The formula, worked
Your total recordable incident rate is the number of OSHA-recordable cases you logged in a period — usually a calendar year — multiplied by 200,000, divided by the total hours your employees actually worked in that period. The result expresses your injury experience as cases per 100 full-time employees, which is what makes a 12-person shop comparable to a 5,000-person plant.
Worked example
TRIR = (4 × 200,000) ÷ 250,000 = 3.2
Which cases count: everything on your OSHA 300 log — the sum of columns G, H, I, and J. First-aid-only cases don't count because they were never recordable; if you are unsure whether a case belongs on the log at all, the 300 log guide and the free recordability checker settle it.
Which hours count: actual hours worked, from payroll — overtime included. Exclude vacation, sick leave, holidays, and any paid time not worked. Include hours from temporary workers you supervise day to day, because their recordables go on your log too.
Why 200,000?
One hundred employees working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks is 200,000 hours — a standard year for a 100-person company. Multiplying by that constant converts your raw case count into a rate per 100 full-time workers, so a company of any size can be compared against any other, and against the BLS tables below. No mystery, just normalization.
DART and lost-time variants
DART — Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred — uses the same formula but counts only the cases in columns H and I of the 300 log: DART = (H + I cases × 200,000) ÷ hours. LTC rate (lost time case rate) narrows further to days-away cases only, column H. Continuing the example: if two of the four recordables involved days away or restriction, DART = 1.6; if one involved days away, LTC = 0.8.
The relationship between the numbers tells its own story. TRIR measures how often people get hurt; DART measures how often they get hurt badly enough to change their work. A high TRIR with a low DART says lots of minor injuries; a DART close to your TRIR says nearly every injury is serious — a different and worse problem. Prequalification reviewers read both, so calculate both. The free calculator does all three at once.
2024 TRIR benchmarks by industry (BLS)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes total recordable cases per 100 full-time workers by industry each year through its Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses. The 2024 figures, released January 22, 2026:
| Industry | TRIR per 100 FTE |
|---|---|
| Private industry (all) | 2.3 |
| Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting | 3.9 |
| Mining, quarrying, oil & gas extraction | 1.2 |
| Utilities | 1.9 |
| Construction | 2.2 |
| Manufacturing | 2.7 |
| Wholesale trade | 2.2 |
| Retail trade | 3.0 |
| Transportation & warehousing | 4.4 |
| Information | 0.7 |
| Finance & insurance | 0.3 |
| Real estate, rental & leasing | 1.6 |
| Professional, scientific & technical services | 0.7 |
| Management of companies | 0.5 |
| Administrative & waste services | 1.8 |
| Educational services | 1.7 |
| Health care & social assistance | 3.4 |
| Arts, entertainment & recreation | 3.9 |
| Accommodation & food services | 2.6 |
| Other services | 1.9 |
Read your own sector, not the headline number. A 2.6 is excellent for a nursing-home operator (industry average 3.4) and alarming for an insurance office (0.3). Benchmark against the wrong row and every conclusion downstream is wrong too.
What counts as a "good" TRIR
Three honest answers. First: below your industry average — that is table stakes, and the table above tells you exactly where the bar sits. Second: whatever your customers say it is. General contractors commonly screen subcontractors at prequalification with a TRIR ceiling — below the industry average, or a hard number in the neighborhood of 3.0 — and hubs like ISNetworld and Avetta show every client your three-year TRIR, DART, and EMR trend. One bad year follows you for three. Third: statistically meaningful. In a 10-person company running roughly 20,000 hours a year, a single recordable produces a TRIR of 10.0. Small-employer rates whipsaw, so be ready to explain the story behind the number instead of hiding from it.
TRIR vs. EMR
TRIR counts frequency: every recordable weighs the same, whether it was three stitches or three months out. EMR — the experience modification rate — is the insurance industry's severity-weighted answer: your actual workers' comp losses measured against expected losses for your industry and size, indexed so 1.0 is average. A pile of cheap recordables can leave you with a mediocre TRIR and a respectable EMR; one catastrophic claim can do the reverse and raise premiums for three years. GCs and insurers look at both because each catches what the other misses.
Five ways to lower TRIR (without cooking the books)
- Record accurately — in both directions. First aid isn't recordable [1904.7(b)(5)(ii)], and over-recording inflates the rate your customers see. Under-recording is a citation and a credibility problem. Run borderline cases through the recordability checker and be right.
- Find hazards before they find you. A job hazard analysis on your highest-injury tasks is the cheapest leading indicator there is — the JHA generator builds one in about a minute.
- Train against your actual injury pattern. Column M of your own 300 log is a syllabus. Match it to the training requirements by topic and close the specific gaps producing your cases.
- Make near-misses speakable. A five-minute weekly toolbox talk cadence keeps hazards in circulation before they become entries in column H.
- Treat the second occurrence as a system failure. Investigate every recordable to root cause. The first event is information; a repeat of it is a management decision.
One honesty note: return-to-work programs are worth running for people and for claim costs, but a case brought back on restriction still counts in both TRIR and DART. What changes is the day count and the severity story — not the rate your prequal reviewer reads first.