A blank 300 log and a worker back on light duty
It is 3:15 on a Tuesday at a regional distribution center. Dana, the operations manager, inherited the injury log three weeks ago when the safety coordinator left. The paper binder holds last year's entries in three different handwriting styles. A shift supervisor has just told her that a forklift operator strained his shoulder on Friday, saw a clinic on Saturday, and came back Monday with a "no lifting" note from the physician.
Dana has a blank OSHA 300 form on her desk and a spreadsheet tab that someone labeled "300 template."
She has several questions at once. Does this case go on the log at all? Which box does it take? What goes in the day-count columns, and does a Sunday count? Whose name appears in the name column? Nothing in the binder explains why earlier entries were completed the way they were.
This article walks through the form one column at a time, shows where the regulation sets the answer, and marks the points where the decision is yours. By the end you will be able to complete a 300 log line and name the regulatory text behind each entry.
Reference material with citations, not legal advice. You decide recordability and compensability, and you file.
How to fill out the OSHA 300 log: the identifying columns
Start with timing and scope, because they frame every line. An employer must enter each recordable case on the OSHA 300 Log and the 301 Incident Report within seven calendar days of receiving information that a recordable injury or illness has occurred (29 CFR 1904.29(b)(3), checked 2026).
The clock runs from information that a recordable case occurred. Whether the case is recordable is your decision, made by applying the regulation. Our guide to recordable cases versus first aid covers that line.
A separate 300 Log is required for each establishment expected to operate for one year or longer (29 CFR 1904.30(a), checked 2026). A multi-site employer therefore keeps one log per site, not one log for the company.
Now the identifying columns. The regulation requires business information at the top of the log and "a one or two line description for each recordable injury or illness" (1904.29(b)(1)). For the exact headings, column letters and instructions, work from the current form OSHA provides; the notes below tie each entry to the regulation where it speaks.
Case number. Give each case its own number. The regulation itself refers to case numbers when it describes the privacy case list. A practical habit is to use the same number on the matching OSHA 301 incident report, and to keep one numbering scheme for the year.
Employee's name and job title. Some cases are privacy concern cases, and for those the name is left off the log. The regulation sets out the list in 1904.29(b)(7) and says in (b)(8) that it is "a complete list." Read it directly rather than relying on a template note. For a listed case, 1904.29(b)(6) says to "enter 'privacy case' in the space normally used for the employee's name" and to keep "a separate, confidential list of the case numbers and employee names." Under (b)(9), you may also use discretion in describing the case if the employee could still be identified.
Date of injury or onset of illness. This is not the date you learned of it, and it is not the date of the clinic visit. Keep your knowledge date elsewhere, because the seven-calendar-day entry clock starts from it.
Where the event occurred, and the description. Keep both brief and follow the form's own instructions on what to include. The log is not a medical record, and it should not hold diagnoses or treatment notes beyond what the line needs.
Classifying the case: one box per line
The classification spaces follow 1904.7(b): death, days away from work, job transfer or restriction, and other recordable cases. The regulation sets the order. A restricted or transferred case goes in the job transfer or restriction space only when it "does not involve death or days away from work" (1904.7(b)(4)). The medical-treatment box is for cases that did not involve death, days away, restricted work or job transfer (1904.7(b)(5)). So a case with both days away and a later restriction goes in the days-away space.
If a case changes after you enter it, 1904.33(b)(1) says: "If the description or outcome of a case changes, you must remove or line out the original entry and enter the new information." A restricted-duty case that later requires time away from work becomes a days-away case.
The form also asks you to classify each case as an injury or a type of illness, using the categories printed on it. Those entries feed the totals that roll into the annual summary. If you want to see where those totals end up, how the 300, 300A and 301 fit together explains the flow.
The restricted work definition
The classification that causes the most second-guessing is job transfer or restriction. The OSHA restricted work definition sits in 1904.7(b)(4)(i) (checked 2026). Restricted work occurs when, as the result of the injury or illness, you keep the employee "from performing one or more of the routine functions of his or her job, or from working the full workday," or a physician or other licensed health care professional recommends that. Under (b)(4)(ii), routine functions are "those work activities the employee regularly performs at least once per week."
Return to Dana's forklift operator. A "no lifting" note is the kind of fact that bears on the restricted-work question, but the regulation does not decide it for her. Dana has to apply the text to what the operator's job normally requires, then make the call. She decides, and she should be able to point to the paragraph that supports it. Our piece on whether light duty is OSHA recordable works through that reasoning in more detail.
The same applies to days away. The rule says what the category means; you decide whether the case belongs in it.
Counting days away and days restricted
The log has separate day-count columns: the regulation refers to the "number of days column" for days away (1904.7(b)(3)) and the "restricted workdays column" for job transfer or restriction (1904.7(b)(4)). They are separate because the two categories are separate outcomes.
Employers may cap the count at 180 calendar days. The regulation says so in 1904.7(b)(3)(vii), checked 2026:
"you may "cap" the total days away at 180 calendar days"
The cap is optional, and it is stated in calendar days. Once a case passes it, entering 180 "will be considered adequate."
Do weekends count as days away?
This is where a spreadsheet's built-in assumption can quietly go wrong. The regulation answers it. Under 1904.7(b)(3)(i), "you begin counting days away on the day after the injury occurred or the illness began." Under (b)(3)(iv), you count calendar days "regardless of whether or not the employee was scheduled to work on those day(s)," and weekend days, holidays and other days off are included if the employee could not have worked them because of the injury or illness. Days of job transfer or restriction are counted the same way (1904.7(b)(4)(xi)), and a restriction imposed only for the day of the injury is not recorded (1904.7(b)(4)(iii)).
Paragraph (b)(3)(v) covers an injury on a Friday when the employee was not scheduled for the weekend: record it only if a physician or other licensed health care professional indicates the employee should not have worked, or should have done only restricted work, that weekend. Our guide to counting days away from work works through more cases. Note which paragraph each count comes from.
Cases that cross a year-end
A case that begins in one year and causes days away in the next calendar year is recorded only once, in the year it occurred (1904.7(b)(3)(ix), checked 2026). You enter the days on the log for the year the case occurred. If the employee is still away when you prepare the annual summary, the paragraph says to "estimate the total number of calendar days you expect the employee to be away," use that for the summary total, and "update the initial log entry later." It is not a new line in the new year's log.
Keeping the 300 log defensible
A completed log is only useful if you can explain it later. Three habits help.
First, record the knowledge date for every case, separate from the injury date. The seven-calendar-day entry window starts from the knowledge date, and a log with no knowledge date cannot show that the entry was timely.
Second, remember who may ask to see the log. When an employee, former employee or employee representative asks for a copy of the OSHA 300 Log, you must provide it by the end of the next business day, and the first copy is free (29 CFR 1904.35(b)(2), checked 2026). A log that lives in one person's spreadsheet is a risk if that person is out.
Third, plan for retention. OSHA 300 Logs, 300A summaries and 301 reports must be kept for five years following the end of the calendar year they cover (29 CFR 1904.33(a), checked 2026). Retention is the employer's responsibility, wherever the files happen to live.
An OSHA 300 log template in Excel is a reasonable place to keep all of this. OSHA provides blank forms, and many managers build careful spreadsheets from them. What a plain template holds is dates and entries. It does not record which paragraph of the regulation produced a box choice or a day count, and that missing reasoning is what you will want if someone asks why a case was classified the way it was.
Where a workbook fits
For a single-state employer with a handful of cases a year, the blank form or a basic template may be all you need. As the number of sites and cases grows, the work shifts from filling in one line to keeping many lines consistent and rolling them up at year-end.
The OSHA 300, 300A and 301 Log Workbook is built for that stage. It computes the days-away and restricted counts from the dates you enter, applies the 180-calendar-day cap where you choose to use it, and keeps the classification totals that roll into the 300A summary. The same case entries feed the 301 data. Which box a case takes, and whether it is recordable at all, remain your decisions, and the workbook does not file anything. Covered establishments submit their data through OSHA's own channel, the Injury Tracking Application (see OSHA's ITA user guide), and that submission is the employer's to make.
If you are the person who inherited the log, a practical first step is to pull last year's entries and test each one against the paragraphs cited above. Check that each case sits in one box only, that the day counts follow one consistent rule, and that every open case carries its latest numbers. Where something looks uncertain, confirm with OSHA or your State Plan agency before you certify anything.
Reference material with citations, not legal advice. You decide recordability and compensability, and you file.
When you are ready to move off the binder, see how the workbook handles the log.
