The OSHA 300 Log: What to Record, When, and for How Long

Short answer: the OSHA 300 is the Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses. If your company had more than ten employees at any point last year and your industry is not on OSHA’s partially exempt list, you keep one per establishment. Every work-related injury or illness that causes death, days away, restricted work or transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant diagnosed condition goes on it within 7 calendar days, and you keep it 5 years. The official forms are free from OSHA’s recordkeeping forms page. Everything below is from 29 CFR Part 1904 as it reads on eCFR, checked October 10, 2026.

1. What the OSHA 300 log is

29 CFR 1904.29(a) names three forms. The OSHA 300 is the Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses; the 300-A is the annual summary; the 301 is the incident report. You must use them “or equivalent forms, for recordable injuries and illnesses.” Under 1904.29(b)(1) you enter information about your business at the top of the log, a one or two line description for each recordable case, and at the end of the year you summarize it on the 300A.

On each line the official form asks for the case number, the employee’s name and job title, the date of injury or onset of illness, where the event occurred, and a description of the injury or illness, the part of the body affected and the object or substance that harmed the employee. You then classify the case by its most serious outcome (death, days away from work, job transfer or restriction, or other recordable case), enter the number of days away and days on transfer or restriction, and tick whether it was an injury or one of the illness types (skin disorder, respiratory condition, poisoning, hearing loss, all other illnesses).

Three rules about the log itself:

• One log per establishment. 29 CFR 1904.30(a): “You must keep a separate OSHA 300 Log for each establishment that is expected to be in operation for one year or longer.”
• It can live on a computer. 1904.29(b)(5) allows it “if the computer can produce equivalent forms when they are needed.”
• The forms are free. OSHA publishes Forms 300, 300A and 301 as one fillable PDF on its recordkeeping forms page.

2. Who has to keep one

If your company had more than ten employees at any time during the last calendar year, you must keep OSHA injury and illness records “unless your establishment is classified as a partially exempt industry under § 1904.2” (29 CFR 1904.1(a)(2)). The size test is company-wide and uses peak employment; the industry test is applied establishment by establishment. Both are explained in Do I need an OSHA 300 log?

Who goes on the log is set by 29 CFR 1904.31(a): every employee on your payroll, “whether they are labor, executive, hourly, salary, part-time, seasonal, or migrant workers”, plus employees who are not on your payroll “if you supervise these employees on a day-to-day basis.” Owners and partners of a sole proprietorship or partnership are not employees for this purpose.

3. What makes a case recordable

A case goes on the log when it is work-related, is a new case, and meets the general recording criteria (or one of the special criteria in 1904.8 through 1904.11 for needlestick and sharps injuries, medical removal, hearing loss and tuberculosis). Work-relatedness is presumed for injuries and illnesses from events or exposures in the work environment, unless a listed exception applies (29 CFR 1904.5(a), (b)(2)).

The general criteria are in 29 CFR 1904.7(a). A work-related injury or illness is recordable if it results in any of:

4. First aid versus medical treatment

This is where most recordkeeping errors happen. 1904.7(b)(5)(ii) defines first aid as a closed list, and (b)(5)(iii) says plainly that it is “a complete list of all treatments considered first aid for part 1904 purposes.” If it is not on the list and it is treatment, it is medical treatment. First aid is:

• a non-prescription medication at non-prescription strength (a recommendation to use it at prescription strength is medical treatment);
• tetanus immunizations (other immunizations, such as hepatitis B or rabies vaccine, are medical treatment);
• cleaning, flushing or soaking wounds on the surface of the skin;
• wound coverings such as bandages, gauze pads, butterfly bandages or Steri-Strips (sutures, staples and other wound closing devices are medical treatment);
• hot or cold therapy;
• non-rigid means of support, such as elastic bandages, wraps and non-rigid back belts (devices with rigid stays are medical treatment);
• temporary immobilization devices while transporting an accident victim (splints, slings, neck collars, back boards);
• drilling a fingernail or toenail to relieve pressure, or draining fluid from a blister;
• eye patches;
• removing foreign bodies from the eye using only irrigation or a cotton swab;
• removing splinters or foreign material from areas other than the eye by irrigation, tweezers, cotton swabs or other simple means;
• finger guards;
• massages (physical therapy and chiropractic treatment are medical treatment); and
• drinking fluids for relief of heat stress.

Three more points from the same paragraph. A visit to a doctor solely for observation or counseling, and diagnostic procedures such as x-rays and blood tests, are not medical treatment (1904.7(b)(5)(i)). Who gives the treatment does not matter: first aid is first aid even when a physician gives it, and treatment beyond first aid counts even when a non-professional gives it (1904.7(b)(5)(iv)). And if a physician recommends medical treatment and the employee does not follow it, you must still record the case (1904.7(b)(5)(v)).

For chemical work this matters daily: flushing an eye at an eyewash station is first aid; a prescription eye drop for a chemical burn is not. The SDS’s first-aid section tells you what to do in the moment; Part 1904 tells you whether it goes on the log.

5. The 7-calendar-day rule

29 CFR 1904.29(b)(3): “You must enter each recordable injury or illness on the OSHA 300 Log and 301 Incident Report within seven (7) calendar days of receiving information that a recordable injury or illness has occurred.” The clock starts when you learn of it, and it is calendar days, not business days. If the employee is still out, you enter an estimate of the days away and update the count when the actual number is known (1904.7(b)(3)).

6. Privacy concern cases

For some cases you may not put the employee’s name on the log. You enter “privacy case” in the name column instead, and keep a separate, confidential list of the case numbers and names so you can update the cases and give the information to the government if asked (1904.29(b)(6)). Under 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(7) these, and only these, are privacy concern cases:

• an injury or illness to an intimate body part or the reproductive system;
• an injury or illness resulting from a sexual assault;
• mental illnesses;
• HIV infection, hepatitis, or tuberculosis;
• needlestick injuries and cuts from sharp objects contaminated with another person’s blood or other potentially infectious material; and
• other illnesses, if the employee voluntarily requests that his or her name not be entered on the log.

1904.29(b)(8) says that list is complete. Where the description could still identify the person, (b)(9) lets you describe the case in general terms, such as “injury from assault” or “lower abdominal injury.”

7. Keeping it, updating it and handing it over

• Five years. 29 CFR 1904.33(a): save the 300 log, the privacy case list, the annual summary and the 301 forms “for five (5) years following the end of the calendar year that these records cover.”
• Keep the log current during those five years. 1904.33(b)(1) requires you to add newly discovered recordable cases and show changes in classification; if a case’s description or outcome changes, line out the original entry and enter the new information. The summary and the 301s do not have to be updated (1904.33(b)(2)–(3)).
• Employees can ask for it. An employee, former employee, personal representative or authorized employee representative who asks for the 300 log for an establishment the employee worked in must get a copy by the end of the next business day (29 CFR 1904.35(b)(2)(iii)).
• So can OSHA. An authorized government representative must get copies of your Part 1904 records within four business hours (29 CFR 1904.40(a)).

At year end the log is totalled onto the OSHA 300A summary, which is certified and posted from February 1 to April 30. Each line on the log also needs its own Form 301 incident report.

8. How SDSentry handles the log

In SDSentry, a company admin records each case on the Injury log tab against the location where it belongs: the 300 Log columns (date, employee name and job title or a privacy-case flag, where it happened, the injury and body part, the classification, days away and days restricted, and the injury or illness type) and every Form 301 field (the employee’s address, date of birth, date hired and sex; the physician or other health care professional and treatment facility; the emergency room and overnight in-patient questions; the time work began and the time of the event; what the employee was doing, what happened, the injury and the object or substance; date of death; and who completed the report). Each SDSentry location is one establishment, so it prints a Form 300 log and a 300A summary per establishment and calendar year, and a 301 incident report for each case, each as a printable page laid out as an equivalent form under 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(4) that you can save as a PDF. A case can be edited in place, and every change is recorded in the account’s audit log.

How it lines up with the rule, and the one thing it leaves to you:

• One log per establishment. You pick the establishment and year, and the printed Form 300 carries that establishment’s name, city and state and only its cases, with the column totals at the bottom, as 1904.30 requires.
• Privacy cases. When you tick the privacy-case box, the printed log says “Privacy case” instead of the name. SDSentry also prints the separate confidential list of privacy-case numbers and names that 1904.29(b)(6) requires; only admins of that establishment can open it, and each print is logged. The 301 keeps the name and is marked confidential.
• Corrections. A case is edited in place when the outcome changes or a detail was wrong, which is how 1904.33(b)(1) expects the log to be updated. Archive a case only if it was entered in error.
• It does not submit anything to OSHA. If your establishment must file electronically, you enter or upload the data yourself in OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application.

Sources (checked October 10, 2026)

• eCFR, 29 CFR Part 1904 — Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (current text, eCFR up to date as of October 7, 2026; the part was last amended in 2024).
• 29 CFR 1904.7 — general recording criteria; first aid at (b)(5)(ii), a complete list per (b)(5)(iii).
• 29 CFR 1904.29 — forms; 7 calendar days at (b)(3); equivalent forms at (b)(4); privacy cases at (b)(6)–(9).
• 29 CFR 1904.33 — retention for five years and updating.
• 29 CFR 1904.30, 1904.31, 1904.35, 1904.40 — establishments, covered employees, employee access, government access.
• OSHA, Injury & Illness Recordkeeping Forms – 300, 300A, 301 — the free fillable PDF forms, and OSHA’s note on equivalent forms.

Educational information, not legal advice. Quotations and citations are from the current text of 29 CFR Part 1904 on eCFR and from osha.gov, both checked October 10, 2026. State Plan states can add to some of these requirements; check your state’s program, and confirm anything that matters for your business against the regulation itself.