The OSHA 300 Log, Explained: What to Record and When

Published on 10/31/2026

An employee strains her back lifting a box, gets a prescription, and misses two days of work. Is that on the OSHA 300 log? The safety manager thinks so, the HR manager hopes not, and the answer matters - because the log feeds your injury rates, your workers' comp conversations, your customer prequalification forms, and, for many employers, a federal electronic submission.

This guide explains the OSHA 300 log in plain terms: what it is, what makes a case recordable, how the log relates to Forms 300A and 301, the deadlines that sneak up on people, and the mistakes that turn a simple log into a citation.

What the 300 log actually is

The OSHA 300 log is a running list, kept per establishment and per calendar year, of work-related injuries and illnesses that meet OSHA's recording criteria. Each line is one case: the person's name, job title, date, where it happened, a short description, and how the case is classified - days away from work, restricted duty or job transfer, other recordable, and whether it was an injury or an illness.

Two things about the log surprise people. First, it is a log of cases, not of blame: recording a case does not mean the employer was at fault, that anyone violated a rule, or that a workers' comp claim is valid. Second, it is an establishment-level record: a company with five sites keeps five logs, not one merged list at headquarters.

Recordable or not: the two-step test

Step one: is it work-related? An injury or illness is work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment caused or contributed to it, or significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition. OSHA lists specific exceptions - cases like a common cold, or an injury that happened purely in a parking lot before work - that are not work-related even though they happened at the workplace.

Step two: is it a new case, and does it meet at least one recording criterion? The criteria are death, days away from work, restricted work or job transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant diagnosed injury or illness. OSHA publishes a specific first-aid list; treatment that stays within that list (like a bandage or an over-the-counter pain reliever at OTC strength) does not by itself make a case recordable, while a prescription medication does.

When a case genuinely sits on a borderline, document your reasoning either way. A one-paragraph note on why you recorded - or did not record - a judgment call is what keeps a defensible decision from looking like a hidden one during an inspection.

300, 300A and 301: how the forms fit together

The 301 is where each case is actually investigated and described; the 300 is its one-line summary; the 300A is the year's totals. When they disagree with each other - a case on the 300 with no 301, totals on the 300A that do not match the 300 - inspectors notice, and so do the customers and insurers who ask for these numbers on prequalification questionnaires.

Deadlines and electronic submission

The calendar has four dates that matter. Within 7 calendar days of learning of a recordable case: the 300 entry and the 301 report. February 1: the 300A summary for the prior year goes up in a visible spot where employees can see it, and it stays posted through April 30. A company executive must certify the 300A as accurate - that signature is personal, not delegated to the intern who compiled it. And by March 2, covered establishments must submit the 300A data electronically through OSHA's Injury Tracking Application; certain larger establishments in designated high-hazard industries also submit 300 and 301 data. Verify which rules cover your establishment and headcount on OSHA's current recordkeeping page, because the electronic submission rules have been expanded in recent years.

Separate from the log: severe incidents have their own reporting clocks. A work-related fatality must be reported to OSHA within 8 hours, and an inpatient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours. Those reports happen by phone or online regardless of the log, and the log entry follows.

Mistakes that draw citations

One more: the 300A certified by the wrong person. OSHA expects a company executive - an owner, officer, or the highest-ranking official at the establishment - to attest to it. A summary certified by someone without that standing is, in OSHA's view, not certified.

Running the log all year, not in January

The plants with clean logs share one habit: the log is a byproduct of the incident process, not a separate annual project. Every incident gets investigated once, with the classification decision made while the facts are fresh, and the log updates itself from that record. January becomes a review, not a reconstruction.

A quarterly self-audit keeps it honest: pull the clinic or first-aid visit list, the workers' comp claims, and the supervisor incident reports, and confirm each one either appears on the log or has a documented reason it does not. Thirty minutes a quarter is what the alternative - a disputed log under inspection - is not.

Reader Q&A

Bottom line

This week, open this year's log and compare it against your clinic visits and incident reports. Every visit either has a log line or a documented reason it does not. That one reconciliation tells you whether January will be a review or a reconstruction.

This quarter, move classification decisions into the incident process itself, so the log updates as cases happen. The metric that matters: cases entered within 7 days of learning of them, at 100 percent. When that holds, the 300A in February is a signature, not a project - and the numbers on it actually describe your plant.

Author of the Blog Post

Ed Jhonson

Sourcing & Marketing Expert at VisitorFlow

Ed Jhonson is a Sourcing & Marketing Expert who writes content related to Technology and Engineering topics.