OSHA & regulation7 min read

OSHA 300, 300A and 301: what goes where and when it's due

A plant that runs 90 people year-round and takes on 40 summer students is a 130-employee establishment under one paragraph of 29 CFR 1904 and roughly a 100-employee establishment on the form that paragraph tells it to file. Both numbers are right. They answer different questions, and nothing in the regulation asks you to reconcile them.

That is the shape of the whole obligation. Three forms with different scopes, different clocks and different audiences, sitting behind a set of appendices that have to be checked one at a time rather than reasoned about from the company's main line of business. Here is what each form holds, when each obligation lands, and where multi-site employers get electronic submission wrong. This is US federal law only; Canadian sites have no equivalent obligation, covered at the end.

What each of the three forms actually captures

Under § 1904.29(a) you must use the OSHA 300, 300-A and 301 forms, or equivalent forms. An equivalent form is one that "has the same information, is as readable and understandable, and is completed using the same instructions" (§ 1904.29(b)(4)), which is why an insurance form often stands in for the 301.