AHJ Radar · Mason Mathews Facility Assurance, LLC

Most cited in the state-plan states, 2025: California, Washington, Michigan, North Carolina, Minnesota, Kentucky, Hawaii

Twenty-two states enforce their own occupational safety rules instead of federal OSHA's. Seven of them publish what their inspectors cited most in 2025. The lists differ from the federal top ten in one way that matters to a building: the state lists are led by the written programs a property either has or does not have, such as an injury and illness prevention program, a safety committee and a heat illness plan. Hawaii's list, the newest here, is different again: six of its ten rows are electrical and fall hazards in general industry, and bloodborne pathogens leads Kentucky's.

California (Cal/OSHA), calendar year 2025

All industries. Cal/OSHA prints ranks, not counts. Title 8 section numbers.

Washington (L&I), October 2024 to September 2025, all industries except construction and agriculture

L&I prints ranks, not counts. This is the table closest to a hotel or condominium; L&I's all-industry and construction-only tables are on the same page. WAC numbers.

Michigan (MIOSHA), fiscal year 2025, with counts

North Carolina (NCDOL), October 2024 to September 2025, general industry, with counts

The first ten rows of NCDOL's 25-row general-industry table. Total citations, then how many were classified serious.

Minnesota (MNOSHA), federal fiscal year 2025, with counts

Minnesota OSHA's fact sheets, dated May 2026, print the standard, a description and the number of citations. "All" is the all-industries sheet; "GI" is the general-industry sheet, where its count differs; a dash means the row is not among the general-industry rows printed. Minnesota cites its own statutes and rules alongside the federal sections it has adopted.

Two of Minnesota's top four are the state's own statutes with no federal counterpart: the safety committee (Minn. Stat. 182.0676) and, at 8, the AWAIR program, Minnesota's written injury-reduction plan. The carbon monoxide rule at 4 is narrower than its title: Minn. R. 5205.0116 applies to internal-combustion powered industrial trucks operated indoors, and asks the employer for air monitoring at least quarterly against a 35 ppm eight-hour average and a 200 ppm five-minute ceiling, plus a tailpipe test during engine tuning. In a hotel or a condominium that is the propane or gasoline forklift at the loading dock or in the garage; an electric truck is outside the rule. Row 10, inspections of cranes and hoists (Minn. R. 5205.1200), is also a state rule; a property with a service hoist or a monorail in the laundry is inside it.

1910.1200 in the Citation Decoder · 1910.147 · 1910.178 · 1910.151

Kentucky (KY OSH), federal fiscal year 2025, ranks only

Kentucky's one-page document ranks the standards its inspectors cited most, all industries together, and prints federal OSHA's rank beside each where the standard is also in the federal top ten. It prints no counts and no publication date. Fifteen Kentucky ranks are printed; a sixteenth row, 1926.102 (eye and face protection), carries a federal rank of 9 and no Kentucky rank. Kentucky cites its own statute and regulation alongside the federal sections it has adopted.

The standard printed as "KRS 338.31" is Kentucky Revised Statutes 338.031, the statute that carries the state's general duty for employers and employees; the link goes to that text. 803 KAR 2:310 is Kentucky's own first-aid regulation. Kentucky's previous edition, FFY 2024, led with the same standard, bloodborne pathogens, followed by respirable crystalline silica (1926.1153) and fall protection training; silica is not among the fifteen Kentucky ranks printed for FFY 2025.

1910.1030 in the Citation Decoder · 1910.147 · 1910.212 · 1910.303 · 1910.132

Hawaii (HIOSH), October 2024 to September 2025, ranks only

HIOSH's page is titled "Top 10 Most Serious Cited Standards": it ranks the serious citations, all industries together, and prints a short label and the paragraph cited for each. No counts. Six of the ten rows are general-industry electrical or fall sections, which is unlike every other list on this page.

Four of the ten are electrical housekeeping items an inspector can see from the corridor: an open knockout, a missing cover plate, a lost ground, equipment used outside its listing. In a hotel or a condominium those are the laundry, the pool pump room, the rooftop mechanical space and any extension-cord arrangement that became permanent. Rows 6 and 9 are the roof edge and the eyewash station by the pool chemicals. The "What the paragraph covers" column is this page's paraphrase of the cited paragraph, not HIOSH's text; the linked eCFR section is the text.

1910.305 in the Citation Decoder · 1910.303 · 1910.28 · 1910.151 · 1910.134

What this means for a hotel or a condominium

Read the seven lists together and one pattern holds. The federal top ten is dominated by construction fall protection; the state lists, once construction is set aside, are dominated by paperwork a property either has or does not: a written injury and illness prevention or accident prevention program (California 1 and 3, Washington 4, Michigan 1, Minnesota's AWAIR program at 8), a safety committee (Washington 1, Minnesota 3), hazard communication (six of the seven; it is first in Minnesota with 475 citations and sixth in Kentucky), and lockout/tagout, which North Carolina cites four separate ways, Michigan twice, Minnesota second overall and Kentucky third. Portable fire extinguishers appear in both the California and Washington lists, which is unusual for an occupational-safety list and is a reminder that the monthly extinguisher check is a labor inspector's item as well as a fire marshal's. Two lists break the pattern. Kentucky's is led by bloodborne pathogens, the written exposure control plan and training that a housekeeping or laundry department needs wherever staff handle soiled linen or respond to an injury. Hawaii's is led by electrical and fall paragraphs rather than programs: a missing ground path, an uncovered box, an open knockout, an unprotected edge, which is what a serious citation in a hotel's back of house looks like when the inspector is from HIOSH.

What is not on this page, and why

Oregon, Nevada, Virginia, Arizona and the other state plans did not have a current published list on their own sites when this page was checked; they will be added when one is found on an official page. Oregon's FY2025 State OSHA Annual Report, dated December 22, 2025, gives inspection totals but no most-cited table, so it is not restated. Kentucky and Hawaii were added November 8, 2026; before that the page covered five states. Kentucky's document prints ranks only and no date, so no count or publication date is given for it; its FFY 2024 edition is linked from the same agency page. Hawaii's list is its ten most serious citations, not its ten most frequent, and HIOSH prints the ranking as a chart image with the rows repeated as text; no counts and no page date are printed. Minnesota was added November 7, 2026: its fact sheets are titled as a top 25 but print 12 rows for all industries and 11 for general industry; the rows are given as printed. Minnesota's construction sheet is on the same fact-sheet page. The Michigan list is from the agency's own email bulletin; the same figures were not found on a michigan.gov page. North Carolina's construction table and rows 11 to 25 of its general-industry table are on the linked document. State-plan states and the agency for each are named in our state records.

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Reference only. This page restates a published official document; it is not legal advice and not an assessment of any property. Confirm requirements with the official text linked above, your authority having jurisdiction and your own counsel. Mason Mathews Facility Assurance, LLC · all reference pages · how our monitor reads sources.