In 2025, improper fall protection was again the most-cited Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) jobsite violation, and fall-related issues appeared in four of the top 10 categories. The top list included fall protection — general requirements (5,914 citations), hazard communication (2,546), ladders (2,405), control of hazardous energy/lockout–tagout (2,177), and respiratory protection (1,953), among others. Also in the top 10 were fall protection training (1,907), scaffolding (1,905), powered industrial trucks (1,826), eye and face protection (1,665), and machine guarding (1,239).
OSHA penalties in 2025 were $16,550 per violation, including per day for failure to abate, with a maximum of $165,514 for willful or repeated violations. OSHA announced there will be no inflation adjustment to penalty amounts for 2026 due to the absence of October 2025 CPI-U data following a federal funding lapse, and indicated it will review inflation as usual when setting 2027 penalties.
