eCFR edition 2026-01-01 · 31 sections
29 CFR Part 1904, in full
OSHA's injury and illness recordkeeping regulation, reproduced verbatim from the eCFR — every section, every paragraph, every table. This is the text Job13's engine cites; nothing here is summarised or rewritten.
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Who has to keep records
Purpose, the two partial exemptions, and keeping records for more than one agency.
- § 1904.0Purpose
The purpose of this rule (part 1904) is to require employers to record and report work-related fatalities, injuries, and illnesses.
- § 1904.1Partial exemption for employers with 10 or fewer employees
(1) 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…
- § 1904.2Partial exemption for establishments in certain industries
(1) 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 t…
- § 1904.3Keeping records for more than one agency
If you create records to comply with another government agency's injury and illness recordkeeping requirements, OSHA will consider those records as meeting OSHA's part 1904 recordk…
What has to be recorded
The recording criteria — work-relatedness, new cases, the general criteria, and the specific case types.
- § 1904.4Recording criteria
Each employer required by this part to keep records of fatalities, injuries, and illnesses must record each fatality, injury and illness that:
- § 1904.5Determination of work-relatedness
You must consider an injury or illness to be work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to the resulting condition or significantly a…
- § 1904.6Determination of new cases
You must consider an injury or illness to be a “new case” if:
- § 1904.7General recording criteria
You must consider an injury or illness to meet the general recording criteria, and therefore to be recordable, if it results in any of the following: death, days away from work, re…
- § 1904.8Recording criteria for needlestick and sharps injuries
You must record all work-related needlestick injuries and cuts from sharp objects that are contaminated with another person's blood or other potentially infectious material (as def…
- § 1904.9Recording criteria for cases involving medical removal under OSHA standards
If an employee is medically removed under the medical surveillance requirements of an OSHA standard, you must record the case on the OSHA 300 Log.
- § 1904.10Recording criteria for cases involving occupational hearing loss
If an employee's hearing test (audiogram) reveals that the employee has experienced a work-related Standard Threshold Shift (STS) in hearing in one or both ears, and the employee's…
- § 1904.11Recording criteria for work-related tuberculosis cases
If any of your employees has been occupationally exposed to anyone with a known case of active tuberculosis (TB), and that employee subsequently develops a tuberculosis infection, …
- § 1904.13§§ 1904.13-1904.28 [Reserved]
The forms and the records
The 300 Log, the 300A summary, the 301 incident report, privacy cases, retention and updating.
- § 1904.29Forms
You must use OSHA 300, 300-A, and 301 forms, or equivalent forms, for recordable injuries and illnesses. The OSHA 300 form is called the Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses,…
- § 1904.30Multiple business establishments
You must keep a separate OSHA 300 Log for each establishment that is expected to be in operation for one year or longer.
- § 1904.31Covered employees
You must record on the OSHA 300 Log the recordable injuries and illnesses of all employees on your payroll, whether they are labor, executive, hourly, salary, part-time, seasonal, …
- § 1904.32Annual summary
At the end of each calendar year, you must:
- § 1904.33Retention and updating
You must save the OSHA 300 Log, the privacy case list (if one exists), the annual summary, and the OSHA 301 Incident Report forms for five (5) years following the end of the calend…
Employee involvement and variances
Employee and representative access, prohibited discrimination, state plans and variances.
- § 1904.34Change in business ownership
If your business changes ownership, you are responsible for recording and reporting work-related injuries and illnesses only for that period of the year during which you owned the …
- § 1904.35Employee involvement
Your employees and their representatives must be involved in the recordkeeping system in several ways.
- § 1904.36Prohibition against discrimination
In addition to § 1904.35, section 11(c) of the OSH Act also prohibits you from discriminating against an employee for reporting a work-related fatality, injury, or illness. That pr…
- § 1904.37State recordkeeping regulations
Some States operate their own OSHA programs, under the authority of a State plan as approved by OSHA. States operating OSHA-approved State plans must have occupational injury and i…
- § 1904.38Variances from the recordkeeping rule
If you wish to keep records in a different manner from the manner prescribed by the part 1904 regulations, you may submit a variance petition to the Assistant Secretary of Labor fo…
Reporting to OSHA
Fatalities and severe injuries, electronic submission, and government data collection.
- § 1904.39Reporting fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye as a result of work-related incidents to OSHA
(1) Within eight (8) hours after the death of any employee as a result of a work-related incident, you must report the fatality to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration…
- § 1904.40Providing records to government representatives
When an authorized government representative asks for the records you keep under part 1904, you must provide copies of the records within four (4) business hours.
- § 1904.41Electronic submission of Employer Identification Number (EIN) and injury and illness records to OSHA
Basic requirements —(1) Annual electronic submission of information from OSHA Form 300A Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses. (i) If your establishment had 20-249 employe…
- § 1904.42Requests from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for data
If you receive a Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses Form from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), or a BLS designee, you must promptly complete the form and return it …
Administrative provisions
Retention of older records, effective dates, OMB control numbers and definitions.
- § 1904.43Summary and posting of the 2001 data
If you were required to keep OSHA 200 Logs in 2001, you must post a 2000 annual summary from the OSHA 200 Log of occupational injuries and illnesses for each establishment.
- § 1904.44Retention and updating of old forms
You must save your copies of the OSHA 200 and 101 forms for five years following the year to which they relate and continue to provide access to the data as though these forms were…
- § 1904.45OMB control numbers under the Paperwork Reduction Act
The following sections each contain a collection of information requirement which has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget under the control number listed
- § 1904.46Definitions
The Act. The Act means the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq. ). The definitions contained in section 3 of the Act (29 U.S.C. 652) and related interp…
The group headings above are Job13’s, for navigation. The section numbers, titles and text are the regulation’s.
Text reproduced verbatim from the eCFR, edition 2026-01-01, retrieved 2026-07-19. A US Government work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Not legal advice. This page republishes 29 CFR Part 1904 as published by the eCFR and explains it. The recordkeeping duty is the employer’s. Where the rule requires judgement, Job13 says so rather than guessing — run your own case through the free check.