Notice

OSHA 10 vs OSHA 30

Both cards come out of the same OSHA Outreach Training Program, and OSHA is unusually blunt about what they are worth. Reading that sentence first changes how you spend the training budget.

Best for a worker

OSHA 10

OSHA describes the 10-hour class as intended to give workers awareness of common job-related safety and health hazards.

Best for a supervisor

OSHA 30

OSHA describes the 30-hour class as more appropriate for supervisors or workers with some safety responsibility.

Best for compliance

Neither

OSHA states the Outreach program does not fulfil an employer's requirement to train under specific standards.

Notice
Stencil print of two stacked blocks beside a hard hat
Two cards from one program — and neither is a certification.

The comparison, line by line

LineOSHA 10OSHA 30
Contact hours1030
Intended audience (OSHA’s words)Workers — awareness of common job-related hazardsSupervisors, or workers with some safety responsibility
Delivered byOSHA-authorized trainerOSHA-authorized trainer
A certification?No — OSHA says none of the courses isNo
Fulfils standard-specific training?NoNo
Card issuedTrainer has 90 days after completionSame
Replacement cardNot if the class was over 5 years agoSame
Published online price (one provider, 2026-09-04)$89.00 list, $59.00 on sale$189.00 list, $159.00 on sale

Hours, audience and card rules read from osha.gov/training/outreach on 2026-09-04. Prices read the same day from ClickSafety’s own course page; providers set their own prices and sale prices change — check before you budget.

The sentence that decides the budget

OSHA publishes it on the Outreach page for construction and again for general industry: the Outreach Training Program provides basic safety and health information and education — it does not fulfil an employer’s requirement to provide training under specific OSHA standards. And separately: none of the courses within the Outreach Training Program is considered a certification.

So an OSHA 30 card in your file does not discharge 1926.503 fall protection training, or the confined-space training in Subpart AA, or the lockout/tagout training in 1910.147(c)(7). Those are separate records with separate content requirements.

Warning

Budget for both. A crew with 30-hour cards and no standard-specific training records is a crew with an expensive gap, and it is the gap a GC audit finds first.

Who should hold which

OSHA’s own framing is a good rule and needs little improvement. The 10-hour class is intended to give workers awareness of common job-related safety and health hazards. The 30-hour class is more appropriate for supervisors or workers with some safety responsibility.

In practice most contractors land on: every field employee holds a 10, every foreman and above holds a 30, and anyone named as a competent person for a specific hazard holds the 30 plus the hazard-specific training that the designation actually rests on. The competent-person definition is in competent person under OSHA.

Some owners and jurisdictions mandate one or the other by contract or local law. That is a contractual requirement, not a federal standard, and it is worth checking before a bid rather than after.

Cards, and the record-keeping that goes with them

Trainers have 90 days after course completion to issue cards. OSHA does not keep records of Outreach classes conducted by authorised trainers, and a replacement card cannot be issued if the class was completed more than five years ago. Practically: the card is your record, so photograph it the day it arrives.

Keep three separate columns — Outreach card, standard-specific training, toolbox talks — on the safety training matrix. Merging them is how a full file reads as an empty one.

What is actually in the class

The construction Outreach curriculum is built around the Focus Four hazards, and OSHA publishes the trainer lesson plans and student materials for each: falls, caught-in or -between, struck-by and electrocution. That is why a 10-hour card holder should recognise the four categories by name.

The thirty-hour adds breadth — more subparts, more depth on management of a safety programme — rather than a different qualification. Both are worth having; neither is the training a standard asks for. The four families are broken down in OSHA focus four hazards, and the delivery-format question is compared in OSHA 10 online vs in-person.

Sources, with the date each was read

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