The 300A must be posted from February 1 to April 30 each year. Here is the complete compliance checklist, and the fines for getting it wrong.
Of all the obligations OSHA imposes on employers, posting the Form 300A is one of the simplest. It is also one of the most commonly fumbled, because the rule is easy to summarize and surprisingly easy to get wrong in the details. The wrong person signs it. It goes up late or comes down early. It lands on a wall nobody walks past. And because the posting period is the same window every year, an inspector who finds it missing knows immediately that the lapse was avoidable.
The good news is that compliance here is entirely within your control. There are no judgment calls about severity or hazard classification, just a small set of rules and three dates. This guide lays out exactly what to post, when, who has to do it, how to do it correctly, and what it costs if you don’t, with current 2026 figures and a checklist you can work straight through.
What the 300A actually is
OSHA’s recordkeeping system runs on three forms, and it helps to keep them straight. The Form 300 is the running log in which you record each work-related injury or illness as it occurs during the year. The Form 301 is the detailed incident report for each individual case. The Form 300A is the annual summary: it takes the totals from your 300 log for the prior calendar year and rolls them up into one page, broken out by case type (deaths, days away, restricted or transferred, other recordable) and by body part.
The 300A is the only one of the three you posted publicly. The 300 and 301 contain case-level detail and stay in your records. The 300A summary goes on the wall, which is why getting it right matters: it is the one piece of your injury data your employees see every year.
Who has to post it
The posting requirement applies to most employers with more than 10 employees (11 or more) at any point during the previous calendar year. Two groups are partially exempt from routine recordkeeping and posting:
- Employers that had 10 or fewer employees at all times during the previous year.
- Employers in specific low-hazard industries that OSHA designates by NAICS code (listed in Appendix A to Subpart B).
Two important caveats. First, even if you are exempt from routine recordkeeping, you are never exempt from reporting severe incidents: every employer, regardless of size or industry, must report a fatality within 8 hours and an inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye within 24 hours. Second, having a clean year does not let you off the hook. If you are a covered employer, you must post a 300A even if you had zero recordable injuries. You simply post it with zeros.
The three dates that matter
This is where most of the trouble lives, because people conflate two separate obligations: posting and electronic submission. They are not the same thing, and they have different deadlines.
- Certify by January 31. Before the 300A goes up, a company executive must review and certify it. Do this by the end of January so it is ready to post on February 1.
- Post February 1 through April 30. The certified 300A must be physically displayed for the full three-month window. Up by February 1, down no earlier than May 1.
- Submit electronically by March 2, if required. In addition to posting, many employers must submit their data to OSHA through the Injury Tracking Application. This is a different action with a different deadline, and doing one does not satisfy the other.
To be clear about that last point: posting the 300A on your break room wall does not submit it to OSHA, and submitting it through the ITA does not satisfy the posting requirement. If you are a covered employer, you do both.
On electronic submission specifically, the current thresholds are: establishments with 250 or more employees (outside exempt industries) submit their 300A; establishments with 20 to 249 employees in designated high-hazard industries submit their 300A; and establishments with 100 or more employees in the high-hazard industries listed in Appendix B must also submit the case detail from their 300 and 301 forms. If you are unsure, OSHA’s ITA Coverage Application tells you whether you are required to submit.
How to post it correctly
The details below are exactly where citations come from, so they are worth getting right.
The right person has to sign it. The 300A must be certified by a company executive: an owner, a corporate officer, the highest-ranking company official at the establishment, or that person’s direct supervisor. It cannot be certified by the HR generalist or the safety coordinator on their own authority. The certification is a statement that the summary is true, accurate, and complete, and an unsigned or improperly signed 300A is non-compliant on its face.
It has to be somewhere people actually see it. Post the signed form in a conspicuous place where you customarily post notices to employees: a break room, by the time clock, at a common entrance, or on a shared bulletin board. Employees must be able to see and read it without asking anyone’s permission. A form locked in an office, tucked behind glass, or buried on a wall nobody passes does not meet the standard.
An intranet post alone usually is not enough. Storing the 300A on a company portal or emailing it around does not by itself satisfy the posting requirement. Electronic posting may be acceptable only if it is genuinely equivalent in visibility and access to a physical posting, including for workers who rarely come on site. For most employers, the safe move is to post physically at each establishment.
One posting per physical establishment. Each covered worksite with 11 or more employees gets its own posted summary reflecting that location’s data.
The complete 300A compliance checklist
Work through this list each year:
- Confirm whether you are covered or partially exempt (employee count and industry NAICS code).
- Verify your 300 log is complete and accurate for the prior calendar year, including any cases discovered or updated late.
- Calculate the summary totals and the establishment’s average employee count and total hours worked.
- Double-check case classifications, especially that first-aid-only cases are not recorded as recordable.
- Have a qualified company executive certify the 300A.
- Post the signed 300A in a conspicuous, accessible location at each establishment by February 1.
- Keep it posted continuously through April 30.
- Determine whether you must submit electronically via the ITA Coverage Application.
- If required, submit your 2025 data through the ITA by March 2, including your legal company name.
- After April 30, retain the 300, 300A, and 301 forms for five years, updating the 300 log if new information emerges.
What happens if you don’t
Posting and recordkeeping failures are real violations, and OSHA cites them. They generally fall in the “other-than-serious” category, which carries the same statutory maximum as a serious violation. As of 2026, the maximum is $16,550 per violation, and willful or repeat violations carry a maximum of $165,514 per violation. Penalties are assessed per violation, so a recordkeeping review that turns up several distinct failures can add up quickly.
The most common citations are entirely preventable: posting an unsigned 300A, posting it late or taking it down early, placing it where employees cannot readily see it, failing to post at all, missing the electronic submission deadline, and misclassifying cases (recording first-aid-only incidents as recordable, or failing to record cases that should have been). None of these is a judgment-call hazard. They are paperwork lapses that an inspector can spot in minutes.
There is also a quieter, second cost. The injury data you record and submit is the same data OSHA uses to decide which sites to inspect through its Site-Specific Targeting program. Inaccurate records or a missed submission do not just risk a recordkeeping citation; they can raise your odds of a programmed inspection in the first place. Clean, accurate, on-time recordkeeping is both a compliance obligation and a way to keep your establishment off the agency’s radar.
Where occupational health support helps
For a single small site, the 300A is a manageable annual task. Across multiple establishments, mixed industries, and a year’s worth of injury cases that all had to be classified correctly in real time, it gets harder, and the failure points multiply. The summary is only as accurate as the 300 log behind it, and that log is built one recordability decision at a time, all year long.
This is where an occupational health partner earns its keep. HealthcareLive’s occupational health support helps ensure each case is classified correctly when it happens, so your 300 log is defensible, your 300A totals are accurate, your certifications and submissions land on time, and you are neither over-recording yourself onto OSHA’s target list nor under-recording your way into a willful-violation problem. Good recordkeeping is not glamorous, but it is one of the cleanest forms of risk reduction available, and it is far easier when the clinical and paperwork sides are connected.
The bottom line
The 300A is the most predictable compliance obligation on your calendar. Same form, same window, same rules every year. Certify it by the end of January, post it from February 1 through April 30, where your people can actually see it, submit it electronically by March 2 if required, and keep your records for five years. Get the details right, and this is a non-event. Get them wrong, and you are handing an inspector an easy citation, with fines that start in the five figures. If you want the recordkeeping behind your 300A to be accurate and audit-ready, HealthcareLive can help you build that foundation.
Frequently asked questions
When does the OSHA 300A have to be posted in 2026? The Form 300A must be posted from February 1 through April 30, 2026, reflecting calendar year 2025 injury and illness data. It should be certified by a company executive before posting, ideally by January 31, and kept up continuously through the end of April.
Who is required to post the 300A? Most employers with more than 10 employees at any time during the previous calendar year must post it. Employers with 10 or fewer employees, and those in certain low-hazard industries designated by OSHA, are partially exempt from routine recordkeeping and posting, though they must still report severe incidents.
Do I have to post the 300A if we had no injuries? Yes. Covered employers must post a 300A even with zero recordable injuries. You post it showing zeros.
Who can sign and certify the 300A? A company executive: an owner, a corporate officer, the highest-ranking company official at the establishment, or that person’s direct supervisor. An HR generalist or safety coordinator cannot provide the certification on their own authority, and an unsigned 300A is non-compliant.
Is posting the 300A the same as submitting it to OSHA electronically? No. They are two separate obligations. Posting means physically displaying the certified summary at the worksite from February 1 to April 30. Electronic submission means filing the data through OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application by March 2, a requirement that applies only to certain employers. Doing one does not satisfy the other.
What are the penalties for not posting the 300A? Posting and recordkeeping failures are typically cited as other-than-serious violations, with a 2026 maximum of $16,550 per violation. Willful or repeat violations carry penalties of up to $165,514 per violation.
How long do I keep OSHA injury and illness records? You must retain the 300 log, the 300A summary, and the 301 incident reports for five years following the year they cover, and update the 300 log during that period if you learn new information about a recorded case.
Sources and methodology
This article reflects current OSHA recordkeeping requirements and 2026 compliance guidance, drawn from OSHA’s recordkeeping and Injury Tracking Application resources, as well as 2026 compliance summaries published by Catapult, isolved, LP Insurance, HR Works, and other employer advisories. Key points include the February 1 to April 30 posting window, executive certification requirements, conspicuous-location and accessibility rules, the partial exemptions for small and low-hazard employers, the March 2 electronic submission deadline and current submission thresholds, the five-year retention requirement, and the 2026 penalty maximums of $16,550 per other-than-serious violation and up to $165,514 for willful or repeat violations. Penalty amounts are adjusted periodically for inflation, and state-plan states may impose additional or different requirements, so confirm current figures and your specific obligations with OSHA or your state agency.
Occupational health recordkeeping support described here reflects HealthcareLive’s own service offering and network experience.
