHA recordkeeping fail under pressure. That includes centralizing incident records, standardizing documentation workflows, improving accountability for corrective actions, and building communication loops that keep the right people informed.
If your team is working to improve OSHA recordable documentation and readiness, learn more about how Frontline supports incident management and recordkeeping.
