OSHA injury recordkeeping is the compliance item equipment dealers most often assume away. The reasoning usually runs that wholesale and retail trade is low-hazard work, so the logs are somebody else’s problem. That reasoning collapses the moment a delivery and installation crew becomes part of the business, and it was never true of the severe-incident report at all.
- OSHA injury recordkeeping turns on two separate exemptions
- The severe-incident clock runs for every employer
- What OSHA injury recordkeeping actually requires you to write down
- A worked example, with the assumptions stated
- The annual calendar, in one table
- A five-minute self-test
- Warning signs and common mistakes
- What to do this week
Two different partial exemptions sit in 29 CFR Part 1904, and they work on different units. One looks at the size of your whole company. The other looks at the industry classification of each establishment. A dealer can pass one and fail the other, which is why the question is worth ten minutes rather than an assumption.
OSHA injury recordkeeping turns on two separate exemptions
The size exemption is in 29 CFR 1904.1. Paragraph (a)(1) relieves a company that had 10 or fewer employees at all times during the last calendar year, unless OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics informs it in writing under 1904.41 or 1904.42. Paragraph (a)(2) is the mirror image: more than ten employees at any time during the last calendar year and you must keep records, unless the establishment is partially exempt by industry.
Read the phrase at all times carefully. A single seasonal week at eleven people during an install-heavy quarter ends the exemption for the following year. Paragraph (b)(1) also counts the entire company’s employees, not the headcount at one location, so a three-person service branch does not get its own size test.
The industry exemption lives in 1904.2. Paragraph (a)(1) exempts an establishment classified in an industry group listed in the regulation’s non-mandatory Appendix A, again unless OSHA or BLS asks for records under 1904.41 or 1904.42. Paragraph (b)(1) is the detail dealers miss: that exemption applies to individual establishments, not to the company as a whole.
Paragraph (a)(2) completes the trap. If any of your establishments falls in a non-exempt industry, you must keep records for all such establishments unless the company is exempt by size. A dealer whose showroom sits in an exempt classification and whose installation arm does not is keeping logs for the installation arm.
Check your own NAICS codes against Appendix A rather than reasoning from the general feel of the trade. OSHA’s own recordkeeping overview says many employers with more than 10 employees are required to keep a record of recordable work-related injuries and illnesses, and that certain industries are exempted, which is a statement about many, not all.
The severe-incident clock runs for every employer
This is the part no exemption reaches. Part 1904 is explicit that all employers covered by the OSH Act must report certain outcomes under 1904.39, whether or not they keep logs.
Paragraph (a)(1) requires a report within eight hours after the death of any employee as a result of a work-related incident. Paragraph (a)(2) requires a report within twenty-four hours after the in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees, or an employee’s amputation, or an employee’s loss of an eye, as a result of a work-related incident.
Paragraph (a)(3) gives three ways to report: by telephone or in person to the OSHA Area Office nearest the incident site, by telephone to 1-800-321-OSHA (1-800-321-6742), or by electronic submission using the reporting application on OSHA’s public website. Paragraph (b)(1) confirms that when the Area Office is closed, the 800 number or the online application is the route. In a State Plan state, check the state rule too: 1904.37(b)(2) lets State Plans set more stringent reporting requirements, and California, for example, generally requires a serious injury, illness or death to be reported to Cal/OSHA within eight hours.
Paragraph (b)(6) sets the outer boundaries. A fatality is reportable only if it occurs within thirty days of the work-related incident, and a hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye only if it occurs within twenty-four hours of the incident. A technician who is admitted two days after a lifting injury falls outside that second window, although the case still goes on the log if you keep records, which is a reason to record the incident date precisely rather than loosely.
What OSHA injury recordkeeping actually requires you to write down
Paragraph 1904.4(a) sets the test for a recordable case. It must be work-related, a new case, and meet the general criteria in 1904.7 or the specific criteria in 1904.8 through 1904.12. The forms named in 1904.29(a) are the OSHA 300 Log, the 300-A Summary and the 301 Incident Report, or equivalent forms.
The general criteria in 1904.7(a) are the ones a service manager needs memorized: death, days away from work, restricted work or job transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness. Paragraph (b)(7) adds a significant diagnosed injury or illness.
Three of those have definitions that decide close calls. Days away counting starts the day after the injury or onset under (b)(3), and may be capped at 180 calendar days under (b)(3)(vii). Restricted work is recordable when you keep the employee from performing one or more routine functions or from working the full scheduled workday, or a physician or other licensed health care professional recommends that restriction, under (b)(4)(i); (b)(4)(ii) defines routine functions as work the employee regularly performs at least once per week. And loss of consciousness is recordable under (b)(6) regardless of how long it lasted.
Medical treatment beyond first aid is the line most often crossed without anyone noticing. Paragraph (b)(5) puts treatment past the first-aid list on the log, and the examples include sutures, prescription-strength medication and physical therapy. A technician sent for stitches after a sheet-metal cut is a recordable case, not an incident report in a drawer.
A worked example, with the assumptions stated
The figures below are illustrative assumptions for one dealer, not industry data. Substitute your own counts before drawing a conclusion.
Assume a dealership with six people in the showroom and office, three warehouse staff, and two installers hired in June for a busy installation season. Headcount sits at nine until June, and peak headcount reaches eleven, so the size exemption in 1904.1(a)(1) is unavailable for the following calendar year, because the company was not at ten or fewer employees at all times.
Assume the showroom establishment carries a NAICS code that appears in Appendix A and the combined warehouse and installation establishment does not. Under 1904.2(a)(2) the dealer keeps records for the non-exempt establishment, which means one 300 Log, a 301 report for each case, and a certified 300-A covering those employees.
Assume four incidents in the year, all at the warehouse and installation establishment: two strains with no lost time and no treatment past first aid, one laceration closed with sutures, and one ankle injury producing six days away. Two are recordable. The suture case qualifies under 1904.7(b)(5), and the ankle case under the days-away criterion with counting starting the day after the injury under (b)(3).
That is the core OSHA injury recordkeeping workload in this example: one log with two entries, two 301 Incident Reports and one certified, posted 300-A. The cost of getting it wrong is an avoidable citation and a weaker position in any claim that follows, which is why OSHA injury recordkeeping is far cheaper to run than to reconstruct.
The annual calendar, in one table
| Date | Action | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Through the year | Record each qualifying case on the 300 Log and complete a 301 Incident Report | 1904.4(a), 1904.29(a) |
| No later than February 1 | Review the log, create and certify the annual summary, and post the 300-A | 1904.32(a) and (b)(6) |
| Until April 30 | Keep the 300-A summary posted | 1904.32(b)(6) |
| By March 2 | Where your establishment is covered, submit 300-A data through the Injury Tracking Application, plus 300 and 301 case data if it had 100 or more employees and is in an industry listed in Appendix B to Subpart E | 1904.41(a) and (c) |
| Five years after the year covered | Keep the 300 Log, privacy case list, 300-A and 301 forms, and update stored logs for newly discovered cases | 1904.33(a) and (b)(1) |
| Within 8 or 24 hours | Report a fatality, or a hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye | 1904.39(a)(1) and (a)(2) |
Whether your establishment is covered by the electronic submission requirement depends on its size and classification, so confirm that against the regulation before assuming either way.
A five-minute self-test
- Write down the highest employee count your company reached at any point during the last calendar year, counting every establishment.
- If that number is eleven or more, the size exemption is gone and you move to the industry test.
- List each establishment and its NAICS code, including the warehouse, the service branch and any installation entity.
- Check each code against the non-mandatory Appendix A list in Part 1904.
- For any establishment not on that list, confirm a 300 Log exists for the current year and a certified 300-A for last year.
- Confirm that one named person knows the 8-hour and 24-hour reporting duties and has the 800 number saved.
- Put the February 1 posting date and the five-year retention rule into the same compliance calendar you use for insurance renewals.
Warning signs and common mistakes
- Treating the size exemption as a per-location test. Paragraph 1904.1(b)(1) counts the whole company.
- Assuming the trade classification of the showroom covers the install crew. The industry exemption applies establishment by establishment under 1904.2(b)(1).
- Believing an exemption from the logs is an exemption from the report. It is not, and the 8-hour and 24-hour deadlines do not move.
- Logging a stitched laceration as first aid. Sutures sit past the first-aid list in 1904.7(b)(5).
- Starting the days-away count on the day of injury rather than the day after, which inflates the figure and the metrics built on it.
- Keeping the 300-A in a binder instead of posted from February 1 through April 30.
- No single owner for the reporting call, so the eight hours are spent deciding who should make it.
Receiving and warehouse work is where most of these cases originate, and the aisle, stacking and forklift practices covered in our guide to equipment warehouse receiving risks are the upstream fix. Install and delivery exposure belongs in the pricing, which is why the install job-cost sheet should carry a safety and training line.
What to do this week
Run the self-test above and write the answer down with a date on it. An undocumented conclusion that you are exempt is worth nothing in an inspection, while a one-page memo showing the headcount, the NAICS codes and the Appendix A check is a real position.
If the answer is that you do need logs, start them now rather than reconstructing a year. Dealers building a service arm should fold this into the operating setup described in our guide to building a profitable equipment service route, alongside the maintenance documentation discipline in maintenance records as evidence.
None of this is legal advice. Read the regulation text and confirm your classification, your state plan obligations and your reporting duties with a qualified safety professional or counsel, since state plans may impose requirements beyond the federal rule.
