OSHA Form 301: The Injury and Illness Incident Report

Short answer: Form 301 is the one-case-per-page incident report that goes with each line on your OSHA 300 log. Complete it within 7 calendar days of learning about a recordable case. You may use an equivalent form, such as a workers’ compensation or insurance report, if it has the same information, and you keep it 5 years. OSHA’s blank 301 is free on its recordkeeping forms page. Checked against 29 CFR 1904.29 on eCFR, October 10, 2026.

1. What Form 301 is

Form 301 is the Injury and Illness Incident Report (29 CFR 1904.29(a)). Where the 300 log gives each case one line, the 301 gives it a page. “You must complete an OSHA 301 Incident Report form, or an equivalent form, for each recordable injury or illness entered on the OSHA 300 Log” (1904.29(b)(2)).

OSHA’s own Form 301, in the free recordkeeping forms package, has 18 numbered fields in three groups, plus who completed it (name, title, phone, date):

2. The 7-day rule

The 301 runs on the same clock as the log. 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.” Calendar days, starting when you learn of the case.

3. Equivalent forms: workers’ comp and insurance reports

You do not have to use OSHA’s layout. 1904.29(b)(4): “An equivalent form is one that has the same information, is as readable and understandable, and is completed using the same instructions as the OSHA form it replaces. Many employers use an insurance form instead of the OSHA 301 Incident Report, or supplement an insurance form by adding any additional information required by OSHA.”

The test is the information, not the paper. OSHA’s form puts it bluntly: to be an equivalent, “any substitute must contain all the information asked for on this form.” Before relying on a workers’ compensation or insurance report, compare it with all 18 fields; commonly missed are the times of day (fields 12 and 13), the emergency room and in-patient questions (8 and 9), and the object or substance (17), and add whatever is missing. Records may be kept on a computer if it can produce equivalent forms when needed (1904.29(b)(5)).

4. Privacy

For a privacy concern case (the closed list in 1904.29(b)(7): intimate body part or reproductive system, sexual assault, mental illness, HIV, hepatitis or tuberculosis, contaminated needlesticks and sharps, and illnesses where the employee asks), you may describe the case in general terms on both the 300 and the 301 if the details could identify the person, while still recording “enough information to identify the cause of the incident and the general severity of the injury or illness” (1904.29(b)(9)). OSHA’s form notes that employees and their representatives have the right to review the 300 log in full but only limited access to the 301; the access rules are in 29 CFR 1904.35.

5. Keeping and submitting 301s

• Five years after the end of the calendar year they cover (29 CFR 1904.33(a)). Unlike the log, the 301 does not have to be updated later (1904.33(b)(3)).
• Electronic submission of 301 data is required only from establishments with 100 or more employees in industries listed in Appendix B to Subpart E, by March 2 each year (29 CFR 1904.41(a)(2), (c)). They leave out the employee’s name and address, the physician’s name and the treatment facility (fields 1, 2, 6 and 7) (1904.41(b)(9)(ii)). Details are in the 300A and ITA guide.

6. How SDSentry handles the 301

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.

SDSentry’s per-case 301 page prints all 18 fields of OSHA’s Form 301 plus the “completed by” name, title, phone and date, in the form’s own order and wording, so it can serve as the equivalent form that 1904.29(b)(4) allows. Cases recorded before these fields existed print with those fields blank until you edit the case and fill them in. For an authorized employee representative it can also print just the “Information about the case” section, the only part they are entitled to under 1904.35(b)(2)(v)(B). SDSentry does not submit 301 data to OSHA’s ITA; establishments that must do so enter it themselves.

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 1904.29 — 301 for each case at (b)(2); 7 calendar days at (b)(3); equivalent forms at (b)(4); privacy at (b)(6)–(9).
• 29 CFR 1904.33 and 29 CFR 1904.41 — retention; electronic submission of 301 data and excluded fields.
• OSHA Forms 300, 300A and 301 package (PDF) — Form 301 (Rev. 04/2004) and its fields 1–18.
• 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.