Legal updates

July 17, 2025

This week, OSHA announced updates to its penalty and debt collection procedures. OSHA calculates its penalties by considering the size of the employer, the gravity of the violation, the good faith of the employer, and the employer’s history of previous violations. Under OSHA’s updated guidance, employers who are cited by OSHA may be eligible for the following penalty reductions:

• Up to a 70% reduction for employers with up to 25 employees.
• A 20% penalty reduction for employers who have never been inspected by Federal or State OSHA (although this may not be applicable if the inspected employer is owned by, closely related to, or a successor of the employer).
• A 20% penalty reduction for employers who have been inspected in the past 5 years and were either found in compliance or only received other-than-serious violations.
• A 15% penalty reduction for employers who immediately take steps to address or correct a hazard.

OSHA’s new policy expands the number of employers that are eligible for penalty reductions and increases the amounts of those reductions. These changes can be found in  OSHA’s Field Operations Manual (“FOM”).

OSHA’s updated procedures are effective immediately. They apply to open investigations where citations have not been issued yet, as well as future investigations. The updated penalty procedures, however, do not apply to proposed penalties that OSHA issued before July 14, 2025; for those citations, the previous penalty structure governs.

OSHA’s new policy could result in significant penalty reductions, especially for small employers.