How to Read an OSHA Inspection Record

What is an OSHA Inspection?

OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is the federal agency responsible for enforcing workplace safety standards in the United States. When OSHA inspects a workplace, they create a record that documents what they found, any violations cited, and penalties assessed.

Having an inspection on record is common. OSHA conducts approximately 30,000-35,000 inspections per year across millions of U.S. workplaces. Many inspections are routine and do not result in violations.

Why Was This Company Inspected?

The inspection type tells you why OSHA visited. The most common types are:

• Planned: A routine, scheduled inspection targeting high-hazard industries. This is the most common type and does not mean a complaint was filed.
• Complaint: Triggered by a worker or worker representative filing a safety complaint. Workers have the right to file complaints anonymously.
• Referral: Initiated based on a tip from another agency, another OSHA inspector, or an outside source.
• Fatality/Catastrophe: Triggered by a workplace death, or a report of in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye (29 CFR 1904.39).
• Follow-up: A return visit to verify that previously cited violations were corrected.

Understanding Violation Types

Not all violations are equal. OSHA classifies violations by severity:

How Penalties Work

OSHA calculates penalties based on the gravity of the violation, then adjusts for three factors:

• Employer size: Reductions based on number of employees, with the largest reductions for the smallest employers
• Good faith: Up to 25% reduction for employers with effective safety and health management programs
• History: Up to 20% reduction for employers with no serious, willful, repeat, or failure-to-abate violations in the past five years

The penalty amounts shown on SafetyRecord.org reflect the current amounts on record in the DOL database, which may differ from the initial assessment after informal conferences, settlements, or adjudication.

What the Numbers Mean in Context

A few things to keep in mind when reviewing an employer's record:

• More inspections does not mean worse safety. Large companies and companies in construction or manufacturing are inspected more often simply because of their size and industry.
• Zero violations is good, but not unusual. Many inspections result in no citations, especially for employers with strong safety programs.
• Old records may not reflect current conditions. A violation from 2005 says nothing about workplace conditions in 2025. Look at the dates.
• Penalty amounts vary widely. A $500 penalty and a $150,000 penalty represent very different levels of concern. The violation type (Serious vs. Willful) and the penalty amount together tell the real story.

OSHA Standards

Each violation cites a specific OSHA standard (a rule from the Code of Federal Regulations). Standards are identified by numbers like 1910.134 (respiratory protection) or 1926.501 (fall protection in construction). The standard tells you exactly what rule was violated.

Standards starting with 1910 apply to general industry. Standards starting with 1926 apply to construction. Standards starting with 1904 relate to recordkeeping requirements.

Where Does This Data Come From?

All data on SafetyRecord.org comes directly from the U.S. Department of Labor's public enforcement database, accessed through the DOL data API. This is the same data available on osha.gov, organized by employer for easier lookup.

For more information about OSHA and workplace safety, see the OSHA Glossary.