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Especially worth telling me: a figure that disagrees with the current Orton chart, a firing case this does not handle, or anything that broke.

OSHA penalty calculator

Every reduction and multiplier shown with the rule that produced it. One willful item changes the price of every other item on the citation.

Price a whole citation

Four questions about the employer, then one block per item.

The amounts, and the tables they run through

Current as of 2026-09-02. These are the 2026 figures and they are identical to the 2025 figures: the annual inflation adjustment was cancelled outright because the Bureau of Labor Statistics never published October 2025 CPI-U data during the lapse in appropriations, and the statute permits no substitute. See 91 FR 31358.

Statutory minima and maxima

ClassificationMinimumMaximum
Serious$1,221$16,550
Other-than-serious$0$16,550
Willful$11,823$165,514
RepeatedNone$165,514
Failure to abateNone$16,550 per day
Posting requirement$0$16,550

Repeated has no minimum in 29 CFR 1903.15(d)(2), which gives it a ceiling only. Table 1 of the annual penalties memorandum groups "Willful or Repeated" under one minimum, which reads as though it covers both. The regulation is the binding text and is the more specific of the two, so it is followed here.

Gravity-based penalty, serious violations

SeverityProbabilityGravityUnadjusted
HighGreaterHigh$16,550
MediumGreaterModerate$14,187
LowGreaterModerate$11,823
HighLesserModerate$11,823
MediumLesserModerate$9,457
LowLesserLow$7,093

Note the two middle rows. A high-severity hazard that was unlikely and a low-severity hazard that was likely both price at $11,823. Severity alone does not set the figure.

Size reduction

Employees, nationwideOrdinarySerious willful
Up to 2070%80%
Up to 3030%50%
Up to 4030%40%
Up to 5030%30%
Up to 10030%20%
Up to 25010%10%
251 or more0%0%

Two separate scales, from Field Operations Manual tables 6-2 and 6-4. The serious willful column is more generous on purpose, because an unreduced willful penalty is ten times a serious one. The January 2025 penalties memorandum still prints an older version of the serious willful table, with a 60 percent band that the July 2025 revision deleted. The Field Operations Manual is the later document, so this follows it.

The penalty is built, not looked up

A citation penalty starts from a gravity-based penalty, and gravity is two judgements combined: how badly the hazard could hurt somebody, and how likely that was given how it was found. Those two produce one of three gravity levels and one starting figure. Everything after that is subtraction and multiplication.

The part worth understanding is that the reductions come off serially. The Field Operations Manual applies size, then good faith, then history, then Quick-Fix, one after another, and says so explicitly: the factors are applied "serially to the GBP (e.g., 20 percent, then 25 percent, etc., instead of 45 percent)". So a small employer with a written safety programme does not get 95 percent off a violation. They get 70 percent, then 25 percent of what is left, which is 77.5 percent off in total. Every calculator that sums the percentages understates the penalty.

Which reductions you get depends on what you were cited for

This is where a single number times a discount stops working. A repeated violation is reduced only for size. A willful violation is reduced only for size and history, never for good faith. And a serious violation at high severity and greater probability also loses good faith, so two serious items in the same inspection for the same employer can take different factors and land on different figures.

The items are not independent, which is why this tool takes the whole citation

Good faith and history are calculated once per employer, not once per violation. More than that, a single willful, repeated or failure-to-abate item removes good faith from every other item in the inspection. One willful item on a citation therefore raises the price of the ordinary serious items sitting next to it, which is not something a tool that prices one violation at a time can express. It is the largest single error those tools make.

Where the published procedure runs out

Two starting figures have no scale in the Field Operations Manual, and this tool says so rather than inventing one. An other-than-serious violation has only "minimal severity", with no gravity table at all and Area Director discretion up to the statutory maximum. A willful safety or health violation has a floor of $11,823, a ceiling of $165,514 and its own size table, but the chapter never says how to derive the unadjusted amount in between. Both are entered and labelled as entered.

Failure to abate is the one that runs away

Every other classification is priced per violation. Failure to abate is priced per day, at up to $16,550 a day, from the day after the abatement date to the re-inspection. It normally stops at 30 times the daily figure, and past that OSHA changes procedure entirely rather than carrying on multiplying.

Questions safety managers actually ask

What are the OSHA penalty amounts for 2026?
They are the 2025 amounts, unchanged, and that is deliberate rather than out of date. A serious or other-than-serious violation tops out at $16,550, failure to abate at $16,550 per day, and willful or repeated at $165,514. A willful violation also carries a minimum of $11,823, which is the figure most calculators leave out. Penalties are normally inflation-adjusted every January, but the 2026 adjustment was cancelled outright: the Bureau of Labor Statistics never published October 2025 CPI-U data because of the lapse in appropriations, and the statute allows no substitute month. See 91 FR 31358.
Why is my reduction smaller than the percentages add up to?
Because the reductions are applied serially, not summed. The Field Operations Manual is explicit about it: the factors come off "serially to the GBP (e.g., 20 percent, then 25 percent, etc., instead of 45 percent)". A 70 percent size reduction followed by a 25 percent good faith reduction leaves 22.5 percent of the penalty standing, not 5 percent. Adding the percentages together always understates the penalty, which is the direction that gets somebody in trouble.
Can one violation change the penalty on a different violation?
Yes, and this is the biggest thing a one-violation-at-a-time calculator cannot tell you. A single willful, repeated or failure-to-abate item anywhere in the inspection removes the good faith reduction from every other item, including ordinary serious items that would otherwise have qualified for the full 25 percent. The Field Operations Manual puts it plainly for willful: "where a willful violation has been documented, no reduction for good faith can be applied to any of the violations found during the same or concurrent inspection". Failing to report a fatality, hospitalisation, amputation or loss of an eye under 29 CFR 1904.39 removes it too.
How much can a small employer get taken off?
Up to 70 percent for size on an ordinary serious or other-than-serious violation, and up to 80 percent on a serious willful one, which runs on a separate and more generous scale so that a willful penalty does not simply destroy a small business. The July 2025 revision widened the top band: the full 70 percent now reaches employers with 1 to 25 employees, where it previously stopped at 10. Size means the maximum headcount at all workplaces nationwide at any one time in the previous 12 months, not the headcount at the inspected site. Using the site figure is the common mistake and it overstates the reduction.
What is the difference between a repeated violation and failure to abate?
A repeated violation is the same or a substantially similar hazard found again, anywhere, after a previous citation became a final order. It is priced by multiplying the gravity-based penalty by 2, 5 or 10 depending on employer size and how many times it has already repeated. Failure to abate is narrower: the same hazard, at the same place, never corrected at all. It is priced per day rather than per violation, which is why it can outrun a repeated violation on a long enough delay.
How long does a failure-to-abate penalty keep accruing?
Normally it stops at 30 times the daily amount. Days are counted from the day after the abatement date through to the re-inspection, excluding the re-inspection day itself, so an off-by-one here is easy. Going past 30 days is not a bigger multiplication: OSHA switches to the violation-by-violation policy under CPL 02-00-080 instead, which is a different and much heavier procedure.
Is this what I will actually pay?
No, and no calculator can tell you that. This is what OSHA's published procedure produces from the inputs you give it. Three things sit between that and the final figure: compliance officer and Area Director discretion runs all the way through the procedure, informal settlement commonly reduces proposed penalties and often substantially, and the classification itself is a judgement made by a person rather than looked up in a table. The classification is also the single biggest lever on the number, which is why the tool shows what each one costs rather than hiding it.
Where do these numbers come from?
Three primary sources, read directly. 29 CFR 1903.15(d) sets the statutory minima and maxima and is the binding law. The Annual Adjustments to OSHA Civil Penalties memorandum sets the gravity-based penalty amounts. The Field Operations Manual, CPL 02-00-164, chapter 6 effective 2025-07-14, sets the mechanics: the gravity table, the reduction percentages, the order they apply in, the multipliers and the accrual rule. All three are works of the United States federal government and are not subject to copyright, which is why the tables can be published here in full. Read 2026-09-02.

Where these numbers come from

Three primary documents, read on 2026-09-02 rather than taken from a summary. The statutory minima and maxima are in 29 CFR 1903.15. The gravity-based amounts are in OSHA's annual penalty adjustment, published at osha.gov/penalties. The mechanics, meaning the gravity table, the reduction percentages, the order they apply in and the accrual rule, are in the Field Operations Manual, CPL 02-00-164, chapter 6 effective 2025-07-14.

All three are works of the United States federal government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105, which is why the tables are reproduced here in full rather than paraphrased. That is the same footing as the Federal Rules behind the court deadline tool, and the opposite of the NEC and CPT, which are not reproduced anywhere on this site.

A penalty calculated here is what the procedure produces, not what an employer pays. The area director has discretion, informal settlement routinely reduces the total, and the classification itself is a human judgement worth more than the arithmetic. If a figure here disagrees with the document it cites, tell me and it gets fixed.