What OSHA heat rules 2026 changed
OSHA heat rules 2026 replaced the inspection priority list OSHA has used since 2022, cutting the number of high risk industries from about 79 to 55. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that inspects workplaces for safety hazards, reissued its National Emphasis Program for heat on April 10, 2026, as a new directive. A National Emphasis Program is not a law. It is an internal instruction telling inspectors which industries to prioritize. The prior version expired April 8, 2026, 2 days earlier, leaving no enforcement gap. The revised program runs for up to 5 years.
How the target list narrowed
The new list adds 22 industries, removes 46, and keeps 33 from the 2022 version, for a total of 55, all counted directly in the directive. Adding the 46 removed to the 33 retained gives 79, the size of the prior list, a calculation performed for this article on 2 numbers the directive states, not a total either source gives outright. Beveridge and Diamond, a law firm that reviewed the directive, states the industry list shrank by around 30% in this revision. Added industries include department stores. Removed industries include basic chemical manufacturing.
Show the numbers
| Removed | 46 |
| Retained | 33 |
| Added | 22 |
Which triggers still start an inspection
The 2022 version ordered OSHA regions to raise heat inspections by 100% above their 2017 through 2021 average. The 2026 revision drops that fixed target and sets none. 2 triggers still send an inspector to 1 of the 55 named industries. The first is a heat priority day, when the heat index, the combined measure of temperature and humidity, is expected to reach 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The directive notes heat deaths have happened below that number too, so 80 degrees triggers attention, not a guarantee of safety. The second trigger is any day the National Weather Service issues a heat warning or advisory, which starts inspections regardless of industry.
What the outgoing program enforced
Under the outgoing 2022 program, OSHA ran about 7,000 heat related inspections between April 2022 and December 2024, issued 60 citations under the general duty clause, the rule used when no specific standard exists, sent 1,392 hazard alert letters to employers, and removed nearly 1,400 workers from hazardous conditions, all counted by Workplace Compliance Insights. Those figures describe the program this revision replaces, not the new one, which is 5 months old with no comparable count yet. In that period, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 48 worker deaths from heat exposure in 2024 and about 7,100 nonfatal heat cases in the 2023 to 2024 reporting period. Heat inspections made up 6% of every federal occupational safety inspection over the last 5 years, the directive states.
Show the numbers
| General duty clause citations issued | 60 |
| Hazard alert letters sent to employers | 1,392 |
| Workers removed from hazardous conditions | 1,400 |
Heat illness remains a serious hazard for indoor and outdoor workers, leading to preventable injuries and fatalities every year.
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that issued the directive. Source 1.
Why no federal heat law backs this up
None of this runs under a dedicated federal heat safety law, because OSHA has not finished writing one. The agency proposed a heat injury and illness prevention standard in August 2024. Its public hearing closed July 2, 2025, and its comment period closed October 30, 2025, with no final rule since. State run OSHA plans must tell the federal agency by June 9, 2026 whether they will adopt the revised program. Until a federal standard exists, the National Emphasis Program is what OSHA enforces in its place, an inspection priority list, not a right a worker can point to.