# How Likely Is a Second Cal/OSHA Citation?

About one in eleven California establishments cited in 2020–2021 was cited again at the same location within three years. When the second citation is for a substantially similar violation, the penalty is multiplied — 2x for a first repeat, up to 10x. The numbers, the five-year legal window behind them, and exactly how we matched the data.

Source: https://compliantca.com/guides/cal-osha-repeat-citations/
Published: 2026-08-25
Updated: 2026-08-25
Publisher: CompliantCA — not a law firm; this is not legal advice.

A first Cal/OSHA citation raises a practical question: how likely is a second? Cal/OSHA publishes no answer. This page is CompliantCA's, computed from the federal enforcement data: every California establishment first cited in 2020–2021, followed for three years.

The stakes are written in the penalty regulation. [8 CCR §334(d)](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/334.html) defines a repeat violation as a **substantially similar** violation after an earlier cited violation **occurring within the state**, within **five years** of the first citation becoming final — and [§336(g)](https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/336.html) multiplies a repeat's penalty 2x, 4x, then 10x, with no abatement credit.

**Free IIPP Audit Checklist.** The records 8 CCR §3203 requires, one question each: can you produce it today? PDF, no account.
[Request the checklist →](/request/iipp-audit-checklist/?from=cal-osha-repeat-citations)
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## The numbers {#the-numbers}

Of **8,144 California establishments** whose first citation in the data landed in 2020–2021:

| Measure, within three years | Establishments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Cited again at the same location | 733 | **9.0%** |
| Cited again, excluding follow-up inspections | — | 8.6% |
| A later citation shared a base standard with the first | 277 | 3.4% |
| Same employer name cited at a *different* location | 1,539 | 18.9% |

Three readings:

- **The base rate is about one in eleven.** It is not a follow-up artifact — removing follow-up inspections barely moves it — and a serious-class first citation nudges it up (10.2%).
- **The 3.4% row is the legal-repeat shadow.** §334(d) requires the second violation to be substantially similar; a later citation sharing a base standard with the first is the closest measurable proxy. Roughly a third of establishments cited again were cited again *for the same kind of thing*.
- **The 18.9% row is mostly multi-location employers.** 27% of the cohort carries a name that appears at more than one address — chains, franchisors, large firms. For them the statewide language of §334(d) matters: a citation at one site can set up a repeat classification at another.

## Recidivism by sector {#by-sector}

| Sector | Cohort | Cited again at same location within 3 years |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 1,397 | **14.7%** |
| Agriculture | 716 | 10.5% |
| Health care | 487 | 9.9% |
| Construction | 2,396 | 5.7% |
| Accommodation & food | 316 | 4.7% |

**Construction's low rate is partly an artifact of how we match.** A factory can be revisited; a construction *site* stops existing when the job ends. Site-based matching therefore understates how often a contractor is cited twice — for construction, the same-name row above is the more honest measure of exposure, and §334(d)'s statewide rule means the moving jobsite is no shield.

Manufacturing's 14.7% points the other way: fixed facilities with fixed hazards get return visits, and [lockout/tagout — manufacturing's second most-cited standard](/guides/most-cited-cal-osha-violations-manufacturing/) — carries the sector's largest serious-class counts.

## What this means for the second five years {#the-window}

Our three-year measurement is deliberately shorter than the law's five-year repeat window, so every rate on this page understates the legal exposure period. The practical takeaway is the same one the [penalty formula](/guides/how-cal-osha-penalties-are-calculated/) implies: the expensive citation is the second one. Fixing a cited condition durably — and keeping the records that show it stayed fixed — is what separates a $410 median first citation from a multiplied repeat.

## Methodology — how we matched establishments {#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. Because the dataset identifies establishments by free-text name and address rather than a stable ID, the matching approach determines the numbers, so here it is in full:

- **Establishment key: normalized name + five-digit zip.** Names are uppercased, punctuation stripped, and trailing entity suffixes removed (Inc, LLC, Corp, Co, and similar), so "Acme Roofing, Inc." and "ACME ROOFING INC" match. The zip keeps a chain's locations separate — a second citation at a different location of the same company does **not** count in the same-location rows.
- **Employer layer: normalized name only**, reported separately, because §334(d)'s repeat rule is statewide. This layer over-groups genuinely distinct businesses that share a name and is presented as an upper-bound view of multi-location exposure.
- **Cohort:** establishments whose earliest citation in the data was issued in 2020–2021 (29,945 usable cited inspections; inspections with blank or "unknown" establishment names excluded; deleted citation records excluded throughout). The dataset begins in 2020, so "first citation" means first since 2020 — an establishment also cited in, say, 2018 would still enter the cohort.
- **Outcome:** any later inspection at the same key receiving at least one citation issued within three years (1,095 days) of the index citation. Every cohort member's full three-year window closes before the data's retrieval date (2026-08-21), so no rate is truncated. A sensitivity run excluding follow-up inspections is reported alongside the headline.
- **Known limits:** name changes, relocations, and successor entities break matches (understating recidivism); shared names over-group in the name-only layer (overstating it); construction's transient sites understate its same-location row, as flagged above.

Cal/OSHA's own statewide summaries are at [DIR's citation statistics pages](https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/Citation-statistics.html). A statistic says what usually happened, not what will happen in any case — and nothing here is legal advice.

## Frequently asked questions

### How likely is another citation after a first Cal/OSHA citation?

In the federal enforcement data, 9.0% of California establishments first cited in 2020–2021 were cited again at the same location within three years — 733 of 8,144. Excluding follow-up inspections barely moves it (8.6%). Among establishments whose first citation included a serious-class violation, the rate was 10.2%.

### What counts as a repeat violation under Cal/OSHA rules?

8 CCR §334(d) defines a repeat as a violation of a substantially similar regulatory requirement, after an earlier cited violation occurring anywhere within the state, cited within five years of the earlier citation becoming final. It is statewide — a prior citation at one of your locations can set up a repeat at another — and the five-year window is longer than the three years this page measures.

### What is the penalty for a repeat violation?

8 CCR §336(g) multiplies the proposed penalty: 2x for a first repeat, 4x for a second, 10x for a third, capped at $162,851 as published in August 2026. Repeat violations also get no abatement credit.