OSHA vs. State-Plan States: Which Rules Apply to You?

Does federal OSHA or a state plan regulate my workplace?

The answer comes down to where your employees actually perform their work, not where your business is incorporated or headquartered. Roughly half of U.S. states and territories operate their own OSHA-approved occupational safety and health programs, known as State Plans. The remaining states are covered directly by federal OSHA. If you employ people in more than one state, more than one set of rules can apply at the same time, location by location.

Getting this right matters because State Plans can enforce stricter standards, adopt requirements that have no federal counterpart, and apply their own penalty and reporting rules. Treating every worksite as if federal OSHA governs it is a common and costly mistake for multi-state employers.

What is an OSHA-approved State Plan?

A State Plan is an occupational safety and health program run by a state or U.S. territory that OSHA has approved to operate in place of the federal program. The authority comes from Section 18 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which lets states reclaim responsibility for workplace safety and health from federal OSHA by submitting a plan for approval. The federal requirements governing those plans are detailed in 29 CFR Part 1902, and changes to approved plans are handled under 29 CFR Part 1953.

When a state runs an approved plan, its own agency writes standards, conducts inspections, issues citations, and assesses penalties. OSHA monitors the plan and funds part of it, but day-to-day enforcement is the state's job. For employers, that means the standards you must follow, the inspector who shows up, and the penalty schedule you face are all defined by the state, not by Washington.

What does "at least as effective as" mean?

Every State Plan must be "at least as effective as" federal OSHA in protecting workers and in its enforcement. This is the floor, not the ceiling. A state cannot offer weaker protection than the federal program, but it is free to go further. In practice, many do.

That phrase is why you cannot assume the federal standard is the whole story. A State Plan may set a lower permissible exposure limit, require a written program the federal rules don't, mandate faster injury reporting, or regulate hazards that federal OSHA has never addressed. California is the clearest example: Cal/OSHA enforces numerous standards with no federal equivalent, including its long-standing requirements around heat illness prevention and injury and illness prevention programs.

How many State Plans are there?

As of 2026, there are 22 State Plans that cover both private-sector workers and state and local government workers, plus a smaller group of plans that cover only state and local government employees while leaving private-sector workplaces under federal OSHA. Because this count and the scope of individual plans can change as states adopt or modify programs, treat these numbers as current-as-of guidance and confirm your state's status before relying on it.

Well-known examples of states that run their own programs include the following. This is a sample for orientation, not a complete list:

• California — Cal/OSHA, one of the most expansive programs, with many standards that exceed or have no federal equivalent
• Washington — Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), part of Labor & Industries
• Oregon — Oregon OSHA (OR-OSHA)
• Michigan — MIOSHA, covering both general industry and construction
• Minnesota — Minnesota OSHA (MNOSHA)
• Other state-run programs include Arizona, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, and others

A few jurisdictions run plans that cover only public-sector employees, meaning private employers there still answer to federal OSHA. Because the exact membership of these categories can shift, verify your specific state with the state plan agency or with OSHA directly rather than assuming based on a neighbor state.

How do I figure out which rules apply to me?

Start with one principle: jurisdiction follows the physical work location. If your headquarters is in a federal OSHA state but you send crews to work in California, those crews are subject to Cal/OSHA while on California worksites. A multi-state employer can easily be subject to several different programs at once.

1. List every state and territory where your employees physically perform work, including temporary, mobile, and remote-worker locations.
2. For each location, determine whether that state runs an approved State Plan and whether the plan covers private-sector workers or only public employees.
3. Identify the standards that apply at each site, checking for state-specific requirements that exceed or supplement the federal rules.
4. Confirm the state's reporting timelines and procedures, which can differ from federal OSHA's fatality and hospitalization reporting windows.
5. Re-check periodically, because State Plan scope, standards, and penalty amounts are updated over time.

Which states are under federal OSHA?

Any state or territory without an approved State Plan covering private-sector employment falls under federal OSHA, with enforcement handled by federal OSHA area offices. In these jurisdictions you follow the federal standards in 29 CFR — primarily Part 1910 for general industry and Part 1926 for construction — and federal penalty and reporting rules apply. Many of the most populous states in the central and eastern U.S. are federal OSHA states, but rather than assume, confirm your specific state's status, since coverage categories can change.

How do penalties and reporting differ?

State Plans set their own maximum penalty amounts and adjust them on their own schedules, so the dollar figure for a given violation in a State Plan state may not match the federal amount. Reporting obligations can also vary: while federal OSHA requires reporting a work-related fatality within 8 hours and certain hospitalizations, amputations, and eye losses within 24 hours, individual State Plans may impose their own timelines or additional reporting triggers. Always use the reporting rules of the state where the incident occurred.

The practical takeaway

If you operate in a single federal OSHA state, the federal standards are your baseline. If you operate in a State Plan state, or across several states, you need to map jurisdiction worksite by worksite and account for state requirements that go beyond the federal rules. The cost of guessing wrong is citations under standards you didn't know applied.

This article is educational information, not legal advice, and no software or checklist makes you compliant on its own. Compliance depends on conditions at your actual worksites and the current rules in each jurisdiction. Confirm your state's current requirements with the state plan agency or OSHA, and consult a qualified safety or legal professional for your specific situation.