OSHA Exempt Industries: What Employers Keep Getting Wrong

"We're exempt" is one of the more expensive sentences in workplace safety. Every year, retailers, insurance offices, real estate firms, and small service businesses hear that their industry sits on OSHA's exempt list and stop thinking about recordkeeping altogether. That's not what the exemption says. OSHA exempt industries are excused from the routine paperwork — the 300 Log, the 300A summary — not from OSHA's authority, not from basic safety obligations, and not from reporting a serious event. Get that distinction wrong and a single hospitalisation can turn into a missed 24-hour deadline and a citation nobody saw coming.

What does it actually mean to be an OSHA exempt industry?

Two separate exemptions get mixed together constantly, and untangling them is the whole ballgame.

The first is size-based. Under 29 CFR Part 1904, any employer with 10 or fewer employees at all times during the last calendar year is exempt from routine injury and illness recordkeeping, regardless of what industry it's in. Ten employees on the worst day of the year, not ten on average — a business that hit 11 for even one pay period during the year doesn't qualify.

The second is industry-based. Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 1904 lists categories of business, historically clustered around retail trade, finance and insurance, real estate, and many service industries, that OSHA has designated as low-hazard enough to skip routine logging even at larger headcounts. This is the list most people mean when they say "OSHA exempt industries."

Both exemptions do the same narrow thing: they remove the duty to keep the 300 Log and post the 300A. Neither one removes an employer from OSHA's jurisdiction. OSHA can still inspect an exempt business. The General Duty Clause still applies. And critically, the duty to report severe events under 1904.39 — fatalities, in-patient hospitalisations, amputations, loss of an eye — survives both exemptions untouched. If OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics sends a written request, an otherwise exempt employer can also be told to reconstruct records for a specific period. Exempt from routine logging is not exempt from OSHA, full stop.

Which industries are commonly partially exempt from OSHA recordkeeping?

Appendix A groups industries by NAICS code, and the list has shifted over time as OSHA updates it against the NAICS classification system. What follows is a general picture of the industry types historically covered, not a definitive current list — always check your specific NAICS code against OSHA's current Appendix A before assuming anything.

General categories historically associated with the Appendix A partial exemption. Verify your exact NAICS code against OSHA's current Appendix A — codes are periodically revised. See /exemptions for Job13's reference page.

Where teams get this wrong

1. Treating "exempt" as "OSHA doesn't apply to us." This is the core myth, and it's the one that causes the most damage. Exemption is narrow. It touches paperwork, not the underlying duty to run a safe workplace or the duty to report serious harm.

2. Not tracking headcount correctly across the full calendar year. The 10-or-fewer exemption isn't a snapshot from January. It has to hold at all times during the entire preceding calendar year. A retailer that hires seasonal staff and briefly touches 12 employees in December loses the size-based exemption for that year, even if headcount drops back to eight in January.

3. Forgetting that severe-event reporting survives the exemption. The 8-hour fatality reporting clock and the 24-hour clock for in-patient hospitalisation, amputation, or loss of an eye under 1904.39 run regardless of exempt status. An exempt employer that skips this report because "we don't do OSHA paperwork" is treating a reporting duty like a recordkeeping duty, and the two aren't the same thing. Read the full breakdown in what counts as OSHA recordable versus what triggers a report in recordable vs reportable.

4. Assuming exemption applies company-wide when NAICS codes are assigned by establishment. A parent company with a mixed portfolio, say a retail chain that also runs a distribution warehouse, may find the retail storefronts exempt and the warehouse establishment squarely on the hook. Exemption status typically attaches to the specific establishment's primary activity, not the brand as a whole.

5. Losing the habit of good documentation just because the log isn't mandatory. Even where the 300 Log isn't required, most EHS advisors still recommend keeping informal incident notes. If a severe event happens, an employer will need clean facts fast, not a scramble to reconstruct what happened three weeks later.

Confusion between exemption from routine recordkeeping and exemption from OSHA's broader authority is one of the more common misunderstandings EHS advisors report when talking to small and mid-sized employers for the first time.

A worked example: the stockroom forklift

A regional retail chain with six stores and roughly 140 employees company-wide had always assumed it sat outside OSHA's reach. Retail. Appendix A. "We don't need to worry about that stuff," the operations director told new store managers during onboarding. No 300 Log had ever been opened. No one had ever heard of Form 300A.

Then a stock associate at one location was struck by a reversing forklift while restocking pallets in the back room. The associate was taken to hospital and admitted overnight for observation and treatment. Under the partial exemption, that store still didn't need to open a 300 Log for the year. But an in-patient hospitalisation triggers the 24-hour reporting duty under 1904.39 regardless of exempt status, and nobody at the company knew that. The report went in nine days late, after a routine OSHA inquiry into a workers' compensation claim surfaced the gap. The retailer avoided a recordkeeping citation, since it genuinely had no log to keep. It did not avoid a reporting citation for the missed 24-hour window.

The lesson wasn't that the exemption was wrong. It was that nobody had separated "we don't have to log this" from "we don't have to tell anyone." Those are two different sentences, and only one of them was true.

"The exemption gets treated like a blanket 'don't worry about OSHA' pass," one EHS manager we spoke with put it, "when really it's just permission to skip a form. The reporting clock doesn't care what your NAICS code says."

How do you know if your business is actually exempt?

Two checks, done separately. First, pull your establishment's NAICS code and compare it against OSHA's current Appendix A listing, not a version from a few years back. Second, run the calendar-year headcount check: did the establishment stay at 10 or fewer employees at every point during the prior year, including seasonal peaks? An establishment can qualify under one exemption, both, or neither. Neither exemption is self-certifying in any formal sense, but both rest on facts an employer needs to be able to show if asked, especially the headcount history.

If there's any doubt about a specific incident, run it through Job13's free recordability check rather than guessing. The tool applies the Part 1904 criteria directly and returns a clear determination, or flags the case as needing review when the regulation genuinely leaves room for judgement. It doesn't force an answer where OSHA's own rule doesn't provide one.

Frequently asked questions

Does a partial exemption mean OSHA inspectors can't visit an exempt business?

No. Appendix A and the 10-or-fewer exemption only remove the routine 300 Log and 300A requirement. OSHA retains full inspection authority over every workplace covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, exempt or not, and can still issue citations under the General Duty Clause or any applicable standard.

Do exempt employers still need to report an amputation or eye loss?

Yes. The 1904.39 reporting duty for fatalities, in-patient hospitalisations, amputations, and loss of an eye applies to every covered employer, including those exempt from routine recordkeeping. Fatalities must be reported within 8 hours; the other three categories within 24 hours. See /rule/1904.39 for the exact text.

Can OSHA still ask an exempt business for injury records?

Yes. Both the size-based and industry-based exemptions include a carve-out: OSHA or BLS can send a written request asking an otherwise exempt employer to keep records for a specified period, such as for an annual injury and illness survey. That request overrides the exemption for however long it specifies.

Is the Appendix A list the same every year?

Appendix A is tied to the NAICS classification system, which gets revised periodically, and OSHA has updated the industry list to track those revisions in the past. Treat any specific list, including the general categories described in this article, as something to verify against OSHA's current published Appendix A rather than a fixed reference.

Where can I check OSHA's current rules directly?

Start with OSHA's own recordkeeping page at osha.gov/recordkeeping, the full regulation text at osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1904, or the eCFR's current version of Part 1904. For specific edge cases, OSHA's Letters of Interpretation cover scenarios the regulation text alone doesn't spell out.