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DART Rate Calculator

Your DART rate is the number of cases involving days away from work, restricted work or job transfer, per 100 full-time workers in a year. Enter columns H and I from your OSHA 300A summary and the hours your employees actually worked. This is the rate OSHA uses to build its inspection targeting list, so it is worth getting right.

One entry per case, not per day. Days away start the day after the injury and are counted in calendar days (1904.7(b)(3)).
Restricted work or transfer with no days away. A restriction imposed only for the day of the injury is not recorded as restricted work (1904.7(b)(4)(iii)).
hours
Actual hours worked, overtime included. Vacation, sick leave and holidays are excluded even when paid.
All of columns G, H, I and J. Used only to show what share of your recordable cases are DART cases. Enter 0 to skip.
The BLS DART rate for your NAICS code, or your corporate target. Leave at 0 to skip the comparison — there is no single national figure worth pre-filling.

Rates and totals are calculated only from the numbers you type, so they are only as good as your OSHA 300 Log. This page is not an OSHA form, is not submitted to anyone, and does not decide whether a case is recordable — that follows 29 CFR Part 1904 and, in a State Plan state, your state's own rule. Nothing you type is sent to our servers.

Which cases are DART cases

Two boxes on the OSHA 300A, and no others. Every recordable case is classified once, on its most serious outcome — column G being the most serious and column J the least — so adding H and I can never double-count a case, and the DART count can never exceed the recordable total.

OSHA Form 300A case boxes and the three case-based rates
BoxWhat it countsTRIRDARTLost time rate
GDeathsYesNoNo
HCases with days away from workYesYesYes
ICases with job transfer or restrictionYesYesNo
JOther recordable casesYesNoNo

A case with days away and a later period of restricted duty is one case, recorded in column H. Its days are split between columns K and L, which feed the day-based rates, not this one.

What counts as restricted work

Restricted work is where DART counts get argued about, so the test is worth knowing exactly. Under 29 CFR 1904.7(b)(4), restricted work exists when you keep an employee from performing one or more of the routine functions of the job — activities the employee regularly performs at least once a week — or from working the full workday that would otherwise have been scheduled, or when a physician or other licensed health care professional recommends that restriction.

  • Only for the day of the injury: not recorded. A restriction or transfer imposed solely for the day the injury happened or the illness began is not recorded as restricted work (1904.7(b)(4)(iii)).
  • Working slower is not a restriction. If the employee performs every routine function and works the full shift but produces less, the case is not recordable as restricted work (1904.7(b)(4)(vi)).
  • A partial day is a day. For the day counts, a partial day of work is recorded as a day of job transfer or restriction — except on the day of the injury (1904.7(b)(4)(v)).
  • A recommendation you overrule still counts. If a health care professional recommends a restriction that matches the definition, the case is recorded even if the employee stays on full duty.

Why OSHA schedules inspections on this number

Because it separates the cases that hurt people enough to stop them working from the ones that ended at the first-aid station. OSHA's Site-Specific Targeting program builds its inspection list from the DART rates in the Form 300A data establishments submit electronically, with different thresholds for manufacturing and non-manufacturing so both are represented. The same program deliberately samples establishments reporting unusually low rates, and establishments that submitted nothing at all.

Two consequences worth taking seriously. First, the DART rate you file is the number that decides whether an inspector arrives — an error in columns H and I is not a paperwork detail. Second, discouraging a report to keep the rate down is unlawful in its own right: 29 CFR 1904.35(b)(1)(i) says a reporting procedure is not reasonable if it would deter or discourage a reasonable employee from accurately reporting a workplace injury or illness, and (b)(1)(iv) prohibits discharging or in any manner discriminating against an employee for reporting one.

How it's calculated

DART cases
DART cases = column H + column I
Cases with days away from work, plus cases with job transfer or restriction. Column J (other recordable cases) and fatalities are not DART cases.
DART rate
DART rate = (DART cases x 200,000) / hours worked
The same (N/EH) x 200,000 formula as the total case rate, with N counted only over days-away, restricted-work and job-transfer cases.
What 200,000 is
200,000 = 100 employees x 40 hours/week x 50 weeks/year
The base for 100 full-time-equivalent workers, so establishments of different sizes can be compared on the same scale.
Share of recordable cases that are DART cases
share = (DART cases / total recordable cases) x 100
Not an OSHA metric. It says how much of your recordable total is made of the cases that kept someone off the job or off their normal duties.
What one more DART case would cost
rate per case = 200,000 / hours worked
At 250,000 hours worked a single case adds 0.8 points; at 40,000 hours it adds 5.0.
Percent above or below an industry average
percent = ((your rate - industry rate) / industry rate) x 100
The comparison OSHA asks VPP applicants to make against the published BLS rate for their NAICS code.

Frequently asked questions

Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred. The DART rate counts the recordable cases that kept someone off work or off their normal duties: cases with days away from work (column H of the OSHA 300A) plus cases with job transfer or restriction (column I). It replaced the older Lost Workday Injury and Illness rate, the LWDII, which counted the same two groups.

Add columns H and I from your OSHA 300A summary, multiply by 200,000, and divide by the hours your employees actually worked. Example: 2 cases with days away and 1 case with restricted work over 250,000 hours gives (3 x 200,000) / 250,000 = 2.4. OSHA's VPP application instructions state the same formula as (N/EH) x 200,000, where N counts recordable injuries and illnesses resulting in days away from work, restricted work activity, and/or job transfer.

No. Each case is recorded once, in the column for its most serious outcome. A case that involved both days away from work and a later period of restricted duty is recorded in column H only, with the days split between columns K and L. OSHA's instructions are explicit: classify the case by its most serious outcome, column G being the most serious and column J the least, and select only one. That is why adding H and I never double-counts a case, and why the DART count can never exceed your total recordable cases.

TRIR counts every recordable case — deaths, days away, restricted work or transfer, and other recordable cases (columns G, H, I and J). DART counts only columns H and I. Both use the same 200,000-hour base, so your DART rate is always lower than or equal to your TRIR. A company with a high TRIR and a low DART rate is recording plenty of minor treatment cases but few that take someone off the job.

Because it is the number OSHA schedules inspections on. Under the Site-Specific Targeting program, OSHA builds a list of high-rate establishments from the DART rates in the Form 300A data submitted electronically, using different thresholds for manufacturing and non-manufacturing so that both are represented. The same program also samples establishments with very low reported rates and establishments that did not submit at all.

Not always. Restricted work exists when the employee is kept from a routine function of the job — an activity performed at least once a week — or from working a full scheduled workday, whether the employer or a health care professional imposes it. But a restriction or transfer imposed only for the day the injury happened is not recorded as restricted work (1904.7(b)(4)(iii)), and producing less while still doing every routine function for a full shift is not a restriction either (1904.7(b)(4)(vi)).

One below the published average for your NAICS code and your establishment size — there is no OSHA number that makes a rate acceptable in the abstract. OSHA's VPP program asks applicants to compare their three-year rate with the BLS national average for their industry at the most precise NAICS level available, and to qualify for Star status both the TCIR and the DART rate must be below the industry average for one of the three most recently published years.

200,000 divided by your hours worked. At one million hours a case adds 0.2 points; at 250,000 hours it adds 0.8; at 40,000 hours it adds 5.0. This is why small establishments swing between an excellent rate and a poor one on a single sprained ankle, and why OSHA suggests small employers combine several years of cases and hours — keeping the 200,000 constant unchanged — before reading anything into the number.

Sources & references

Content checked against these sources — last reviewed August 28, 2026.

By — Editorial team of SteelToeTools.com (published by LSEA SAS) Updated v1