DART Rate Calculator
TRIR tells you how often people get hurt. The DART rate tells you how badly. Enter the cases from your OSHA 300 log that ended in days away, restricted duty, or a job transfer, plus the total hours worked, and this calculator returns your DART rate per 100 full-time workers, judges it against the 1.4 national benchmark, and pairs it with TRIR when you add your total recordable cases.
Safety planning aid, not an official OSHA tool. Count cases under the OSHA 300 log rules in 29 CFR Part 1904; DART cases are a subset of total recordables.
Quick Answer
- Quick Answer
- How to use the DART rate calculator
- The DART formula, and why the base is 200,000 hours
- Worked example: 5 DART cases in 400,000 hours
- DART against TRIR: frequency answers a different question
- Benchmark against your industry, not just 1.4
- What counts as a DART case on the 300 log
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the DART rate calculator
Pull two numbers from the same period, usually a calendar year. The DART case count comes from your OSHA 300 log: add the cases checked in the days-away column and the job transfer or restriction column, counting each case once even if it appears in both. The hours figure comes from payroll: every hour actually worked by employees in that period, overtime included.
Add total recordable cases as well and the calculator returns TRIR alongside DART, which is the pairing prequalification systems and insurers ask for. The tool checks the one relationship that must hold: recordables can never be fewer than DART cases, because every DART case is also a recordable. If you enter 12 recordables and 15 DART cases, it will stop and tell you, instead of printing a TRIR lower than the DART rate and letting the error travel into a client submission.
Run the rate for the same period your benchmark uses. Mixing a mid-year case count with full-year hours, or the reverse, is the most common way this number gets understated in practice.
The DART formula, and why the base is 200,000 hours
The formula is a single standardization: it restates your cases as if exactly 100 full-time workers had worked a full year.
Count DART cases on the 300 log. Cases with days away from work, plus cases with job transfer or restriction. A case with both still counts once.
Total the hours for the same period. Use payroll hours actually worked, including overtime, for the employees covered by that log.
Multiply cases by 200,000 and divide by hours. The result reads as serious cases per 100 full-time workers per year, whatever your real headcount.
Hours, not headcount, is the denominator, and that choice matters. A company with 50 people working a full year logs about 100,000 hours, so 5 DART cases there produce a rate of 10.00, not 2.50. The same five cases in a 200-person company with 400,000 hours produce 2.50. Headcount shortcuts hide exactly the exposure difference the rate exists to expose.
Do not confuse this base with the per-million-hours base used in much international reporting. The accident frequency rate calculator works on that million-hour convention, so its figures cannot be compared with a DART rate until one of them is converted.
Worked example: 5 DART cases in 400,000 hours
The calculator is pre-filled with this workplace, and these are the exact figures it returns.
| Measure | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| DART rate | (5 x 200,000) / 400,000 | 2.50 per 100 FTE |
| TRIR | (12 x 200,000) / 400,000 | 6.00 per 100 FTE |
| Verdict against 1.4 | 2.50 compared with the private industry average | Above benchmark |
| DART cases at benchmark | 1.4 x 400,000 / 200,000 | 2.8 cases |
| Share of recordables that were serious | 5 of 12 cases | 41.7% |
Two readings follow. On level, 2.50 is close to double the all-private-industry average, the kind of figure that draws questions in prequalification and at insurance renewal. On shape, only about four in ten recordables at this workplace became DART cases, so the problem is the severity of a minority of incidents, not a flood of minor ones. Those two readings point at different fixes, which is why the pair of rates is worth more than either alone. For the money side of the same incidents, the cost of accidents at work calculator estimates what workplace accidents cost the business beyond the rate itself.
DART against TRIR: frequency answers a different question
TRIR counts every recordable case, including the worker who needed stitches, returned to full duties the next day, and lost no time. DART counts only the cases that changed what the worker could do: time off, lighter duties, or a different job. A case needing only first aid is neither. A case with days away is always both.
Compare workplaces on the gap, not just the levels. A high TRIR with a low DART describes frequent but mostly minor incidents: a reporting and housekeeping problem, often fixable with training and better first response. A DART rate close to the TRIR describes the opposite: few incidents, but nearly every one serious, which points at machine guarding, falls, vehicles, and energy control. In the worked example, TRIR of 6.00 against DART of 2.50 is the first pattern, a wide gap with a serious minority. Safety managers briefing executives usually lead with the pair for this reason, and the cost per incident calculator can then attach an average cost to each case type once the counts are settled.
Benchmark against your industry, not just 1.4
The verdict in the calculator uses 1.4 because that is the Bureau of Labor Statistics figure for all private industry in 2024, down from 1.5 in 2023 and the lowest range on record. It is a useful first screen and a poor final judgment, because industry rates spread widely around it.
| Industry (BLS, 2024) | DART rate | Reading against 1.4 |
|---|---|---|
| Private industry, all | 1.4 | The benchmark itself |
| All industries, including government | 1.5 | Slightly above |
| Goods-producing industries | 1.6 | Above |
| Natural resources and mining | 1.8 | Well above |
| Dairy cattle and milk production | 2.4 | Well above |
| Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting | 2.5 | Well above |
So a DART of 2.50 would be a middling result in agriculture and a poor one in an office-based business, where published rates run a fraction of 1.4. Look up your own NAICS row in the BLS industry table before deciding whether the verdict should worry you, and track your own year-on-year direction as seriously as the level: a falling 2.50 is a different story from a rising one.
What counts as a DART case on the 300 log
DART stands for Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred. Under the OSHA general recording criteria in 29 CFR 1904.7, a work-related injury or illness becomes a DART case when it results in days away from work, restricted work activity, or a transfer to another job. Cases recorded only because they needed medical treatment beyond first aid, or involved loss of consciousness, are recordable but not DART.
Three counting details decide borderline cases. First, the day of the injury itself is never counted as a day away; counting starts the day after. Second, a worker who is out only on the day of injury and back at full duty the next day has no DART case at all. Third, day counts are capped at 180 calendar days per case, though the case counts once toward DART regardless of how long it lasts. Severity inside the DART group is real: Bureau of Labor Statistics case data put the median absence at eight days for days-away cases in 2023 to 2024, rising to a median of 15 days for restriction and transfer cases, which is why two employers with the same DART rate can still carry very different lost-time burdens.
What competing calculators miss
Most DART tools reviewed for this page do one division and stop. Three gaps showed up again and again.
Miss 1: no TRIR pairing. Standalone DART tools make you open a second calculator, re-enter the hours, and line the two rates up yourself. Here the optional recordable count returns TRIR in the same run, on the same hours, so the severity gap is visible at a glance.
Miss 2: no check that the inputs can both be true. Rival tools accept recordable counts lower than the DART count and quietly print a TRIR below the DART rate, a mathematical impossibility that then gets copied into prequalification submissions. This calculator rejects that pairing and explains why.
Miss 3: the wrong numerator, even in official-looking guidance. At least one state safety page explains the DART formula using total recordable incidents as the numerator. Followed literally, that computes TRIR, not DART, and overstates the serious-case rate. The numerator here is DART cases only: days away, restriction, and transfer cases from the log.
One honest limit: the built-in verdict compares only with the 1.4 private-industry average. It does not look up your industry rate, so use the benchmark table above for the comparison that actually fits your workplace.
Frequently Asked Questions
DART rate = (DART cases x 200,000) / total hours worked. The cases are injuries and illnesses from the OSHA 300 log that resulted in days away from work, restricted work activity, or a job transfer. Five cases in 400,000 hours gives a DART rate of 2.50.
Lower is better, and the honest comparison is your own industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the 2024 private industry average at 1.4 per 100 full-time workers, but published industry rates range from well under 0.5 in office-based sectors to 2.5 in agriculture. Beating your industry average consistently matters more than beating 1.4 once.
TRIR counts every OSHA recordable case. DART counts only the subset serious enough to cause days away, restricted duty, or a job transfer. Both use the same 200,000-hour base, so the gap between them shows what share of your incidents were serious: in the worked example, TRIR is 6.00 and DART is 2.50.
No. Every DART case is also a recordable case, so on the same hours the DART rate can equal TRIR, when every recordable was serious, but it can never exceed it. This calculator rejects a recordable count lower than the DART count for exactly that reason.
It represents 100 full-time workers for one year: 100 workers x 40 hours per week x 50 weeks. Standardizing on that base lets a 30-person shop and a 3,000-person plant compare serious-case rates fairly, which is why OSHA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics publish rates this way.
All hours actually worked by the employees covered by the log in the same period, taken from payroll and including overtime. Use the same establishment and period for cases and hours. Whether to include temporary and contractor hours depends on who supervises their day-to-day work under the OSHA recordkeeping rules.
It means no case in the period caused days away, restricted duty, or a transfer, which the calculator returns as 0.00. A zero in a small workplace covers few hours, so read it alongside your exposure: zero cases in 20,000 hours is a weaker signal than zero in 2,000,000 hours.
Prevent the serious mechanisms first: falls, machine contact, vehicle incidents, and overexertion drive most DART cases. Guarding, fall protection, lockout discipline, and ergonomic redesign cut the case count, while a genuine return-to-work program moves recovering workers into suitable restricted duties safely and keeps cases from extending.
Add This Calculator to Your Website
References
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 1. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2024” – the source of the 1.4 private industry DART rate and the industry rates in the benchmark table. BLS: Incidence Rates by Industry and Case Types, 2024. Accessed October 2026.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Rate of nonfatal work injuries and illnesses, by state and case type, private industry, 2024” – state-level DART rates showing how far the national figure spreads by location. BLS: Rate of DART Cases by State, 2024. Accessed October 2026.
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration, “Recording” – the recordkeeping guidance listing the general recording criteria, including days away, restricted work, and transfer. OSHA: Recording Criteria for the 300 Log. Accessed October 2026.
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration, “1904.7 General recording criteria” – the regulation text on counting days away and job transfer or restriction, including the rule that the day of injury is not counted. OSHA: 29 CFR 1904.7 General Recording Criteria. Accessed October 2026.
- Code of Federal Regulations, Title 29, Part 1904, “Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses” – the full recordkeeping rule for the current year. CFR Title 29 Part 1904: OSHA Recordkeeping Rule. Accessed October 2026.
- Lab Manager, “What 2024 BLS Injury and Illness Data Means for Laboratory Safety Planning” – summary of the 2023 to 2024 BLS case data, including the eight-day median absence for days-away cases and 15-day median for restriction or transfer cases. Lab Manager: 2024 BLS Injury and Illness Data. Accessed October 2026.