Big Dog Mining

MSHA Part 50 Incidence Rate

Your injury, fatality, lost-time and severity rates per 200,000 employee-hours, from the numbers already on your Form 7000-1 and 7000-2. Then the part no other free tool does: what the same rate was last year at US mines of your sector and type, so you can see whether yours is good rather than only what it is.

Step 1 — What happened

Count only what Part 50 makes reportable. Split it out and you get all four rates from one entry, because they share a formula and differ only in what goes on top.

Fatalities ?

Deaths at the mine during the period.

Lost-time cases ?

At least one day away from work, or restricted duty.

Other reportable injuries ?

Medical treatment beyond first aid, no days lost.

Days lost (optional) ?days

Total days away across all cases. Gives you the severity rate.

Step 2 — How much exposure

The denominator is hours actually worked, not hours paid. Leave holiday, vacation and sick time out of it.

How do you have the hours? ?

Total employee-hours worked ?h

All employees, whole period. The 7000-2 number.

Step 3 — Who to compare against

MSHA's own stated trigger for a Part 50 audit after a fatality includes a mine whose rates vary substantially from mines of a similar type. So "similar type" is not an academic choice.

Sector ? Mine type ?

—

all-injury rate / 200,000 h

—

against similar mines

—

lost-time rate

—

severity rate

Step	Value	Where it comes from

Your rate against similar mines

What your rate is made of

Benchmark table — US injury rates by sector and mine type, calendar year 2025

Sector	Mine type	All-injury	Fatality	Lost-time	Severity	Employee-hours
Coal	Underground	4.20	0.014	2.86	183.8	56,020,247
Metal/Nonmetal	Facility	1.90	0.004	0.44	15.7	44,856,011
Metal/Nonmetal	Underground	1.85	0.019	0.69	28.9	41,112,716
Coal	Facility	1.50	0.025	0.79	29.9	8,134,116
Metal/Nonmetal	Surface	1.49	0.008	0.53	17.6	264,812,428
Coal	Surface	1.23	0.013	0.76	42.3	30,677,100

Computed from MSHA's own Part 50 accident file and quarterly employment file for calendar year 2025, the last complete year, using the same N × 200,000 ÷ T formula this page uses. Operator employees only. Contractor hours carry no mine ID in MSHA's data and cannot be allocated to a mine, so including contractor injuries against operator hours would inflate every rate here. If you are a contractor, your own 7000-2 hours are your denominator and these operator rates are not your peer group.

Published reference — US mining fatal injury incidence rates, 2003 to 2007

Year	M/NM underground	M/NM surface	Coal underground	Coal surface	Total underground	Total surface
2003	0.02	0.02	0.04	0.02	0.03	0.01
2004	0.03	0.02	0.04	0.02	0.03	0.01
2005	0.01	0.02	0.06	0.00	0.03	0.01
2006	0.01	0.02	0.08	0.01	0.06	0.01
2007	0.05	0.02	0.05	0.02	0.04	0.01

SME Mining Engineering Handbook, 3rd edition, Table 6.1-8 “Mining fatal injury incidence rates per 200,000 hours in the United States”, p. 345, courtesy of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Read off the printed page and checked cell by cell. This is a historical series, not a current benchmark: use the 2025 table above to judge a rate today. It is here because it shows the scale a fatality rate lives on, which is hundredths, not units.

Two limits worth knowing. Below 200,000 employee-hours, roughly 100 people for a year, one injury moves your rate by a full point and the number stops being a stable measure of anything. The MSHA warehouse behind the benchmark applies that same 200,000-hour floor before it ranks anything, for the same reason. And a rate is a lagging measure: it counts what already happened, so it tells you where you have been and never where you are going.

Re-keying these numbers out of one system and into another?

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Worked example

Worked with the values this page loads with, so the method can be checked against the cited source without entering anything. Change any input above and the calculator recomputes; the numbers below stay as a fixed reference case.

1.33
-11%
0.67
8.0

Fatalities	0	MSHA degree 01
+ lost-time cases	1	MSHA degrees 02 to 05
+ other reportable injuries	1	MSHA degree 06, beyond first aid
= N, reportable events	2	30 CFR Part 50, via Form 7000-1
T, employee-hours worked	300,000 h	your input, the Form 7000-2 figure
N × 200,000	400,000	EQ 23.4, SME Mining Reference Handbook, 2nd ed, p. 565
÷ T	÷ 300,000
= all-injury incidence rate	1.33 per 200,000 h	the headline number
Fatality rate (fatalities × 200,000 ÷ T)	0.000	same formula, fatalities only
Lost-time case rate	0.67	same formula, degrees 02 to 05 only
Severity rate (days lost × 200,000 ÷ T)	8.0	same formula, days lost on top
Similar mines, Metal/Nonmetal surface, 2025	1.49	MSHA Part 50 and 7000-2 files, operator employees

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Estimating aid only. This is not an engineering design and not a substitute for the judgment of a competent or qualified person. It does not file anything with MSHA and it is not legal advice on what Part 50 makes reportable. Verify every result against the cited source and your own records. Full terms and disclaimer.