OSHA 10-hour and 30-hour cards: what the program is and where states ask for it

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. It describes the OSHA Outreach Training Program and three state statutes. It does not say which card a tree job needs. Employers and the offices named below decide that.

What the program is

The agency's own Outreach Training Program page says the program trains workers, at a basic or a more advanced level, on the common safety and health hazards of a job. At the end of the class a student receives a 10-hour or 30-hour course completion card. The classes run for Construction, General Industry and Maritime, and there is a separate 15-hour class for disaster site workers.

OSHA says the 10-hour class is meant to give workers awareness of common job hazards. It says the 30-hour class suits supervisors or workers with some safety responsibility. Both cover workers' rights, employer responsibilities and how to file a complaint.

What the cards are not

OSHA says none of the Outreach courses is a certification. Its FAQ calls the card a course completion card.
The program page says the training does not fulfill an employer's duty to train workers under specific OSHA standards. The training duties in rules such as the line-clearance standard stay with the employer.
OSHA says the program is voluntary. It says some states, municipalities, employers and unions require the training, and that the organization asking for the training decides what it accepts.
The FAQ says there is no minimum age for taking a class.

The agency keeps its tree work material on its own tree care page, which is where the agency collects its tree care material. The card sits outside that rulebook, as the points above show.

Who teaches it and how cards are issued

OSHA says authorized trainers are independent service providers, so schedules and fees vary. They are authorized, not certified, through the program. The FAQ says OSHA limits contact time to 7½ hours a day, and that the trainer can add time for breaks and lunch on top of that. It says OSHA does not host online Outreach classes itself and that online classes come from private providers.

Question	What the OSHA pages say
Who issues the card	The authorized trainer, or the online provider
How long a trainer has to issue it	90 days after the class
Who keeps the class records	The trainer or online provider, for five years. OSHA says it keeps no records of classes taught by authorized trainers
A replacement card	OSHA says a replacement is possible only for a class taken in the past five years, one replacement per student per class, and that OSHA holds no records of these classes and cannot provide one itself
Checking a card	OSHA says a plastic card carries a QR code that leads to the education center that processed it. It says it does not operate or acknowledge a national database for checking cards
Fees	OSHA says its education centers get no OSHA funding and may charge fees for processing cards

The FAQ also says the student cards for Construction, General Industry, Maritime and Disaster Site carry no expiry date, and that since April 1, 2019 the Maritime cards do not expire.

Three states whose own pages name the 10-hour course

OSHA's program pages do not list the states. Three state laws that name an OSHA 10-hour construction course were opened and read. Each applies to public work, and each text defines its own reach, so a tree job may or may not fall inside it. The text of each law is the place to check.

State and law	What the text says
Connecticut general statute, Sec. 31-53b	Covers public works contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2009. Each contractor furnishes proof with the weekly certified payroll for the first week an employee works that the person has completed a course of at least ten hours in construction safety and health approved by OSHA. A person without it can be removed from the site if no proof is shown by the fifteenth day. The Labor Commissioner enforces. The text accepts a student course completion card dated no earlier than five years before the project starts
Missouri revised statute, Section 292.675	Contractors and subcontractors on public works must provide a ten-hour OSHA construction safety program for on-site employees, within sixty days of starting. An employee without proof gets twenty days to produce it before removal. The text sets a penalty of US$2,500 plus US$100 for each employee for each calendar day, starting after those periods run
New Hampshire statute, RSA 277:5-a	Applies to a person signing a contract for construction, repair or maintenance of a public work or building by a state agency or municipality with a total project cost of US$100,000 or more. All employees must complete the OSHA 10-hour construction program before beginning work. The labor commissioner can assess a civil penalty of up to US$2,500 plus US$100 per employee for each day of noncompliance

Other states and cities have similar rules. This page lists only the ones whose texts were opened and read on October 8, 2026. The state labor department is the office that answers what a given contract needs.

Where else the card shows up

The Tree Care Industry Association's Certified Treecare Safety Professional page says taking the OSHA 30-hour course is recommended for two of its three ways to qualify. That is a recommendation by one association, not a rule. The CTSP credential and the association's other courses are in the guide to Tree Care Academy courses.