2026 federal OSHA maximums: $16,550 per serious or other-than-serious violation, $165,514 per willful or repeated violation, and $16,550 per day for failure to abate beyond the abatement date — unchanged from 2025 because the annual inflation adjustment was not published during the federal shutdown. OSHA's Field Operations Manual then adjusts serious and other-than-serious penalties for employer size (up to 70% reduction for 1–10 employees), good faith (up to 25% for a documented, effective safety program), and history (±10%).
This free calculator builds a full scenario across multiple violation types and shows the itemized estimate.
$16,550 per serious or other-than-serious violation and $165,514 per willful or repeated violation — the same as 2025, because the annual CPI adjustment was not published during the federal shutdown. Failure to abate runs up to $16,550 per day.
For serious and other-than-serious violations: size of employer (70% for 1–10 employees, 60% for 11–25, 30% for 26–100, 10% for 101–250), good faith up to 25% for a documented effective safety and health program, and 10% for no serious citations in the past five years. Good-faith reductions do not apply to willful or repeated violations.
Willful means intentional disregard or plain indifference to the requirement. Documented training and briefing records for the exposed workers are frequently the evidence that defeats a willful classification — the difference between $16,550 and $165,514 per violation.