How to complete OSHA Form 300A and the injury reporting process

Executive overview

Certain employers must complete, post, and submit OSHA Form 300A — a summary of recordable work-related injuries and illnesses — by specific annual deadlines. Failing to comply carries penalties up to $14,502 per violation, and up to $145,027 for willful or repeated violations.

Reporting follows a three-step sequence: Form 301 (incident report) → Form 300 (ongoing log) → Form 300A (annual summary). Accurate records in the first two forms make the summary straightforward.

Proactive recordkeeping throughout the year is what makes OSHA compliance manageable at year-end.

Who must comply

• Required for employers with more than 10 employees in non-exempt, hazardous industries (agriculture, construction, manufacturing).
• Partially exempt industries include retail, finance, and other low-hazard environments — but specific incidents still trigger reporting obligations for all employers.
• All employers, regardless of exemption status, must report fatalities within 8 hours and amputations, hospitalizations, or loss of an eye within 24 hours.
• Exempt employers can still be required by OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics to complete Form 300A upon written notice.
• Non-exempt employers must submit Form 300A even if there are no injuries to report.

What counts as work-related and recordable

• Work-related: an event or exposure in the work environment caused, contributed to, or significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition.
• Recordable: results in death, loss of consciousness, days away from work, restricted activity or job transfer, or medical treatment beyond first aid.
• Additional recordable cases: needle-stick injuries contaminated with infectious material, medical removal under an OSHA health standard, tuberculosis infection after known exposure, and standard threshold shift (STS) in hearing loss.
• Presence of symptoms in the workplace does not automatically make a case work-related.

Step 1 — Form 301 incident report

• Complete within 7 calendar days of determining a case is work-related and recordable.
• An equivalent workers' comp or insurance report is acceptable if it captures the same information.
• Fields 1–5: employee's name, address, date of birth, date hired, and sex.
• Fields 6–8: treating healthcare professional's name, facility, address (if off-site), and whether the employee visited an ER or was hospitalised overnight.
• Fields 10–18: incident details — case number (from the Form 300 log), date and time, description of what the employee was doing, how the injury occurred, body part affected, and object or substance involved.
• Fields 14–17 must not contain personally identifiable information.
• Attach additional pages if needed to fully document any answer.

Step 2 — Form 300 log

• An ongoing document completed throughout the year; corresponds to Form 301 reports.
• Maintain a separate log for each physical location expected to remain in operation for a year or more.
• Enter the year, establishment name, city, and state in the top right corner.
• Each case is a row; complete all five columns: case number and employee ID, case description, outcome classification, days away or on restriction, and injury/illness type.
• Privacy cases (intimate body part, sexual assault, mental illness, HIV/hepatitis/TB, needle-stick, or employee request) — write "privacy case" instead of the employee's name.
• Classify each case by its most serious outcome; select only one outcome per case.
• The fillable PDF auto-totals columns — but only per page; manually add totals across multiple pages.
• Do not post or submit the log; retain it for five years.

Step 3 — Form 300A summary

• Transfer column totals from the Form 300 log to the corresponding fields on the left side of the form.
• Enter establishment name, address, industry description, and NAICS code on the right side.
• Enter the annual average number of employees and total hours worked; use the OSHA worksheet if these figures are not readily available.
• A company executive must certify the accuracy of the summary, providing their title, phone number, and date.
• Post in a highly visible area at each worksite from February 1 through April 30.
• Submit to OSHA via the online Injury Tracking Application by March 2.
• Common mistake: the fillable PDF only totals figures within a single page — manually sum across all log pages before transferring totals.