# Cal/OSHA Enforcement in San Jose

Cal/OSHA opened 429 inspections in San Jose from 2020 through 2025 and issued 1,235 citations on them. Restaurants are the single largest industry in the city's data — a bigger citation total than in Los Angeles — and referral inspections are nearly absent.

Source: https://compliantca.com/guides/cal-osha-enforcement-san-jose/
Published: 2026-08-28
Updated: 2026-08-28
Publisher: CompliantCA — not a law firm; this is not legal advice.

Cal/OSHA publishes no city-level enforcement statistics. This page is the San Jose cut, computed from the federal enforcement data that Cal/OSHA inspections flow into: the **429 inspections opened at San Jose addresses from January 2020 through December 2025**, and the **1,235 citations** issued on them, carrying $3.1 million in penalties as they currently stand.

"San Jose" here is the mailing city on the inspection record, not the municipal boundary — and the surrounding cities are their own records. Our [county breakdown](/guides/cal-osha-inspections-by-county/) has the regional layer, where Santa Clara County runs about 16 annual inspections per 100,000 covered workers — the lowest rate of any large county in California. We publish the same cut for [Los Angeles](/guides/cal-osha-enforcement-los-angeles/) and [San Diego](/guides/cal-osha-enforcement-san-diego/).

## What Cal/OSHA cites in San Jose {#top-standards}

Citations counted per violation line item, grouped to the base section. Average penalty is the penalty as it stands now, after any appeals and settlements, averaged across the row's citations — as retrieved 2026-08-21; these figures may change as cases settle.

| # | Standard | What it covers | Citations | Avg penalty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [§3203](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3203.html) | Injury and Illness Prevention Program | 133 | $1,852 |
| 2 | [§1509](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/1509.html) | IIPP (Construction Safety Orders) | 117 | $1,164 |
| 3 | [§3395](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3395.html) | Heat Illness Prevention in Outdoor Places of Employment | 105 | $470 |
| 4 | [§342](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/342.html) | Reporting Work-Connected Fatalities and Serious Injuries | 53 | $3,429 |
| 5 | [§3314](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3314.html) | Control of Hazardous Energy (cleaning and servicing machinery) | 45 | $4,794 |
| 6 | [§5199](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/5199.html) | Aerosol Transmissible Diseases | 42 | $4,233 |
| 7 | [§6151](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/6151.html) | Portable Fire Extinguishers | 35 | $460 |
| 8 | [§3276](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3276.html) | Portable Ladders | 27 | $5,185 |
| 9 | [§3650](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/3650.html) | Industrial Trucks (forklifts) | 21 | $10,679 |
| 10 | [§341](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/341.html) | Permit Requirements | 21 | $616 |
| | All other standards | | 636 | |
| | **Total** | | **1,235** | **$2,539** |

The two IIPP standards — [§3203](/guides/8-ccr-3203/) and §1509, the same requirement under two safety orders — lead here as they do everywhere, at 250 citations, 20% of the city's total. [§3395 heat illness](/guides/8-ccr-3395/) at #3 rides on construction and landscaping, which together supply most of its rows.

The expensive rows are equipment rows. **§3650, Industrial Trucks** — forklifts — averages $10,679 per citation, four times the city's overall average, on 21 citations. Portable ladders (§3276, $5,185) and hazardous-energy control during machine servicing (§3314, $4,794) follow the same pattern: the written-program citations are frequent and comparatively cheap; the equipment citations are rarer and cost the most.

**Free IIPP template.** The §3203 program that leads this table — one section for each of the eight elements listed in §3203(a), plus the inspection and training record forms §3203(b) requires. PDF, no account.
[Request the template →](/request/iipp-template/?from=cal-osha-enforcement-san-jose)
{: .callout }

## Restaurants are San Jose's most cited industry {#restaurants}

The distinctly San Jose finding: **restaurants (NAICS 7225) drew 156 citations at San Jose addresses — 13% of the city's total, the largest of any industry, and more than any other city in the state**. Los Angeles, with four times San Jose's citation volume overall, recorded 117 restaurant citations; San Francisco 75, San Diego 73.

What restaurant inspections cite is the everyday paperwork and equipment of a kitchen: the [§3203 IIPP](/guides/8-ccr-3203/) leads at 37 citations, portable fire extinguishers (§6151) second at 24. Statewide, [restaurant inspections are complaint-driven](/guides/most-cited-cal-osha-violations-restaurants/) — someone calls — and the citation profile that follows is documents and fire equipment, not exotic hazards.

Construction still supplies the largest sector share overall — 420 citations, 34% of the city's total, above the statewide 26% — but no single construction industry group approaches the restaurant row.

## Referrals are nearly absent in San Jose {#triggers}

Share of the 429 San Jose inspections opened 2020–2025, by trigger, against the statewide mix:

| Trigger | San Jose | Statewide |
|---|---|---|
| Accident investigation | 31% | 31% |
| Complaint | 23% | 24% |
| Planned (programmed) | 19% | 21% |
| Fatality/catastrophe | 8% | 5% |
| Referral | 1% | 8% |
| Related and follow-up | 19% | 11% |

The accident, complaint, and planned shares track the state almost exactly. The outlier is **referrals: five inspections in six years — 1% against a statewide 8%**. Referral-driven enforcement is the pattern that [dominates the far-northern counties](/guides/cal-osha-inspections-by-county/#butte-and-shasta); in San Jose it is effectively not a channel. The volume itself is level — between 65 and 78 openings every year of the window.

## Methodology {#methodology}

CompliantCA computed this analysis from the [U.S. Department of Labor enforcement dataset](https://dataportal.dol.gov/) (the OSHA Information System), which includes Cal/OSHA because California operates an OSHA-approved State Plan. Scope: inspections opened January 2020 through December 2025 whose recorded site city is San Jose, and citation line items issued in the same window on those inspections, excluding citation records deleted in the source data, as retrieved 2026-08-21.

The city is the **mailing city on the inspection record**, which is close to but not identical with the municipal boundary; neighboring cities like Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, and Milpitas are their own records. Citations are grouped to the base section, so §3203(a) and §3203(a)(4) count together; industry groupings use the NAICS code on the inspection record; trigger shares use the inspection-type code on the inspection record. Penalty figures are the penalty as it stands now, after any appeals and settlements (the dataset's "current penalty"), and change as cases settle. Cal/OSHA's own statewide summaries are at [DIR's citation statistics pages](https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/Citation-statistics.html).

A citation count says what inspectors cited, not what any employer must do — the standards themselves say that.

## Frequently asked questions

### How many Cal/OSHA inspections happen in San Jose?

Cal/OSHA opened 429 inspections at San Jose addresses from 2020 through 2025, per federal enforcement data — steady at 65 to 78 a year. Santa Clara County as a whole runs about 16 annual inspections per 100,000 covered workers, the lowest rate of any large California county.

### What does Cal/OSHA cite most in San Jose?

The written-program standards: §3203, the Injury and Illness Prevention Program, leads with 133 of the 1,235 San Jose citations issued 2020 through 2025, followed by §1509, the construction IIPP (117), and §3395 heat illness prevention (105).

### What industry gets cited most in San Jose?

Restaurants. Full-service and limited-service restaurants (NAICS 7225) drew 156 citations at San Jose addresses from 2020 through 2025 — 13% of the city's total, and more than any other city in the state, including Los Angeles at 117. Their most-cited standards are the §3203 IIPP (37) and §6151 portable fire extinguishers (24).

### What triggers Cal/OSHA inspections in San Jose?

Events, overwhelmingly. Accident investigations were 31% of San Jose inspections opened 2020 through 2025 and complaints 23%. Referrals were 1% — five inspections in six years, against a statewide referral share of 8%.