Recordable or reportable: the OSHA distinction United States employers get wrong

The words sound interchangeable and they are not. This page sets out where 29 CFR Part 1904 draws the line, what each duty is triggered by, and how far apart the two clocks run. It describes the federal regulation. It is not legal advice and it does not judge whether any particular injury falls on one side of the line or the other.

What is the difference between recordable and reportable?

A recordable case goes into the employer’s own paperwork. A reportable event goes to OSHA, by telephone or through an online form, within hours.

Recording is governed by 29 CFR 1904.4 and 1904.29. It produces an entry on the OSHA 300 Log, the Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, and a matching OSHA 301 Injury and Illness Incident Report, both of which we take apart in OSHA 300, 300A and 301. Nobody at OSHA sees these at the moment they are created. They sit at the establishment until an inspector asks, an employee asks, or an annual electronic submission falls due.

Reporting is governed by 29 CFR 1904.39, whose full title is “Reporting fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye as a result of work-related incidents to OSHA”. It is a direct notification to the agency, made while the incident is still fresh, and it is what brings an OSHA Area Office to the door.

The cleanest way to hold the difference is by direction of travel. Recording is something an employer does to its own records. Reporting is something an employer does to OSHA.

What makes a case recordable?

The general recording criteria at 1904.7(a) list six outcomes. A work-related injury or illness is recordable if it results in death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness. It is also recordable if it involves a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional, even if none of the other five outcomes follows.

Those criteria only come into play once two gateway tests are passed. Section 1904.4(a) requires that the case is work-related, under the rules in 1904.5, and that it is a new case, under 1904.6, before the general criteria are applied at all. Additional criteria in 1904.8 through 1904.12 cover needlestick and sharps injuries, medical removal, occupational hearing loss and tuberculosis.

The threshold for recording is deliberately low. Medical treatment beyond first aid, with no lost time at all, is enough to put a case on the 300 Log.

What makes an event reportable to OSHA?

Four outcomes, and only four. Under 1904.39(a) an employer must report the death of an employee, the in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees, an employee’s amputation, and an employee’s loss of an eye, where these result from a work-related incident.

Two of those four are defined tightly in the same section. Paragraph (b)(9) defines in-patient hospitalization as “a formal admission to the in-patient service of a hospital or clinic for care or treatment”, and paragraph (b)(10) confirms that an admission involving only observation or diagnostic testing is not reportable. Paragraph (b)(11) defines amputation as the traumatic loss of a limb or other external body part, including fingertip amputations with or without bone loss, medical amputations resulting from irreparable damage, and body parts that have since been reattached. The same paragraph excludes avulsions, enucleations, deglovings, scalpings, severed ears, and broken or chipped teeth.

The reporting duty reaches further than the recording duty. Sections 1904.1 and 1904.2 both state that employers who are partially exempt from keeping OSHA injury and illness records, whether by size or by industry, must still report a fatality, in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye.

How quickly must each one be done?

This is where the two duties separate most sharply.

Reporting a fatality: within eight hours after the death, under 1904.39(a)(1). Reporting an in-patient hospitalization, an amputation or a loss of an eye: within twenty-four hours, under 1904.39(a)(2). Recording a case on the 300 Log and the 301 Incident Report: within seven calendar days of receiving information that a recordable injury or illness has occurred, under 1904.29(b)(3).

Eight hours against seven calendar days is a difference of about twenty to one.

The reporting clock has a second subtlety. Under 1904.39(b)(7) and (b)(8), where an employer does not learn about a reportable event when it happens, or does not immediately learn that it was work-related, the eight hour and twenty-four hour periods run from the point the employer or any of its agents finds out. The clock is tied to the employer’s knowledge rather than to the calendar.

Method is prescribed as well as timing. Under 1904.39(a)(3) a report is made by telephone or in person to the nearest OSHA Area Office, by telephone to the OSHA toll-free number 1-800-321-OSHA (1-800-321-6742), or by electronic submission using the reporting application on OSHA’s public website. Paragraph (b)(1) closes the obvious loophole: if the Area Office is closed, an employer may not discharge the duty by leaving a voicemail, sending a fax or sending an email, and must use the 800 number or the online application.

Can an event be reportable but not recordable, or the other way round?

Both happen, and the regulation anticipates both.

The far more common direction is recordable but not reportable. A broken wrist requiring stitches and a fortnight off work is plainly recordable under 1904.7(a) and generates no call to OSHA at all, because it is none of the four reportable outcomes.

The other direction appears in the timing rules. Under 1904.39(b)(6) a fatality is only reported to OSHA if the death occurs within thirty days of the work-related incident, and an in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye is only reported if it occurs within twenty-four hours of the incident. The paragraph then adds that the event “must be recorded on your OSHA injury and illness records, if you are required to keep such records”. An employee admitted to hospital three days after an incident therefore falls outside the reporting duty while remaining inside the recording duty.

Two exclusions work the same way. Under 1904.39(b)(3) a fatality or serious injury from a motor vehicle accident on a public street or highway is not reported to OSHA unless the accident occurred in a construction work zone, and under 1904.39(b)(4) an event on a commercial or public transportation system such as an airplane, train, subway or bus is not reported. In both cases the section states the event must still be recorded if the employer keeps records.

Falling outside the reporting duty does not remove a case from the 300 Log.

Why does the confusion persist?

Partly because ordinary English does not distinguish the two words, and partly because the reportable list is so much shorter than most people expect.

Safety teams commonly refer to any serious event as “a reportable”, which collapses the distinction at exactly the moment it matters. The phrase “OSHA recordable” has drifted into use as a general severity label, applied to incidents long after the recording decision has been made. Insurance and workers’ compensation vocabulary adds a further layer, because a state first report of injury form is often described as a report, has nothing to do with 1904.39, and runs on a state deadline of its own.

The regulation itself is unambiguous on the point even where everyday usage is not. Part 1904 uses “record” for the log entry and “report” for the notification to OSHA, and it keeps them in separate subparts: Subpart C and Subpart D deal with recording and with the forms, while Subpart E deals with reporting and submission.

Does the distinction change in State Plan states?

The structure does not, though the machinery around it can.

Section 1904.37 addresses state recordkeeping regulations and requires State Plan states to have occupational injury and illness recording and reporting requirements that are substantially identical to the federal requirements in Part 1904. For the electronic submission duty, 1904.41(b)(7) states directly that the requirements apply to employers located in State Plan states.

Some State Plan states operate their own reporting telephone lines and their own online forms, and some have adopted additional requirements in areas the federal rule leaves open. The recordable and reportable categories themselves are the ones described above, but the place a report is made to may differ. OSHA publishes the list of approved State Plans and their contact points.

What does getting it wrong cost?

Recording failures and reporting failures are both citable, and the adjusted civil penalties are set out in 29 CFR 1903.15(d).

For penalties proposed after January 15, 2025, the regulation caps a serious violation at $16,550 and an other-than-serious violation at $16,550. A repeated violation is capped at $165,514, and a willful violation carries a minimum of $11,823 and a maximum of $165,514. A failure to correct a violation is capped at $16,550 per day, and a posting requirement violation at $16,550.

Penalty exposure is not the only consequence. A late fatality report starts the employer’s relationship with the Area Office on the back foot, while an incomplete 300 Log is usually discovered during an inspection triggered by something else entirely. The two failures tend to surface in different ways, which is another reason they are worth keeping apart in the mind.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• 29 CFR Part 1904, Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/part-1904
• 29 CFR 1904.7, General recording criteria: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-1904.7
• 29 CFR 1904.29, Forms, including the seven day recording deadline: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-1904.29
• 29 CFR 1904.39, Reporting fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations and losses of an eye to OSHA: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-1904.39
• 29 CFR 1904.41, Electronic submission of records to OSHA: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-1904.41
• 29 CFR 1903.15, Proposed penalties: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-1903.15
• OSHA, Report a fatality or severe injury: https://www.osha.gov/report
• OSHA, Injury and Illness Recordkeeping and Reporting Requirements: https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping

Last reviewed: 16 September 2026

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