OSHA penalties & fines: current maximums.
Serious: $16,550 max. Willful or repeated: $165,514. Unchanged for 2026.
No 2026 inflation adjustment was published, so the January 2025 amounts still apply — while half the internet auto-published inflated numbers. Verified amounts below, plus the reduction paths that decide what a citation really costs.
A serious violation currently carries a maximum of $16,550. Fairview has two open corrective actions and no credential gaps on today’s crew, so I assembled the good-faith record for qualified review.
- Penalty ceiling
- $16,550 per serious violation
- Open findings
- 2 corrective actions assigned and due
- Crew readiness
- No certification gaps on today’s crew
Actual penalties and reductions depend on the citation facts and the OSHA Area Office’s review.
How much are OSHA fines in 2026?
The maximum OSHA penalty is $16,550 per serious or other-than-serious violation and $165,514 per willful or repeated violation, with failure to abate running up to $16,550 per day. These amounts took effect January 15, 2025 — and because no 2026 inflation adjustment was published, they remain the enforceable maximums in 2026.
| Violation type | Maximum penalty | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Serious | $16,550 per violation | Hazard with substantial probability of death or serious harm |
| Other-than-serious | $16,550 per violation | Direct safety relationship, lower severity |
| Willful | $165,514 per violation | Statutory minimum $11,823 · intentional disregard or plain indifference |
| Repeated | $165,514 per violation | Substantially similar prior violation, company-wide lookback |
| Failure to abate | $16,550 per day | Each day past the abatement date in the citation |
| Posting requirements | $16,550 per violation | Includes the Feb 1 – Apr 30 300A posting window |
Last reviewed · by Ben Sleeman · Credentialed safety reviewer · Checked against the OSHA civil penalties table: no 2026 inflation adjustment was published, so the amounts effective Jan 15, 2025 still apply.
Changelog
- Final credentialed content review completed by Ben Sleeman.
- Material regulatory and workbook corrections applied before final review.
- Confirmed no 2026 inflation adjustment; amounts verified against the OSHA civil penalties table (effective Jan 15, 2025). Small-employer reduction tiers verified against the July 14, 2025 policy change.
Why didn’t penalties increase in 2026?
OSHA has adjusted penalties for inflation every January since 2016. 2026 broke the streak — and broke a lot of published penalty tables with it.
Annual adjustments are calculated from the October Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). The fall 2025 government shutdown prevented the Bureau of Labor Statistics from publishing October 2025 CPI-U data, and the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act allows no substitute measure. No index, no adjustment: the January 15, 2025 amounts carried into 2026 unchanged.
Many sites auto-published estimated “2026 increases” in January anyway. If a penalty table you’re reading shows serious violations above $16,550, it’s wrong. When the next adjustment lands (expected January 2027), this page will change the same day — the dated review status above is the receipt.
What does each violation type actually mean?
Four classifications drive the dollar amounts: serious and other-than-serious cap at $16,550, willful and repeated at $165,514 — and the classification, not the amount, is usually what's worth contesting.
Serious is the workhorse classification: a hazard a reasonable employer should have known about, with a substantial probability of death or serious physical harm. Most construction citations — fall protection under 29 CFR 1926.501, ladders, scaffolds — land here.
Willful means OSHA believes you knew the condition violated a standard, or acted with plain indifference. It carries the statutory minimum of $11,823 and is the classification that follows a company into negotiations, prequalification reviews, and — after a fatality — potential criminal referral.
Repeated is the one multi-site contractors underestimate: a substantially similar violation anywhere in your company within the lookback period can requalify a routine citation at up to ten times the serious maximum. This is why contesting the classification of a small citation sometimes matters more than its dollar amount.
Failure to abate accrues per day past the abatement date on the citation — the quiet way a five-figure citation becomes a six-figure one. Abatement documentation, dated and photographed, is the defense.
How do penalty reductions work?
Proposed penalties start with a gravity-based amount. OSHA then applies only the permitted size, good-faith, history, and Quick-Fix factors serially — never as one summed discount.
| Reduction | How much | Who qualifies |
|---|---|---|
| Employer size reduction | Up to 70% · 80% for serious willful | Employers with 25 or fewer employees — expanded from 10 on July 14, 2025. Tiered reductions continue up to 250 employees. |
| Good faith | Up to 25% | A documented, implemented safety and health program — written programs, training records, inspections with closed corrective actions |
| History | Up to 20% | Never inspected by federal OSHA or a State Plan, or inspected in the past five years with no serious, willful, repeat, or failure-to-abate violations |
| Quick-fix / immediate abatement | Up to 15% | A qualifying low/moderate-gravity serious or other-than-serious hazard is permanently corrected within OSHA’s allowed timeframe and fully documented |
The estimator starts from a GBP you can edit and applies each eligible factor in OSHA’s required order. It enforces the 2026 serious, serious-repeated, and willful floors, but it cannot predict Area Office discretion, repeat multipliers, special repeated other-than-serious amounts, or failure-to-abate day counts. Good-faith credit is the first thing to vanish when programs exist on paper but not in the field. The informal conference (covered in the inspections chapter) is where these percentages become real money.
Got a citation? The clock is 15 working days.
From the day you receive a citation you have 15 working days to request an informal conference or file a Notice of Contest — after that it becomes a final order, penalties and all.
The full citation-response playbook — informal conference strategy, when to contest, and how repeat-exposure math changes the decision — lives in the inspections chapter: What to do when OSHA shows up → You got a citation.
Which records decide what you pay?
Good faith, repeat classification, abatement credit — every lever in this chapter is won or lost on documentation that exists before the inspector arrives.
- Written safety program + proof it runs — the good-faith reduction requires implementation evidence, not a binder
- Training and certification records — first document request in nearly every construction inspection
- Inspection history with closed corrective actions — open findings are repeat-violation exposure; closed loops are the defense
- Dated, photographed abatement documentation — stops failure-to-abate accrual at $16,550 per day
The log those records feed has its own chapter: the complete OSHA 300 log guide — including a free Excel log that calculates 300A totals and creates the ITA upload row.
Common questions.
How much is an OSHA fine in 2026?
Why did OSHA penalties not increase in 2026?
Can OSHA fines be reduced?
What is the minimum penalty for a willful violation?
How long do I have to contest an OSHA citation?
This guide is educational information for construction teams, not legal advice. Regulations change and states differ — confirm requirements with the current 29 CFR text, your state plan, or counsel.
Turn the requirement into a talk the crew can run today.
The free Toolbox Talks library translates common construction hazards into short, bilingual meetings with discussion prompts, quizzes, printable PDFs, and sign-in guidance.
The cheapest penalty is the documented program.
Good-faith reductions, repeat-classification defenses, and quick-abatement credits all come down to proof you can produce on demand. Rosie assembles that case from the records your crews already log — ask her what your exposure is in a 15-minute demo.
Educational reference · reviewed quarterly · not legal advice