Employer's Guide to OSHA Training Requirements (2026)

This content is for informational purposes only. It isn’t legal advice and doesn’t create any professional relationship. Consult a qualified safety professional or attorney for your specific situation.

Most employers get this backwards. They think workers are responsible for getting their own safety training. Workers show up, flash a card, and that’s that.

Wrong. OSHA puts the training obligation on the employer. Not the worker. If someone gets hurt because they weren’t trained on a hazard, OSHA cites the employer. Every time.

That’s the part that surprises a lot of business owners. You can’t just hire people and hope they already know how to avoid getting killed by a forklift or a trench collapse. The law says it’s your job to train them before they face the hazard.

What OSHA Actually Requires

Three things drive OSHA’s training requirements: the General Duty Clause, specific training standards, and documentation.

The General Duty Clause

Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act is the catch-all. It says employers must provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.” Even where no specific standard mentions training, OSHA can cite you under the General Duty Clause if you knew about a hazard and didn’t train workers on it.

This matters. It means OSHA’s training requirements aren’t limited to the list of specific standards below. If a hazard exists at your site, your workers need to know about it.

Specific Training Standards

OSHA has over 100 individual standards that include training requirements. Each one tells you exactly who must be trained, what topics must be covered, and how often retraining is required.

Some of the most common:

• Fall protection, 29 CFR 1926.503
• Hazard communication (HazCom), 29 CFR 1910.1200
• Lockout/tagout, 29 CFR 1910.147
• Powered industrial trucks (forklifts), 29 CFR 1910.178
• Respiratory protection, 29 CFR 1910.134
• Confined space entry, 29 CFR 1910.146 and 1926.1203
• Personal protective equipment, 29 CFR 1910.132
• Bloodborne pathogens, 29 CFR 1910.1030
• Fire prevention and extinguishers, 29 CFR 1910.157
• HAZWOPER, 29 CFR 1910.120

That’s not the full list. It’s just where most employers run into trouble. For the most common violations employers get cited for, check our most cited OSHA violations breakdown.

Documentation

Training that isn’t documented didn’t happen. That’s the standard OSHA inspectors work from. If you can’t show records that a worker was trained on a specific hazard before being exposed to it, you’ll get cited as if no training occurred.

More on documentation below.

Training Requirements by Industry

The specific training your workers need depends on what hazards they face. Here’s what the major industry groups are required to provide.

Construction Employers

Construction carries the highest fatality rate of any major industry. OSHA’s training requirements reflect that.

Fall protection (1926.503). Every worker exposed to fall hazards of 6 feet or more must receive training. That training must be provided by a competent person who can identify fall hazards and has authority to correct them. Retraining is required whenever there’s reason to believe a worker doesn’t understand the hazards. Get the full details on fall protection training.

Scaffolding (1926.454). Workers who build, move, or use scaffolds must be trained by a competent person. Topics include recognizing hazards, proper construction procedures, load capacity, and fall protection while on scaffolds.

Excavation and trenching (1926.651). Workers entering excavations must know how to recognize cave-in hazards. A competent person must inspect trenches daily before work starts and after any event that could change conditions, like rain. Trench collapses kill dozens of workers every year.

Electrical safety (1926.405, .416, .417). Workers working on or near electrical equipment must be trained on the specific electrical hazards they’ll face.

Confined space (1926.1207). Construction employers sending workers into permit-required confined spaces must train each worker on the hazards, entry procedures, and rescue plans. See our confined space training page for full requirements.

OSHA 10 and OSHA 30. These outreach courses aren’t required by federal OSHA. But several states and most general contractors require OSHA 10 for workers and OSHA 30 for supervisors. In New York City, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and a handful of other states, OSHA 10 is a legal requirement for construction site access. Check our state pages for your specific state’s rules.

For a full comparison of OSHA 10 and 30, see OSHA 10 vs OSHA 30.

Manufacturing and Warehousing Employers

Manufacturing and warehousing have their own set of high-risk hazards. Most of these fall under general industry standards (29 CFR 1910).

Forklift operation (1910.178). This one catches a lot of employers off guard. OSHA requires that every forklift operator receive formal instruction, practical training, and an evaluation before operating a powered industrial truck. Training must be provided by a person with the knowledge, training, and experience to train operators. Employers must also evaluate each operator’s performance at least once every three years.

You can’t just hand someone keys and say “figure it out.” We break down the full process on our forklift certification page.

Lockout/tagout (1910.147). Workers who service or maintain machines must be trained on energy control procedures. “Authorized” employees who apply locks get one level of training. “Affected” employees who work in the area get another. And retraining is required whenever procedures change or inspections reveal gaps.

Hazard communication (1910.1200). If your workplace has chemicals, and nearly every workplace does, you must train workers on the specific chemical hazards they’ll encounter. This includes how to read Safety Data Sheets (SDS), what the GHS label symbols mean, and what to do during a spill or exposure. Training is required before initial assignment and whenever a new hazard is introduced.

Confined space (1910.146). General industry confined space rules are similar to construction rules but came first and are more established. Workers entering permit-required confined spaces must be trained on hazards, entry procedures, atmospheric monitoring, and rescue.

PPE (1910.132). Employers must train workers on when PPE is needed, what type is required, how to put it on and take it off correctly, and its limitations. This applies to everything from hard hats to chemical splash goggles.

Hazardous Materials Employers

Employers whose workers handle hazardous waste or respond to chemical releases face additional requirements under HAZWOPER (29 CFR 1910.120).

The training tiers are based on job duties:

• General site workers: 40 hours of off-site training plus 3 days of field experience. See our HAZWOPER 40 page.
• Occasional site workers: 24 hours of training plus 1 day of field experience.
• Emergency responders: training based on their response role, from awareness level to incident commander.
• Annual 8-hour refresher for all trained workers.

HAZWOPER training must be from a qualified instructor with experience in hazardous waste operations. Online-only training generally won’t satisfy the hands-on components.

General Industry and Office Employers

Even office employers have training obligations. They’re lighter than construction or manufacturing, but they exist.

Fire extinguisher training (1910.157). If you provide portable fire extinguishers for employee use, you must train workers on their operation when they’re first assigned and annually after that. If your fire plan calls for total evacuation instead, and workers aren’t expected to fight fires, you can skip this one. But then you must have a written fire prevention plan that says so.

Bloodborne pathogens (1910.1030). This applies to any employer whose workers may contact blood or other potentially infectious materials. That includes healthcare, janitorial services, first responders, and any workplace that designates first-aid responders. Training must happen before assignment and annually thereafter.

Emergency action plans (1910.38). Employers with a fire extinguisher obligation or those covered by certain other standards must have an emergency action plan. Workers must be trained on what to do during an evacuation, who to report emergencies to, and exit routes.

Ergonomics. OSHA doesn’t have a specific ergonomics standard. But under the General Duty Clause, employers with known ergonomic hazards (think repetitive motion injuries in a meatpacking plant) can still be cited for failing to address them.

What Happens If You Don’t Train Workers

OSHA doesn’t hand out warnings for training failures. They hand out fines.

The penalty structure breaks down like this:

These are 2024 penalty amounts from OSHA. Amounts adjust annually for inflation, so verify current figures at osha.gov/penalties.

Those numbers are per violation. If an OSHA inspector finds that 15 workers were never trained on fall protection, that could be 15 separate violations. One bad inspection can turn into a six-figure problem fast.

But fines aren’t the worst outcome.

A willful violation that results in a worker’s death can lead to criminal prosecution. Under the OSH Act, a willful violation causing death is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in jail and a $250,000 fine for an individual (or $500,000 for a corporation). Repeated offenses double the jail time.

And then there’s the civil side. Workers injured due to lack of training often have stronger personal injury claims. Training records, or the absence of them, show up in every lawsuit.

The most cited OSHA violations list is dominated by training failures. Fall protection, HazCom, forklift operation. These are all standards with explicit training requirements that employers keep missing.

State-Specific Requirements

Federal OSHA covers most private-sector employers. But 22 states (plus a few territories) run their own OSHA-approved state plans. These state plans must be “at least as effective” as federal OSHA. Many go further.

A few examples:

California (Cal/OSHA) has stricter heat illness prevention training, injury and illness prevention program (IIPP) requirements, and workplace violence prevention training. California’s IIPP requirement alone has no federal equivalent. Every California employer must have one.

New York requires OSHA 10 for all workers on public construction projects. New York City extends that to virtually all construction work within city limits.

Washington and Oregon both run their own state plans with additional requirements beyond federal OSHA, including agriculture-specific training mandates.

Check your state’s specific requirements on our state safety requirements hub. We cover the 14 largest states in detail, including links to each state’s regulatory agencies and any training mandates they add beyond federal rules.

Your state may also have training requirements outside of OSHA entirely. Workers’ compensation laws, state environmental agencies, and local building codes can all create additional training obligations.

How to Document Training

Good records are your best defense in an OSHA inspection. And most standards require them. Here’s what OSHA inspectors look for.

What to Include in Every Training Record

Each training record should capture:

• Name of the employee trained
• Date of the training
• Topic covered and which OSHA standard it addresses
• Name and qualifications of the trainer
• Duration of the training
• Method of training (classroom, hands-on, online, or combination)
• Signed acknowledgment from the employee

Some standards have additional requirements. Forklift training under 1910.178, for example, requires documentation of both the training and the operator evaluation. Confined space training under 1910.146 requires certification that includes the employee’s name, trainer’s signatures, and the date.

How Long to Keep Records

OSHA doesn’t have a single universal retention period. It varies by standard.

Bloodborne pathogens training records must be kept for 3 years. Respiratory protection training records for the duration of employment. Some standards don’t specify a period at all, in which case keep them for as long as the employee works for you, plus at least 3 years.

The safest approach: keep all training records for at least 5 years or 3 years past the employee’s departure, whichever is longer. Storage is cheap. Fines aren’t.

Common Documentation Mistakes

The biggest mistake isn’t missing records. It’s generic records. “John Smith completed safety training on 3/15/2026” tells an inspector nothing. Which hazards were covered? Which standard was addressed? Who delivered the training?

Another common gap: retraining documentation. Many standards require retraining when conditions change, when new hazards are introduced, or when an employer has reason to believe training wasn’t effective. If you retrain someone, document why and what changed.

Digital training platforms often handle documentation automatically. But check that the records they generate include everything listed above. Some online training providers produce certificates that look official but don’t include the trainer’s qualifications or the specific standards covered.

This content is for informational purposes only. It isn’t legal advice and doesn’t create any professional relationship. Consult a qualified safety professional or attorney for your specific situation.