An OSHA inspection can stall your entire operation and lead to significant fines if you cannot produce your required annual injury log summary, also known as the OSHA 300A form. In Grand Rapids, this federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordkeeping requirement mandates that employers post a summary of work-related injuries and illnesses from the previous year. Key facts:
Analyzed from OSHA Form 300A - Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses
83% from one compliance interview
Manual entry or document upload required
The OSHA Form 300A - Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses is a federal requirement mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It is not a local Grand Rapids form, but you must comply with it here because the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) applies to most private sector employers nationwide. The specific regulation requiring you to post this annual summary is 29 CFR 1904.32. The posted summary must cover the previous calendar year and remain displayed in a common area, like an employee break room or near time clocks, from February 1 to April 30 each year.
Failure to properly complete, certify, and post this form on time triggers significant consequences. The penalties are not theoretical — based on federal violation categories for the current year:
Legal code: Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act)
Recent update: As of 2024, the penalty amounts for OSHA violations are adjusted annually for inflation; the fines cited here reflect the 2024 adjustment levels set by the agency.
| Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurant (Full-Service) | Required | OSHA's recordkeeping rule (29 CFR 1904.39) applies if you had 10 or more employees at any time in the previous year, and the standard retail exemption does not apply to full-service dining establishments. |
| Bar / Nightclub | Required | Covered under the same general industry rule as restaurants, bars and nightclubs with 10+ employees are not exempt from OSHA's Part 1904 recordkeeping requirements. |
| Food Truck | Not Required | Exempt if you employ 10 or fewer employees in the entire enterprise, per the small business exemption in 29 CFR 1904.1, but must comply if you meet the employee count threshold. |
| Coffee Shop / Café | Required | OSHA considers these establishments part of the retail trade for classification, but the partial exemption for low-hazard retail does not fully apply to food service; businesses with 10+ employees must maintain the 300A log. |
See which restaurant types need this requirement — and which don't.
See Full Requirements →Enter the total number of work-related injuries and illnesses you were required to record on the OSHA Form 300 Log for the entire calendar year, calculated by summing all individual cases.
COMMON MISTAKE: Including cases that are not recordable under OSHA rules (like minor first-aid incidents) or failing to include a case from a multi-establishment report, which leads to an inaccurate rate calculation and potential citation for underreporting.
Enter the total number of hours all employees (including salaried, hourly, part-time, and temporary workers) actually worked during the calendar year, which is used as the denominator for calculating your incidence rates.
COMMON MISTAKE: Using an estimated or 'standard' 2,000-hour figure per employee instead of actual payroll or timekeeping records, or omitting hours for certain worker classifications, resulting in an invalid rate that will be flagged during an OSHA inspection.
This calculated field shows your establishment's total recordable case rate (TRC), which is (Total Injuries & Illnesses * 200,000) / Total Hours Worked; the rate must be calculated to one decimal place.
COMMON MISTAKE: Manually entering an incorrect rate due to math errors in the formula; this field is a primary benchmark for OSHA and industry comparison, so a mismatch with your raw data is a common audit trigger.
Enter the total number of cases involving days away from work, job transfer, or restricted work activity, which is the sum of the counts from columns H and I on your OSHA Form 300 Log.
COMMON MISTAKE: Incorrectly counting a case that only involved medical treatment beyond first aid but no lost/restricted days, or failing to aggregate cases correctly from multiple logs, leading to an inaccurate DART rate.
Re-enter the same total hours worked by all employees as used for the total recordable rate; this identical figure is the denominator for calculating your DART incidence rate.
COMMON MISTAKE: Entering a different hours-worked figure here than in the field for the total recordable rate, which causes an internal data inconsistency and invalidates both calculated rates on the form.
This calculated field shows your establishment's DART rate, which is (Number of DART Cases * 200,000) / Total Hours Worked; it is a key metric OSHA uses to identify high-hazard workplaces.
COMMON MISTAKE: Entering a manually calculated rate with rounding or formula errors; an incorrect DART rate is a direct red flag for programmed inspections under OSHA's Site-Specific Targeting plan.
Enter the four-digit calendar year (e.g., 2024) for which the injury and illness summary is being reported, which must match the year covered by the data in the form's tables.
COMMON MISTAKE: Entering the previous or current fiscal year instead of the calendar year, or entering a two-digit year format, which can cause the form to be associated with the wrong reporting period.
Enter the official, complete legal name of your restaurant or establishment as it is known to OSHA and appears on other official documents like your tax filings.
COMMON MISTAKE: Using a DBA ("Doing Business As") name that differs from the legal entity name on file with the state, or abbreviating the name, which can delay matching your submission to the correct OSHA establishment ID.
Enter the city where your restaurant is physically located and where the employees covered by this log actually worked.
COMMON MISTAKE: Entering the city of a corporate headquarters or mailing address if it differs from the physical work location, which misdirects the geographic data used for OSHA's enforcement targeting.
Enter the two-letter postal abbreviation for the state (e.g., MI for Michigan) where your establishment is physically located.
COMMON MISTAKE: Writing out the full state name instead of using the two-letter abbreviation, which can cause processing delays in automated systems.
ApronPrep auto-fills 164 of 198 fields from a single compliance interview — no re-typing, no guessing what the government expects.
Based on ApronPrep's analysis of OSHA Form 300A - Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses applications, the most frequent violation is not posting the form from February 1st to April 30th. The posted summary must be for the previous calendar year, displayed in a common area like a break room or near time clocks. A common example is leaving the 2023 summary posted into June 2024. This mistake can trigger an OSHA inspection and result in significant fines for non-compliance.
Leaving the certification section blank is a high-rejection-risk error. The form must be reviewed and certified as accurate by a company executive (owner, CEO, highest-ranking onsite manager). An example of a correct entry is 'Jane Doe, President'; an incorrect entry is leaving it blank or writing 'HR Manager' if that person isn't a listed executive. An uncertified form is considered invalid, which can invalidate an entire BLS survey submission and lead to follow-up enforcement actions from OSHA or MIOSHA.
Forgetting to compile data for all locations or satellite facilities within the same company in Michigan leads to an incomplete report. For example, a restaurant group with a main kitchen in Grand Rapids and a catering facility in Walker must combine the injury data from both sites onto one Form 300A for the corporate entity. Reporting them separately or omitting one is incorrect. This omission can be flagged during a compliance audit, resulting in fines and a demand to resubmit corrected records for multiple years, adding weeks of administrative work.
ApronPrep auto-fills 164 of 198 fields from one compliance interview.
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| City | Fee Range | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Detroit | ||
| Grand Rapids | ||
| Warren |
Throughout the year, record every recordable work-related injury and illness on your internal OSHA Form 300 Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses. You must have a clear procedure for identifying reportable incidents as defined by OSHA, including any case resulting in death, days away from work, restricted work, medical treatment beyond first aid, or a diagnosed significant injury/illness. The most common mistake is not training managers to properly classify incidents, which can lead to an incomplete log.
Between February 1 and April 30 each year, a company executive (owner, CEO, highest-ranking site manager) must review the completed OSHA 300 Log for accuracy, certify it by signing the OSHA 300A Summary form, and post the 300A Summary in a common area where all employees can see it. The posting period runs from February 1 through April 30. You must ensure the summary includes all required establishment information (name, address, industry NAICS code, year, and employee counts). Failure to post during this mandatory window is a common OSHA violation.
Keep your certified OSHA 300A Summary and the underlying 300 Log for five years (the current year plus four previous years). These records must be available for inspection by OSHA compliance officers, employees, or employee representatives upon request. Have them organized and accessible at your Grand Rapids establishment. During an OSHA inspection, they will routinely ask to see these forms; not having them ready can trigger a more detailed audit and potential citations.
This is one of 13 requirements for opening a restaurant in Michigan.
federal
local
state
federal
See all co-required forms and how they connect to your compliance dossier.
See All RequirementsPreparing and posting the OSHA Form 300A does not have a traditional 'processing' timeline as it's a self-maintained record. The primary task is completing the summary based on the prior year's log by February 1st and posting it in the workplace through April 30th. This internal process typically takes a few hours, but verifying the accuracy of your City Business License/Registration data is a good first step. Compliance timelines vary based on how quickly you can compile your injury data.
The government filing fee for the OSHA Form 300A is $0–$0, as reported in the official fee schedule. There is no charge for creating, posting, or submitting the summary to OSHA if required. It is an internal record-keeping requirement, not a permit filed with the city or state for a fee. Not legal advice — verify specific requirements with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
No, an OSHA Form 300A is not a transferable permit. It is a site-specific annual summary of injuries and illnesses for each establishment. If you move your business, you must maintain a separate log and annual summary for the new location. This is similar to how a Certificate of Occupancy is tied to a specific building. You must start a new log at the new address from the date operations begin there.
You must create a new summary each year. The OSHA Form 300A summarizes the data from the OSHA Form 300 log for the previous calendar year (January 1 to December 31). The completed 300A must be posted in a common area from February 1 to April 30 of the following year. This annual cycle repeats for as long as your business operates and is required to keep the records.
During an OSHA inspection, the compliance officer will typically ask to see your OSHA Form 300A posted for the most recent year and may review your underlying Form 300 log of injuries for the past five years. They will verify the form is correctly completed, signed by a company executive, and posted during the required period. They may cross-reference incident reports or interview employees to confirm record accuracy. Serious discrepancies can lead to citations and penalties, so ensure your records match other safety documentation.
This guide is generated from ApronPrep's compliance dossier system, which uses 53 parallel AI authority experts to discover requirements, then downloads actual forms and generates field-level intelligence for each one.
For Michigan specifically, we have analyzed compliance dossiers for 3 cities (Detroit, Grand Rapids, Warren), generating Rich FILs (Form Intelligence Layers) with 198 form fields analyzed for this requirement. Fee data is sourced from actual county department fee schedules, not estimates.
Our data is verified against official government sources and updated when regulatory changes are detected. If you find an error, please report it — accuracy is our core commitment.
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