How to Correct or Update the OSHA 300 Log

The Log Is a Living Record

A common misconception is that once you write a case on the OSHA 300 log, the entry is locked. It isn't. OSHA requires you to keep the log current for five years — adding cases you learn about late and revising cases whose outcome changes. Knowing how to do that correctly — versus in a way that looks like tampering — is its own skill.

At a glance: You must update the stored 300 log throughout the 5-year retention period (1904.33) to add newly discovered recordable cases and to reflect changes in classification, outcome, or day counts. You are not required to update the 300A or the 301 (you may). When a case changes, remove or line out the original entry and enter the new information (1904.33(b)(1)); lining out keeps the history visible. Never backdate. A privacy case stays on the log with "privacy case" in place of the name, and the names go on a separate confidential list (1904.29(b)(6)). OSHA requires you to keep the 300 log current for five years, adding late-discovered cases and reclassifying cases whose outcome changed; when a case changes, you remove or line out the original entry and enter the new information.

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The Duty to Update (1904.33)

You keep the 300 log, 300A, and 301 for five years after the end of the calendar year they cover (1904.33(a)). But the 300 log is not just stored — it's maintained. Under 1904.33(b)(1), during that retention period you must update the stored 300 log to:

• Add newly discovered recordable injuries or illnesses — a case you didn't know about, or didn't realize was recordable, when the year closed; and
• Show any changes in the classification of a previously recorded case — a changed outcome, a corrected day count, a corrected classification.

The 300A summary and the 301 incident reports are different: you are not required to update them (1904.33(b)(2) and (b)(3)), though you may. So the living document is the log.

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How to Correct an Entry

29 CFR 1904.33(b)(1) gives the method: if the description or outcome of a case changes, you must remove or line out the original entry and enter the new information. Both are allowed. Lining out is the habit to prefer:

1. Draw a line through the incorrect entry.
2. Enter the correct information alongside or in the corrected field.
3. Keep the log legible so both the original and the correction are visible.

Why prefer lining out? A visible correction shows what changed, which makes it easy to explain to an employee who asks for the log or to an inspector. What the rule never allows is a knowingly false record, such as a change backdated to hide when you learned of a case: Section 17(g) of the OSH Act, 29 U.S.C. 666(g), makes a knowingly false statement in a required record a crime.

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Late-Discovered Cases: The Seven-Day Clock Starts When You Learn

A case you learn about after the year closed still goes on that year's stored log (1904.33(b)(1)), and the timing rule is the ordinary one: 29 CFR 1904.29(b)(3) gives you seven calendar days from receiving information that a recordable injury or illness occurred to enter it on the 300 log and the 301. If the late case is a fatality or an in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye that you also had to report, the reporting clock under 29 CFR 1904.39 is separate from the recording clock.

The corrected log is not a private document. An employee, former employee or employee representative who asks for a current or stored 300 log gets a copy by the end of the next business day (29 CFR 1904.35(b)(2)(iii)), and an authorized government representative gets the records within four business hours (29 CFR 1904.40(a)). A log kept on a computer is fine if the system can produce equivalent forms when they are needed (29 CFR 1904.29(b)(5)).

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Reclassifying a Case Whose Outcome Changed

The most common real-world update is a case that gets more serious (or less) after you first logged it. A worker you recorded as restricted duty is later put off work entirely; a case you logged as days-away resolves faster than expected. To reclassify:

• Line out the original outcome box, and check the new, most-serious box (G–J).
• Update the day counts in the correct columns (K for days away, L for restricted/transfer), remembering the calendar-day counting and the 180-day cap (1904.7(b)(3)(vii)).
• The log should always reflect the case's current, most serious outcome.

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Privacy Cases: the Name Stays Off the Log

Some corrections involve privacy-concern cases. For the cases listed in 1904.29(b)(6)–(9) — injuries to intimate body parts or the reproductive system, sexual-assault injuries, mental illnesses, HIV/hepatitis/tuberculosis, needlestick and sharps injuries contaminated with another person's blood/OPIM, and any illness where the employee asks that their name be left off — the case stays on the log, you enter "privacy case" instead of the name (1904.29(b)(6)), and you keep a separate, confidential list matching case numbers to names. If you're correcting one of these, correct it on the log and on that confidential list — and never expose the name in the process.

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What You Do Not Do

• Don't re-post a prior year's 300A. The February 1–April 30 posting is for the year that just closed; correcting an old log doesn't restart a posting duty for that year.
• Don't destroy a stored log: 1904.33(a) requires five years of retention. Correct the entry instead.
• Don't backdate a correction to make it look contemporaneous.
• Don't falsify. Correcting the log is required; knowingly falsifying records is a criminal offense under Section 17(g) of the OSH Act (29 U.S.C. 666(g)). The line between them is intent — accuracy versus concealment.

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The standard, tools & related reading

• The standard: Retention & updating — 29 CFR 1904.33 · Forms & privacy cases — 1904.29 · Recordkeeping hub
• On the job: OSHA 300A Auto-Filler · OSHA 301 Incident Form · Record Retention Calculator
• Related reading: OSHA 300 Log Requirements · Forms 300, 300A & 301 · When Is an Injury Recordable?

A corrected log is a strong log — the goal is a record that's accurate today, not one that's frozen in the version you first guessed.