OSHA Penalty Structure and Fines: Amounts, Calculations, Criminal

OSHA fines and penalties currently top out at $165,514 per violation for willful or repeated violations and $16,550 per violation for serious, other-than-serious, and posting violations. Those are ceilings, not typical assessments. The actual amount an employer pays turns on the category of violation, how severe and likely the hazard was, the size of the business, the employer’s inspection history, and whether corrective action was taken. Penalties can also multiply when OSHA cites each instance of a violation separately or when a hazard goes uncorrected past its abatement deadline.

Current Maximum Penalty Amounts

Congress requires the Department of Labor to adjust OSHA’s civil penalties for inflation every January under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act. The figures below took effect for penalties assessed after January 15, 2025.¹

Serious violation: up to $16,550 per violation
Other-than-serious violation: up to $16,550 per violation
Posting requirement violation: up to $16,550 per violation
Failure to abate: up to $16,550 per day past the abatement deadline
Willful violation: $11,823 minimum, $165,514 maximum per violation
Repeated violation: up to $165,514 per violation (no statutory minimum)

Most serious-violation penalties land well below the maximum after OSHA applies reductions. Willful and repeated citations are different. The agency frequently proposes those at or near the ceiling, and willful violations are the only category with a statutory floor.

What Each Violation Category Means

The category drives the number, so where a citation falls in the hierarchy determines your financial exposure.

De minimis: A technical departure from a standard with no direct impact on worker safety. No fine, no abatement required.
Other-than-serious: A hazard related to safety but unlikely to cause death or serious harm. Capped at $16,550.
Serious: A hazard where death or serious injury could realistically result and the employer knew or should have known. Same $16,550 cap, but OSHA calculates gravity differently.
Willful: The employer knew a safety requirement existed and deliberately ignored it, or showed plain indifference. $11,823 to $165,514 per violation.²
Repeated: OSHA finds a substantially similar violation after a prior citation for the same type of hazard became a final order. Up to $165,514.²

The distinction between serious and willful is where the real money moves. A serious violation caps at $16,550. Once OSHA proves willfulness, the ceiling jumps tenfold, and if a worker dies, criminal liability becomes possible. That is why the classification fight is often the central dispute in a contested case.

How OSHA Calculates What You Actually Pay

Every penalty runs through a structured calculation that begins with the gravity of the hazard and then applies reductions based on the employer’s circumstances.

Gravity-Based Penalty

Gravity is the primary driver. OSHA evaluates two things: the severity of the most serious injury that could realistically result, and the probability that an injury will actually occur.³

For serious violations, severity falls into three tiers. High severity covers death, permanent disability, or chronic irreversible illness. Medium severity means an injury that requires hospitalization but is temporary. Low severity involves injuries needing only minor treatment. Other-than-serious violations are minimal severity by definition. Probability is rated as either greater or lesser. The combination produces a gravity rating of high, moderate, or low, which sets the starting dollar amount.

Reductions

After the gravity-based penalty is set, OSHA applies reductions in three categories. The agency revised its guidelines in July 2025 with meaningful changes for smaller employers.⁴

Size: Employers with 25 or fewer employees now qualify for a 70 percent reduction, up from the previous threshold that covered only businesses with 10 or fewer workers. Larger employers receive smaller reductions on a sliding scale.
Good faith: Employers who immediately move to address or correct a hazard qualify for a 15 percent reduction.
History: Employers never inspected before, or with a clean record over the previous five years free of serious, willful, or failure-to-abate violations, qualify for a 20 percent reduction.

OSHA can withhold any of these reductions when it would undermine safety goals. Employers cited for willful violations rarely see good-faith credits. But the math matters for small businesses: a company with 20 employees facing a $16,550 serious violation could see it drop under $5,000 after size and history credits.

When Penalties Multiply

OSHA normally groups related violations into a single citation item. Under its instance-by-instance policy, the agency can issue a separate penalty for each occurrence when the standard allows it and the violations cannot all be fixed with one corrective action.⁵

This is how penalties escalate fast. If ten machines each lack required guarding, OSHA can issue ten separate serious citations at up to $16,550 each rather than one grouped citation. The agency weighs several factors before citing per-instance, including whether a fatality or catastrophe occurred, whether the employer has a history of willful or repeated violations, and whether the inspection revealed widespread problems. Each instance must be individually documented with evidence of employer knowledge and employee exposure.

Egregious enforcement actions, where OSHA deliberately assesses each instance separately at the maximum, are reserved for the worst cases. They automatically place the employer in the Severe Violator Enforcement Program.

Failure-to-Abate Daily Accrual

If OSHA cites a hazard and the employer doesn’t fix it by the abatement deadline, a separate penalty kicks in. Failure-to-abate fines accrue at up to $16,550 per day for every day the violation remains uncorrected past the deadline.¹

The daily accrual starts the day after the abatement date and doesn’t stop until the hazard is fixed. Even a two-week delay can generate over $230,000 in additional penalties on top of the original citation. Employers who need more time should request an extension of the abatement date before it expires.

Criminal Fines When a Worker Dies

Most OSHA enforcement is civil. Criminal prosecution becomes possible when a willful violation kills a worker. Under Section 17(e) of the OSH Act, a first conviction carries a fine up to $10,000 and up to six months in prison. A second conviction doubles those limits to $20,000 and one year.⁶

Those statutory amounts are misleading, though, because the Sentencing Reform Act overrides them. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3571, the actual maximum fine for an individual convicted of a misdemeanor resulting in death is $250,000. For an organization, the ceiling is $500,000.⁷

Criminal OSHA cases are relatively rare. The statute reaches only willful violations that cause death, and prosecutors must prove willfulness beyond a reasonable doubt.

State Plans May Set Different Amounts

Not every employer falls under federal OSHA. Twenty-two states operate their own workplace safety programs covering private-sector and government workers, and seven more run plans covering only state and local government employees. State plans must be at least as effective as federal OSHA, but they set their own penalty amounts and enforcement priorities.⁸

Some state plans impose higher penalties than federal OSHA; others historically set lower ones. Employers operating across multiple states should verify whether each location falls under a state plan or federal jurisdiction, because the penalty structure can differ meaningfully.

When the Penalty Is Due and What Happens if You Don’t Pay

Penalties for uncontested citations are due 15 working days after the employer receives the citation. If the employer reaches an informal settlement, the penalty is due 15 working days after the last signature unless the agreement specifies a later date.³

Late payment escalates quickly. A debt becomes delinquent 30 calendar days after the due date. Interest accrues monthly on the unpaid balance. If the debt remains unpaid for roughly four months, an additional 6 percent annual delinquency charge begins accruing. OSHA also adds administrative costs for each demand letter it sends. Employers who ignore the debt entirely face referral to the Department of Treasury, which can garnish federal payments owed to the employer, report the debt to credit agencies, and add its own collection fees.³

1
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Penalties
2
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1903 – Inspections, Citations and Proposed Penalties
3
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Field Operations Manual – Chapter 6: Penalties and Debt Collection
4
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. US Department of Labor Updates Penalty Guidelines to Support Small Businesses and Eliminate Workplace Hazards
5
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Instance-by-Instance Citation Policy for Serious, Repeat, and Other-Than-Serious Violations
6
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSH Act of 1970 – Section 17: Penalties
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3571 – Sentence of Fine
8
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. State Plans