The current federal penalty ceilings
Federal OSHA's civil penalty maximums are adjusted for inflation under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act. The 2025 annual adjustment (90 FR 1854) set the figures below, and they remain the enforcement ceiling for fiscal year 2026:
- Serious violations — up to $16,550 per violation.
- Other-than-serious violations — up to $16,550 per violation.
- Posting requirement violations — up to $16,550 per violation.
- Failure to abate — up to $16,550 per day beyond the abatement date.
- Willful or repeated violations — up to $165,514 per violation, with a minimum of $11,823 for willful.
What the classifications mean
A serious violation exists where there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result and the employer knew or should have known of the hazard. Other-than-serious covers violations with a direct relationship to safety and health but unlikely to cause death or serious harm.
Willful means the employer knowingly failed to comply or acted with plain indifference to employee safety — and a willful violation involving a fatality can also be prosecuted criminally. Repeated applies where a substantially similar violation was previously cited and became a final order, searched company-wide, which is how multi-establishment employers accumulate repeat exposure from a single earlier citation.
How a proposed penalty is actually computed
Inspectors start from a gravity-based amount — severity of the potential harm times the probability of it occurring — then apply adjustment factors. Employer size drives the largest reductions (up to 70 percent for the smallest employers), with further adjustments for good faith (a functioning safety and health program) and enforcement history.
Two multipliers make headlines: instance-by-instance citations, where OSHA cites per exposed employee or per machine rather than per condition in egregious cases, and the Severe Violator Enforcement Program, which brings follow-up inspections across an employer's other establishments.
Proposed penalties are also negotiable in ways many employers never use: the informal conference with the area director, within the 15-working-day contest window, routinely yields reclassifications and reductions in exchange for prompt, documented abatement.
State Plan penalty structures
Jurisdictions operating OSHA-approved State Plans are required to adopt maximum penalty levels at least as effective as federal OSHA's, and their figures adjust on their own schedules. Some jurisdictions exceed the federal ceilings. For any given establishment, the work-site jurisdiction's current schedule is the one that matters.
Frequently asked questions
Estimate exposure, then close the gaps
Run the free penalty calculator for a violation-by-violation estimate, then see how SafeGora keeps the underlying programs, records, and abatement evidence in order.