OSHA 300 vs 300A vs 301: The Three Logs Every Contractor Must Keep

Every year, sometime around February, thousands of contractors scramble to post a single sheet of paper nobody told them about — and then scramble again in March when an ISNetworld renewal asks for their OSHA 300A data.

If you've ever stared at an ISN questionnaire wondering which number goes where, this guide is for you. We're going to break down the three OSHA recordkeeping forms — 300, 300A, and 301 — what each one captures, when you need them, and how your ISN clients use them to evaluate your safety record.

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Why OSHA Recordkeeping Exists

OSHA's recordkeeping requirements (29 CFR Part 1904) apply to most employers with 11 or more employees. The system exists to track work-related injuries and illnesses — not to punish contractors, but to surface patterns that can prevent the next incident.

For contractors in ISNetworld, Avetta, or other prequalification platforms, these records carry a second purpose: they're the raw material for your TRIR (Total Recordable Incident Rate) and DART (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) rate. Those two numbers follow you to every jobsite bid and every grade renewal.

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OSHA Form 300: The Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses

Form 300 is the running record you maintain throughout the year. Every time a work-related injury or illness meets OSHA's recording threshold, it gets a line on the 300 log within seven calendar days of learning about it.

What goes on Form 300

• Employee name (or a case number if privacy rules apply)
• Job title at time of injury
• Date of injury or onset of illness
• Location where the event occurred
• Brief description of what happened and the resulting injury or illness
• Classification: days away from work, restricted or transferred duty, or "other recordable"
• Number of calendar days away from work
• Number of calendar days on restricted duty or job transfer
• Injury type: injury, skin disorder, respiratory condition, poisoning, hearing loss, or all other illnesses

What does NOT go on Form 300

First-aid-only cases are not recordable — bandaging a minor cut, administering a single dose of OTC medication, applying a non-prescription-strength topical. Neither are visits to a doctor that result only in a recommendation to rest at home with no formal work restrictions. The recording threshold requires medical treatment beyond first aid, days away from work, restricted or transferred duty, loss of consciousness, or a significant diagnosis by a healthcare professional.

Privacy cases

OSHA requires you to withhold the employee's name for certain sensitive diagnoses — sexual assaults, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, needle-stick injuries, and sexual harassment. In those cases, enter "privacy case" in the name column and maintain a separate confidential list linking case numbers to employees.

Retention requirement

Retain completed Form 300 logs for five years following the end of the calendar year they cover. Employees, former employees, and their personal representatives have the right to access the log. You must provide it by the end of the next business day if requested.

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OSHA Form 300A: The Annual Summary

At the end of each calendar year, you total up the Form 300 columns and transfer those totals onto Form 300A. Think of it as the annual report derived from the running log. If you had zero recordable incidents, you still complete the 300A — showing all zeros.

What's on Form 300A

• Total number of deaths
• Total cases with days away from work
• Total cases with job transfer or restriction
• Total other recordable cases
• Total days away from work (across all cases)
• Total days of job transfer or restriction
• Injury type totals matching Form 300 categories
• Total hours worked by all employees during the year
• Annual average number of employees

The hours-worked figure is the denominator in your TRIR and DART calculations. Getting it wrong — using payroll hours instead of actual hours worked, excluding salaried employees, forgetting temporary workers — is one of the most common causes of inaccurate rates.

The February 1 – April 30 posting requirement

This is the requirement most contractors miss. You must post Form 300A in a conspicuous location where employees can read it from February 1 through April 30 every year — even if you had zero incidents. A common location is the break room or beside the time clock. The form must be certified and signed by a company executive (owner, officer, or highest-ranking manager at the establishment) before posting.

Electronic submission to OSHA

OSHA's Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses rule (29 CFR 1904.41) requires certain establishments to submit 300A data electronically through OSHA's Injury Tracking Application (ITA) at injurytracking.osha.gov. The deadline is March 2 each year for the prior calendar year's data.

Who must submit electronically:

• Establishments with 250 or more employees covered by OSHA recordkeeping rules
• Establishments with 20–249 employees in OSHA-designated high-hazard industries — which includes most construction and specialty trade NAICS codes

If you're a subcontractor in oil and gas, heavy construction, or specialty trades with 20 or more employees, there's a strong chance you're required to file electronically. Look up your NAICS code on OSHA's current high-hazard industry list to confirm.

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OSHA Form 301: The Injury and Illness Incident Report

Every case that gets a line on Form 300 also requires a corresponding Form 301 — or an equivalent workers' compensation first report of injury that captures the same information. This is your internal case file for each recordable incident.

What Form 301 captures

• Employee information: name, address, date of birth, date hired
• Name and address of physician or healthcare professional who provided treatment
• Was the employee treated in an emergency room?
• Was the employee hospitalized overnight as an in-patient?
• Exactly what the employee was doing when injured
• What happened — how the injury or illness occurred
• What object or substance directly caused the injury
• Date of injury, time of injury, time employee began work that day
• Description of the injury or illness, body part affected

What Form 301 is NOT

Form 301 is not posted and not submitted to OSHA under normal circumstances. It is your internal documentation. Complete it within seven calendar days of the recordable incident and retain it for five years. OSHA inspectors can request it during an inspection. Employees involved in the case have the right to a copy.

Workers' comp substitution

If your state workers' compensation first report of injury form captures all the same information required by Form 301, you can use it as a substitute. Most contractors staple the WC form to a printed 301 anyway. If your WC form is missing any required 301 field, you need to supplement it.

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At a Glance: Which Form Does What

Form 300 — The running log. One line per recordable case. Updated throughout the year within seven days of each incident. Retained internally for five years. Not submitted to OSHA.

Form 300A — The annual summary. Totals transferred from the 300 log at year-end. Signed by a company executive. Posted February 1 through April 30. Submitted electronically to OSHA by March 2 if required. Retained for five years.

Form 301 — The incident report. One per recordable case. Completed within seven calendar days of the incident. Internal only. Retained for five years.

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How ISNetworld Uses Your OSHA Records

ISNetworld pulls your safety statistics directly from what you report in your RAVS questionnaire — which should match your 300A exactly. Specifically, ISN uses:

• Total recordable incidents (from 300A column totals) → to calculate TRIR
• Days away, restricted, or transferred cases (300A) → to calculate DART
• Total hours worked (300A) → the denominator in both formulas
• Number of employees (300A) → for additional context metrics

ISN benchmarks your TRIR and DART rates against your industry NAICS code using Bureau of Labor Statistics data. If your rates exceed the industry average, your score drops — sometimes before you notice. If your rates exceed a client-specific threshold (which some operators set as low as 1.0 TRIR), you can be automatically flagged or disqualified from certain work categories.

Common mistake: Entering payroll hours instead of actual hours worked on Form 300A. If your crews work regular overtime, payroll hours often understate actual exposure hours — which overstates your incident rate. Use actual time records from your timekeeping system.

Three years of history

ISN's scoring algorithm and most hiring clients look at a three-year rolling average of your rates, not just the current year. One bad year is recoverable. A three-year pattern above the industry average is much harder to explain away.

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Download: Official OSHA Log Templates

The official fillable PDF versions of all three forms are available directly from OSHA at osha.gov/recordkeeping/forms. These are the authoritative versions — use them rather than third-party reproductions, which sometimes contain outdated field labels.

OSHA also provides an online tutorial on recordkeeping requirements if you're setting up these logs for the first time.

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Keep It Simple

The system is less complicated than it looks. Keep Form 300 updated all year. Transcribe the totals to Form 300A in January, get it signed, post it February 1, file electronically by March 2 if required. Keep a Form 301 for every case. Retain everything for five years.

What trips contractors up is not the paperwork — it's the downstream impact. Inconsistent hours reporting, missed restricted-duty classifications, or a single miscounted incident can move your TRIR by a full point and follow you through an entire renewal cycle on ISNetworld.

If you want to make sure your OSHA data matches what ISN expects before your next renewal, PrequalPilot tracks your incident data, calculates your rates automatically, and alerts you when something looks inconsistent — before your client sees it first.