The OSHA parking lot exception is narrower than most employers assume. It removes an injury from the 300 Log only when a moving vehicle used solely for commuting is involved in an accident on a company parking lot or access road. A slip on ice, a trip in a pothole, or a fall while climbing out of a parked car does not qualify, even though the injury happened in the same lot.1Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Whether to Record Two Cases of Employee Injuries Sustained in Company Parking Lot Everything else that happens in the lot starts out presumed work-related, and you need a different exception, or the case goes on the log.
What the Exception Actually Says
The rule sits at 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2)(vii). An injury is not work-related if it results from a motor vehicle accident on a company parking lot or company access road while the employee is commuting to or from work.2eCFR. 29 CFR 1904.5 – Determination of Work-Relatedness Three things all have to be true:
- The employee is commuting, not driving in the employer’s interest. Deliveries, travel between job sites, and work errands do not count as commuting.
- The accident happens on a parking lot or access road that is part of the employer’s establishment.
- A moving vehicle being used solely for commuting is involved.
OSHA reads that third condition narrowly. A “motor vehicle accident” means an incident involving a vehicle in motion, being used only for the commute at the time. Once the car is parked, it is no longer part of a motor vehicle accident for purposes of this exception.1Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Whether to Record Two Cases of Employee Injuries Sustained in Company Parking Lot
Two employees whose cars collide as they pull out at shift change? Both drivers are covered. A commuting driver who strikes another employee walking through the lot to the building? The exception covers both people.3Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Recordkeeping FAQ
Why the Underlying Presumption Matters
Under 29 CFR 1904.5(a), any injury is presumed work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment caused, contributed to, or significantly aggravated it. The work environment includes the employer’s entire establishment.4eCFR. 29 CFR 1904.5 – Determination of Work-Relatedness A company parking lot is part of that establishment, so injuries there are presumed work-related from the start.3Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Recordkeeping FAQ
Presumption is the whole reason exceptions exist. Without a specific one under 1904.5(b)(2), a parking lot injury that requires medical treatment beyond first aid, causes days away from work, or results in restricted duty must be recorded.5Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 29 CFR 1904.7 – General Recording Criteria
What the Exception Does Not Cover
Consider the employee who opens a car door in the lot, slips, and hits the pavement. A vehicle is involved, but nothing is moving. OSHA addressed exactly this in a 2008 interpretation letter: two employees fell while getting out of parked vehicles in a company lot. No moving vehicle was involved, so the exception did not apply and both cases were recordable.1Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Whether to Record Two Cases of Employee Injuries Sustained in Company Parking Lot
The same logic covers slips on ice, twisted ankles in potholes, and trips over parking blocks or curbs. These are not motor vehicle accidents. Subsection (vii) does nothing for them. Because the lot is part of the work environment, the presumption of work-relatedness stands unless another exception knocks it out.6Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Determining Whether Injuries in the Company Parking Lot During Paid Time Are Recordable
The Personal Tasks Exception as a Backup
The exception that most often rescues a non-vehicle parking lot case is 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2)(v). It applies when the injury results solely from an employee doing personal tasks unrelated to their job, at the establishment, outside their assigned working hours.2eCFR. 29 CFR 1904.5 – Determination of Work-Relatedness All three pieces have to line up: personal, unrelated to work, and off the clock.
An employee who arrives 20 minutes early and strains a back organizing personal items in their trunk is likely off the clock and doing something purely personal. The same activity during a paid break is not outside assigned hours, so the exception probably will not apply. Timing usually matters more than location.
A separate exception, 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2)(iv), removes injuries that result solely from eating, drinking, or preparing food for personal consumption, regardless of where they happen. An employee who chokes on lunch in their car falls under (iv), not the parking lot rule.7eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1904 – Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses
When Parking Lot Injuries Are Always Recordable
Every exception disappears the moment a work task enters the picture. Picking up litter, clearing snow, running a security patrol, guiding traffic, or loading equipment into a company vehicle are all work activities. An injury during any of them is presumed work-related and belongs on the log if it meets the general criteria.8Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Determining Work-Relatedness for Injury That Occurred in Company Parking Lot
Supervisor direction can flip the classification too. If a manager asks an employee to grab a box of supplies from their personal car, the walk to the vehicle is a work errand. A fall during that errand is work-related, even if the employee had just clocked out. The test is what the employee was doing at the moment of injury, not where the lot sits on a map.
Unloading work materials from a personal vehicle follows the same logic. An employee who carries company laptops from their trunk into the building every morning is performing a work task, and a laptop dropped on a foot with medical treatment beyond first aid is a recordable case.4eCFR. 29 CFR 1904.5 – Determination of Work-Relatedness
Where the Lot Ends
The physical boundary matters. OSHA has drawn a specific line: stairs and sidewalks inside the perimeter of the parking lot are part of the lot. Sidewalks that surround the lot and connect it to the building entrance are part of the employer’s general premises, not part of the lot.9Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Injury and Illness Recordkeeping Interpretations
That distinction can decide a case. A motor vehicle accident on a sidewalk inside the lot may fall under subsection (vii). A slip-and-fall on the walkway between the lot and the front door happens on the employer’s premises outside the lot, where no parking lot exception applies. The same icy surface can produce a recordable injury on one side of a curb and a potentially non-recordable one on the other. Employers with large campuses should know exactly where the boundary runs.
Shared and Leased Lots
Not every place your employees park is a “company parking lot.” OSHA defines the term by control. If the employer can limit who accesses the lot, restricting it to employees and visitors for example, the lot is part of the establishment. If the employer cannot control access, it is not.10Occupational Safety and Health Administration. How Does OSHA Define a Company Parking Lot for Purposes of Recordkeeping
Shared lots outside multi-tenant office buildings, public garages beneath commercial complexes, and mall parking areas are generally not part of any individual tenant’s establishment. Injuries there fall outside the tenant’s work environment and are not recordable for the tenant. The building owner or operator that does control the lot may need to treat it as part of its own establishment.10Occupational Safety and Health Administration. How Does OSHA Define a Company Parking Lot for Purposes of Recordkeeping
For tenants, the practical effect is cleaner than it looks: if the lot is not under your control, the whole framework of presumption plus exceptions never starts.
Reporting Deadlines Still Run on the Non-Vehicle Cases
Recording an injury on the 300 Log is one obligation. Reporting severe outcomes directly to OSHA is a separate one on a tight clock. A work-related fatality must be reported within 8 hours. An inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye must be reported within 24 hours.11Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 29 CFR 1904.39 – Reporting Fatalities, Hospitalizations, Amputations, and Losses of an Eye
The trigger is work-relatedness. A commuting motor vehicle accident that qualifies under subsection (vii) is not work-related, so neither clock starts.7eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1904 – Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses A severe non-vehicle injury in the lot, like a fall that puts an employee in the hospital, is presumed work-related unless another exception applies. Missing the 24-hour window because you assumed the parking lot exception covered a slip is the kind of mistake that generates a citation. If the employer does not learn about the hospitalization right away, the 24-hour clock starts when the employer or any of its agents learns of the event.11Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 29 CFR 1904.39 – Reporting Fatalities, Hospitalizations, Amputations, and Losses of an Eye
Do Not Let Workers’ Comp Decide the Log
A denied workers’ comp claim is not proof that a case stays off the 300 Log. OSHA has said plainly that recording a case neither proves nor disproves entitlement to workers’ compensation, and vice versa. The two systems use different rules.12Occupational Safety and Health Administration. What Is the Effect of Workers Compensation Reports on the OSHA Records A parking lot slip that comp treats as a non-compensable commuting injury may still be OSHA-recordable if no exception under 1904.5(b)(2) applies. Analyze each system on its own.
Penalties for Getting It Wrong
As of the adjustment effective January 2025, an other-than-serious violation, which includes recordkeeping errors, carries a maximum penalty of $16,550 per violation. A willful failure to record can reach $165,514 per instance.13Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Penalties The figures are adjusted annually for inflation.
Penalties can stack. An employer that routinely misapplies the parking lot exception across many incidents can face a separate citation for each missed entry, and OSHA can review up to five years of logs during an inspection. Document your reasoning whenever you decide a parking lot injury is non-recordable, including the specific exception you relied on and the facts that fit it.
Decision Steps for a Parking Lot Injury
- Was the employee performing a work task, or acting on supervisor direction? If yes, the injury is presumed work-related. Record it if it meets the general criteria.
- Was the injury caused by a moving vehicle being used solely for commuting, on a company lot or access road? If yes, subsection (vii) applies. Do not record.
- Was the employee doing something personal, unrelated to the job, outside assigned working hours? Subsection (v) may apply. Write down the facts.
- Did the injury result solely from eating, drinking, or preparing food for personal use? Subsection (iv) applies regardless of location.
- Is the parking area actually under the employer’s control? If not, it is not part of the establishment, and injuries there are generally not recordable for your log.
- None of the above? The injury is presumed work-related. Record it if it meets the criteria in 29 CFR 1904.7.
The distinction that catches most employers is simple to state and easy to miss in practice: the parking lot exception covers only motor vehicle accidents during commuting. Everything else in the lot defaults to work-related, and only a different exception can change that.