How Long Do You Have to Keep Each OSHA Record? The Chart, With Citations

Five years for the injury log, counted from the end of the calendar year, not from the day you filled it in. Thirty years for the chemical inventory, not the five that most retention screens default to. And for the training sign-in your general contractor swears must be kept "at least a year": no federal duration exists at all. Ask three vendors how long to keep OSHA records and you will get three confident tables; what you will rarely get is a citation on each line, because for a good share of those lines, there is nothing to cite.

That gap is not academic. Answer it wrong in one direction and you destroy a record the government still has a right to see. Answer it wrong in the other and you build storage policy, and software configuration, around obligations that were invented by a training vendor's marketing department.

At a glance: 300 Log, privacy case list, 300A and 301s: 5 years following the end of the calendar year covered (1904.33(a)). Exposure records, meaning SDS with a substitution option and the chemical inventory: 30 years (1910.1020(d)(1)(ii), (c)(5)). Medical records: employment plus 30 years (1910.1020(d)(1)(i)). Fit tests: until the next test (1910.134(m)(2)). Canceled confined-space permits: at least 1 year (1910.146(e)(6)). Most everything else (training files, toolbox talks, JHAs, near-miss reports, LOTO and PPE certifications): no federal duration. OSHA requires the 300 Log, 300A and 301 forms to be kept five years following the end of the calendar year they cover, exposure records and the chemical inventory for thirty years, medical records for employment plus thirty years, and respirator fit tests until the next test, while many common safety records, including training files and toolbox talks, have no federal retention period at all.

The chart

Every line was verified against the standard's text — including the lines whose verified answer is "nothing there."

Three lines deserve a second read, because they are the three the market most often gets wrong.

The 1904 anchor: calendar year, not creation date

1904.33(a) says five years "following the end of the calendar year that these records cover." A 301 for a January 15, 2026 injury is not disposable on January 15, 2031 — it runs through December 31, 2031. A retention system that starts its clock at the entry date under-keeps every record by up to a year, and does it silently, which is the worst way. (While the clock runs, remember the asymmetry of (b): the 300 Log must be updated with newly discovered cases and reclassifications; the 300A and the 301s are left as filed.)

The 30-year records hiding in your chemical program

1910.1020's definition of an exposure record is broader than most filing systems assume. It reaches the SDS of anything hazardous your crews used — with the useful substitution in (d)(1)(ii)(B): you may discard the sheets if you keep a 30-year record of what the substance was, where it was used, and when. And in the absence of monitoring data and SDS, it reaches the chemical inventory itself ((c)(5)(iv)). The inventory your site trailer treats as this month's shopping list is, in the eyes of 1910.1020, a 30-year exposure history. For the deep dive, see our 30-year record retention guide.

"No federal duration" is an answer — treat it like one

Look down the right-hand column: forklift certifications, PPE assessments, LOTO certifications, training files, toolbox talks, JHAs. The confident "OSHA minimums" the market attaches to these (one year, three years, five years) have no federal source. Take the 25 record types a retention screen typically lists and put each one against the standards' text: 19 of the "OSHA requirement" durations that circulate for them have no basis in any standard, and 2 run lower than the real requirement (the chemical inventory, and the 1904 family through the creation-date error).

A retention screen that prints such a number on every row is writing law that does not exist, and the fix is not a better number. A record with no federal duration deserves a retention policy — litigation exposure, State Plan rules, and contract terms are all real reasons to keep things — but the label must say policy, because an inspector who asks "where does OSHA require this?" is owed a citation or an honest "it doesn't."

Three cautions before you shorten anything. State Plans can impose retention federal OSHA doesn't — check yours before applying this chart as a ceiling. And an active legal hold overrides every line of it: a record under hold cannot be deleted no matter what the schedule says, which is its own subject. And the chart assumes you can still open the system holding the records: if they live in a safety platform you are about to walk away from, the retention clocks outlive the subscription — what happens to your OSHA records when you cancel your safety software covers the exit.

What HazComFast does with this chart

In plain terms:

• Every document is assigned a retention category at creation — a record with an invented category is refused by the system itself, not by a guideline, on the screen and on the paths that bypass it.
• A legal hold blocks deletion regardless of the calendar, and the refusal comes from the database, not from a reminder.
• Every deletion attempt made through the application leaves a line in a journal that accepts no edits.
• No invented "OSHA minimum" on the retention screen — the numbers this article refuses to make up, the product refuses to display. What OSHA requires is cited; what it does not is labeled policy.
• Nothing is purged automatically when a retention period ends — deleting a record stays a human act, and it is traced.

The hub & related: OSHA recordkeeping — 300, 300A & 301 · 30-Year Record Retention: 1910.1020 · OSHA Forms 300/300A/301 Guide · Do SDS Expire? · Legal Hold & Record Locking · The Citation Defense Package

Sources & verification: 1904 retention and updating per 29 CFR 1904.33, verified against the CFR text 2026-08-27; exposure/medical record definitions, durations, and the SDS substitution per 29 CFR 1910.1020(c)(5), (d)(1), verified 2026-08-27; fit tests (m)(2) and medical evaluations (m)(1) per 29 CFR 1910.134; canceled permits per 1910.146(e)(6); noise per 1910.95(m)(3); cranes per 1926.1412; forklift (l)(6), PPE (d)(2), LOTO (c)(6)(ii)/(c)(7)(iv), HazCom (e)(1)/(h) — each verified against the standard's text by our regulatory review on 2026-07-28 (25 record types confronted line by line, the source of the "19 invented minimums" figure). Product behavior verified on the live product on August 23, 2026. State Plans may impose additional retention; a legal hold overrides this chart. General guidance, not legal advice.