Cal/OSHA Standards Board Adopts Construction Safety Order for Confined Spaces

Quick Hits

• Under a draft construction safety regulation adopted by the Cal/OSHA Standards Board on September 18, 2025, “Entry employer” is broadly defined and includes “any employer whose employees enter or will enter a permit space.”
• Construction employers would be required to identify and evaluate confined spaces. This includes a requirement that a “competent person conduct an initial survey” of the employer’s work area for confined spaces existing at the time work begins.
• Construction employers would be required to utilize competent persons to inspect work areas with sufficient frequency to identify new confined spaces.
• The draft regulation contains new requirements for confined space permits, confined space entry, and confined space training.

As with the general industry standard, confined space means a space that: (1) is large enough and so configured that an employee can bodily enter it, (2) has limited or restricted means for entry and exit, and (3) is not designed for continuous employee occupancy.

Permit-required confined space (“permit space”) means a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics: (1) contains or has a potential to contain a “hazardous atmosphere,” (2) contains a material that has the potential for engulfing an entrant, (3) has an internal configuration such that an entrant could be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross-section, or (4) contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard.

The addition of requirements that a “competent person conduct an initial survey” of work areas to determine if any confined spaces are present will be an important documentation point for California construction employers. Additionally, the new requirement that any employer at a construction site inform its employees and the controlling contractor that there is a newly discovered or created confined space is an important new duty at construction sites.

Next Steps

California construction employers may consider adjustments and updates for the confined space programs and construction site inspections.

Ogletree Deakins’ Workplace Safety and Health Practice Group will continue to monitor developments and will provide updates on the California, Construction, and Workplace Safety and Health blogs as additional information becomes available.

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