Who needs bloodborne pathogens training?
Updated September 25, 2026
Every employee with occupational exposure: anyone who can reasonably be expected, as part of their job duties, to contact blood or other potentially infectious materials. How often it happens doesn't matter; whether it's a reasonable part of the job does.
The test OSHA uses
The standard applies to all occupational exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials (OPIM). Paragraph (b) defines occupational exposure as reasonably anticipated skin, eye, mucous membrane or parenteral contact with blood or OPIM that may result from the performance of an employee's duties.
The employer makes this determination in writing as part of its exposure control plan, listing the job classifications where all employees have exposure and those where some do, along with the tasks involved.
The training itself is the employer's cost. Paragraph (g)(2)(i) requires it to be provided at no cost to the employee and during working hours. Individuals who buy their own certificate are usually self-employed, job applicants, or renewing a state license.
Jobs that usually qualify
Healthcare and dental staff, EMS and fire, law enforcement where contact is part of the job, home health and hospice workers, dialysis staff, laboratory staff, tattoo and piercing artists, and cosmetology and barbering professionals whose services can draw blood.
Outside healthcare: employees designated to give first aid, custodial staff assigned to clean up blood, laundry workers handling contaminated linens, and school staff named in a district's exposure control plan as first-aid responders.
Good Samaritans are different
An employee who helps a coworker in an emergency without first aid being part of their assigned duties is generally acting as a Good Samaritan, and that act alone doesn't bring them under the training requirement. OSHA encourages employers to offer post-exposure evaluation and follow-up to employees in that situation.
Self-employed and licensed professionals
OSHA's standard covers employers and employees. A sole proprietor with no employees isn't covered by OSHA directly, but state licensing rules often require the training anyway: Oregon requires it for cosmetology license renewal, and Colorado counties require it for body art licensing.