Data sources / Licensing and regulatory

OSHA establishment search

Public establishment inspection and related enforcement information available through OSHA's search. The unit is an inspection at an establishment, with scope and completeness governed by the underlying reporting systems.

Last reviewed 14 October 2026 · report an error

Publisher: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Access: Free
Coverage: Public establishment inspection and related enforcement information available through OSHA's search. The unit is an inspection at an establishment, with scope and completeness governed by the underlying reporting systems.
Identifiers: Inspection or activity number; Establishment name and address
Freshness: varies
Official URL: https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/establishment.html

What it can establish

Use OSHA establishment search for a defined acquisition-research question. Match each record to the right entity using its identifiers (Inspection or activity number, Establishment name and address) before accepting its contents, and keep Occupational Safety and Health Administration's own scope and attribution on the finding.

That a particular inspection and associated public citation information appear in the record for a matched establishment.
The dates, recorded procedural details and reported status visible at the time the evidence was collected.

What it cannot establish

That an allegation is a final outcome, that every site has been inspected, or that no search result means a business is safe.
A complete group-wide compliance assessment or an occupational safety conclusion based solely on one establishment's search summary.

A search that returns nothing in OSHA establishment search describes the search performed. Coverage here is public establishment inspection and related enforcement information available through OSHA's search, so a missing record becomes a negative finding only where that coverage reaches the company in question and the evidence standard supports the inference. Otherwise the question stays open.

How Docket uses it

Your acquisition criteria become the agents' questions. OSHA establishment search can support some of them and leave others unanswered; its freshness (varies) is weighed answer by answer and it receives no blanket reliability score.

Triage. Checks establishment address and legal-name context to avoid assigning an inspection to an unrelated operator.
Scout. Collects the inspection and citation status with dates and qualifications rather than converting it into a general risk label.
Audit. Checks retained records for later procedural changes and unsupported language that treats an open issue as a settled finding.

Scout records typed answers from a fixed list with verbatim quotations from retained pages. Audit reviews only the retained material, with every fetch tool denied. It settles supported contradictions, strikes unquotable answers and leaves gaps visible. See the research-agent method and screening criteria guide for the surrounding workflow.

Pitfalls and review questions

Inspection records and citation details can change. Retain the observed status and research date so later reviewers understand the evidence's vintage.
A site-specific event does not automatically characterize an entire group. Any material safety question requires appropriate diligence beyond origination screening.

What the search shows

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration publishes inspection and citation records by establishment. A record shows the establishment name and address, inspection date, type and reason, industry code, the standards cited, proposed and final penalties and the case status. A separate set of data covers injury and illness summaries that certain employers submit electronically.

The data is organised by establishment, so a company with several sites has several records, and the names are as entered by inspectors. The agency's site is gated against scripted requests, so retrieval is generally done in a browser, with each page saved. The agency's data page describes the downloadable datasets available.

Interpreting enforcement history

An inspection may be triggered by a complaint, an accident, a planned programme or a referral, and the reason affects what its existence says. A citation may be contested, reduced or withdrawn, so look at final status, not only the initial proposal. A clean record may reflect no inspection rather than good safety, since OSHA inspects a small fraction of workplaces.

For acquisition research, safety history is a diligence signal for industries with physical hazards: construction trades, manufacturing, logistics. Match records to the correct legal entity through the address and the owner information, and be careful with common names. Record the inspection number and the retrieval date, as records can change as cases progress.

Illustration (fictional)

A researcher screening a roofing company searches by its name and finds two inspections at different addresses, one resulting in citations later reduced in a settlement. The researcher records both case numbers and final dispositions, links the addresses to the company's registered locations, and flags the settlement as a topic for diligence questions without drawing a conclusion about overall safety.

Licensing and regulatory

EPA ECHO

Published facility, program, permit and compliance information within the scope of the selected record.

Licensing and regulatory

State contractor licensing boards

The license holder, class, published status and associated dates shown by the responsible authority.

Company-published

Company websites

What the identified company publicly says about its services, footprint, customers or ownership on a retained page.

Sources and further reading

OSHA Establishment Search, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The public search of OSHA inspections and citations by establishment name. The site answers scripted requests with 403 but loads in a browser.
OSHA data and statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Entry point to enforcement data downloads and injury and illness data. Bot-gated for scripted requests.
Facility Registry Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's facility identifier that links records across programs.
Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Facility-level compliance and enforcement history across several federal environmental programs.

These links identify research contexts to investigate, rather than conclusions about sector attractiveness. Ask how OSHA establishment search would be used on your list or return to the complete source directory.

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