OSHA does not approve first aid kits and does not publish a mandatory contents list for most workplaces. 29 CFR 1910.151(b) requires only that "adequate first aid supplies shall be readily available", and adequacy is judged against the hazards actually present at your site. Appendix A to the standard is non-mandatory and points to ANSI/ISEA Z308.1, which compliance officers use in practice as the benchmark: Class A kits for low-risk settings, Class B for higher-risk work like construction, manufacturing, and warehousing. Construction sites follow 1926.50 instead, and logging operations under 1910.266 Appendix A have the one genuinely mandatory contents list.
What 29 CFR 1910.151 actually says
The general industry standard is three short paragraphs, and the first aid supply requirement is a single sentence. 1910.151(b) reads that in the absence of an infirmary, clinic, or hospital in near proximity to the workplace for the treatment of injured employees, a person or persons shall be adequately trained to render first aid, and that adequate first aid supplies shall be readily available.
Three words in that sentence do all the work, and each one is where citations come from:
- Adequate: measured against your hazards, not a universal list. A machine shop and an accounting office do not need the same supplies.
- Readily available: a kit locked in a supervisor's truck, or in an office nobody has keys to after 5pm, is not readily available to the second shift.
- Near proximity: OSHA has interpreted this in terms of response time rather than distance. For workplaces with hazards capable of causing serious injury, guidance has pointed to roughly three to four minutes; for lower-hazard sites, fifteen minutes has been treated as acceptable.
Notice what is missing: any list. That absence is why the phrase "OSHA-approved first aid kit" appears on so many boxes and means nothing at all.
Why there is no such thing as an OSHA-approved kit
OSHA does not test, certify, endorse, or approve commercial products of any kind. No kit, no cabinet, no refill pack. A vendor claiming otherwise is describing their own belief that the contents match a published list, which is not the same as an agency approval and carries no weight in an inspection.
What this means in practice is that buying a kit does not discharge your obligation. You still have to decide whether its contents match the injuries your work can actually produce, document that decision, and keep the kit stocked. The purchase is the easy part and the smallest part.
ANSI/ISEA Z308.1: Class A vs Class B
Appendix A to 1910.151 is labelled non-mandatory and points employers to ANSI/ISEA Z308.1 as an example of minimum contents for a generic kit. It is guidance, not a rule, but because the standard itself gives no list, Z308.1 is the yardstick compliance officers reach for. Meeting it is the most defensible position available to you.
Z308.1 sorts kits into two classes by the severity and variety of injury a workplace is likely to produce:
| Class A | Class B | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Common, low-severity injuries | Higher-risk, more varied and more severe injuries |
| Typical setting | Offices, light retail, low-hazard service work | Construction, manufacturing, warehousing, trade contracting |
| Contents | Baseline categories, smaller quantities | Same categories at higher quantities, plus additional trauma supplies |
| Who needs it | A minority of our customers | Most small businesses doing physical work |
Z308.1 also classifies the container by where it will live, from Type I (indoor, mounted, not portable) through Type IV (outdoor, portable, impact-resistant, the one that survives a job site). Choosing a compliant contents list and then putting it in an unsuitable container is a common and avoidable miss.
One honest caveat: ANSI/ISEA Z308.1 is a copyrighted standard sold by ISEA, and the exact item quantities are not ours to republish. Buy the current revision, or ask your supplier to state in writing which revision and class their kit meets. "Meets ANSI" without a revision year is not an answer, because the standard has been revised several times and the older lists are shorter.
Construction is a different standard: 1926.50
If you are a contractor, 1910.151 is not your rule. Part 1926 governs construction, and 1926.50 imposes requirements that are in several respects stricter:
- First aid supplies must be easily accessible when required.
- Supplies must be easily accessible and kept in a weatherproof container with individually sealed packages for each type of item.
- The container must be checked before being sent out on each job and at least weekly on the job to replace expended items.
- Under 1926.50(c), when no medical facility is reasonably accessible for treating injured employees, a person holding a valid first aid certificate must be available at the worksite.
Two further points that catch contractors out. 1926.50(g) carries its own quick-drenching and eye-flushing requirement, so the eyewash duty applies on construction sites independently of the general industry rule. And under 1926.50(f)(2), where 911 does not automatically supply the caller's location, you must post either the worksite's latitude and longitude or other information that communicates the location effectively to employees.
One correction worth making loudly, because much of the material ranking for this search still gets it wrong: 1926.50 no longer requires a consulting physician to approve your kit contents. That language was removed by amendment in 2019. If a supplier or a checklist tells you otherwise, it is working from a superseded version of the standard.
That weekly check is the part small contractors most often miss, and it is the part with a paper trail attached. A kit that has never been inspected is a documentation failure regardless of what is inside it.
The one mandatory contents list: logging
1910.266 Appendix A covers logging operations and is, unusually, mandatory rather than advisory. It sets out what it calls the minimally acceptable number and type of supplies for the kits required under paragraph (d)(2) of the logging standard:
- Gauze pads (at least 4 x 4 inches)
- Two large gauze pads (at least 8 x 10 inches)
- Box adhesive bandages (band-aids)
- One package gauze roller bandage at least 2 inches wide
- Two triangular bandages
- Wound cleaning agent such as sealed moistened towelettes
- At least one blanket
- Adhesive tape
- Latex gloves
- Resuscitation equipment such as resuscitation bag, airway, or pocket mask
- Two elastic wraps
- Directions for requesting emergency assistance
One detail people miss: the appendix states this list is sized for a small work site of roughly two to three employees. For larger or multiple operations at the same location, you are expected to provide additional kits or increase the quantities inside them. If you run logging crews, this appendix is the list, and adequacy is not a judgment call.
Eyewash and drench showers: 1910.151(c)
The same standard carries a requirement employers frequently overlook. 1910.151(c) states that where the eyes or body of any person may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials, suitable facilities for quick drenching or flushing must be provided within the work area for immediate emergency use.
OSHA does not specify flow rates or flush duration here; the agency has referred employers to ANSI Z358.1 for those specifications. If you store or handle corrosives, including many ordinary cleaning chemicals, this paragraph applies to you, and a first aid kit does not satisfy it.
What actually gets cited
In our experience the kit contents are rarely the problem. The failures cluster around three things:
- Expired supplies. Antiseptics, antibiotic ointments, and burn treatments carry expiry dates. An expired item is not an adequate supply.
- Depleted kits nobody restocked. Someone takes the last four bandages in March and nobody notices until an inspection in September.
- No record of inspection. This is the one that turns a five-minute conversation into a citation. You can have a perfect kit and still be unable to demonstrate that anyone has looked at it.
The first two are supply problems. The third is a recordkeeping problem, and it is the one that recurs every single month whether or not anyone remembers. Documenting a monthly kit check is exactly the kind of small, repeating obligation that generates its own audit trail when it runs on a schedule instead of somebody's memory.
Free first aid kit compliance checklist
Work through this once per location, then re-run the inspection section monthly (weekly, if you are on a construction site under 1926.50):
Setup
- Determine which standard applies: 1910.151 (general industry), 1926.50 (construction), or 1910.266 App A (logging).
- Assess your actual hazards and decide Class A or Class B on that basis. Write down the reasoning.
- Choose a container type suited to where the kit lives, from indoor mounted through outdoor portable.
- Confirm in writing which Z308.1 revision and class your supplier's kit meets.
- Construction only: confirm the container is weatherproof with individually sealed packages, and set the weekly check.
- Site enough kits that every shift and every work area can reach one quickly.
- Confirm trained first aid responders are available, or that a medical facility is genuinely in near proximity.
Recurring inspection
- Every item present in the required quantity.
- No expired items. Check dates, not just presence.
- Seals intact on individually packaged items.
- Container clean, closed, undamaged, and weatherproof if outdoors.
- Kit location unobstructed and signposted.
- Restock anything used, immediately rather than at the next check.
- Record the date, the inspector's name, and what was replaced.
That last line is the one that matters when a compliance officer asks. Everything above it is what you have; that line is how you prove it.
Where this fits
First aid supplies sit inside a wider set of obligations most small employers are carrying without a system: training records, inspection logs, toolbox talks, and hazard reports that all have to exist on paper at the moment somebody asks for them. Our small business compliance walkthrough covers the full set, and if the recurring paperwork is the part that keeps slipping, see how the platform handles it.
