Who Is Exempt From Reporting Under RIDDOR? A Builder's Guide

Small building firms and sole traders are not automatically exempt from reporting under RIDDOR. The duty to submit a report sits with the "responsible person" for the work: usually an employer, a self-employed person, or whoever is in control of the premises where the work is happening. An employee normally tells their employer about an incident rather than reporting it to the HSE themselves. Separately, a short list of incidents is exempt from RIDDOR reporting, and many everyday knocks simply don't meet the reporting criteria in the first place.

Those are three different things, and mixing them up is how builders get caught out. This guide separates them for the kind of work sole traders, small firms, electricians, roofers and groundworkers actually do. It covers Great Britain; Northern Ireland has its own RIDDOR regulations and reports go to HSENI, with different thresholds (see the end of this article).

Who has to report, and who doesn't

RIDDOR reports should only be made by the responsible person. The HSE's who should report page lists them as:

• employers, for their workers
• some self-employed people
• people in control of work premises, when a reportable work-related accident or event happens there

Two consequences matter on site:

• An injured employee does not report. The HSE says you should not make a report if you are an injured person (unless you are self-employed), a member of the public, or someone without duties under RIDDOR. Tell your employer; they report.
• A self-employed worker injured on someone else's work premises usually relies on the person in control of those premises to report a specified injury or an over-seven-day injury. The HSE's advice is to make sure they know about it. If the accident happens on your own premises or in domestic premises, such as a homeowner's extension, you are the one who reports.

So "who is exempt" is rarely the right question for a small firm. Nobody with duties is exempt as a class. The better questions are: am I the responsible person here, and does this incident have to be reported at all?

Which incidents are exempt from reporting under RIDDOR?

Regulation 14 of RIDDOR 2013 lists the exemptions. The HSE's exemptions page summarises them as:

• injuries arising from a medical or dental operation, examination or treatment of that person, carried out by or under the supervision of a registered doctor or dentist
• accidents involving a moving vehicle on a public road, with exceptions covered below
• accidents to members of the armed forces on duty

The medical exemption is narrower than it sounds. It covers injury caused by the treatment itself. It is not a general exemption for accidents in hospitals, and a reportable site injury does not stop being reportable because the injured person is later treated in hospital.

When does the road traffic exemption NOT apply?

The public road exemption is the one that trips builders up most. If one of your labourers is driving the van to the merchants and gets rear-ended at a roundabout, that collision on a public road is not a RIDDOR matter; it is dealt with under road traffic law. As the HSE puts it, "Most injuries resulting from vehicle movement on public roads are not reportable under RIDDOR."

But the exemption does not cover everything involving a vehicle. RIDDOR still applies to accidents associated with:

• loading or unloading operations
• work alongside the road, such as road maintenance
• escapes of substances from the vehicle
• accidents involving trains

So a driver who breaks his leg unloading materials at the kerbside is in a different position from one hit while driving. The unloading is work activity, not vehicle movement.

Location matters too. The HSE's examples of reportable incidents include two staff seriously injured when a delivery truck collided with a lift truck on a private site road, which is reportable. Its reasoning: "The exemption for reporting road traffic accidents only applies to vehicles on a 'road', as defined in s192 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. If the site road is genuinely 'private', and the public do not normally have access, it is not within this definition and you must report the accident."

One caution. A collision on a private haul road is not reportable just because the road is private. It still has to meet the normal criteria: a specified injury, an over-seven-day injury, a death, or a listed dangerous occurrence. Some dangerous occurrences, such as a collapse of scaffolding over five metres high, are reportable even when nobody is hurt.

Are car park and public premises accidents exempt?

An accident on work premises is not automatically work-related. The HSE uses a supermarket car park example: two shoppers hurt when their cars collide are not a RIDDOR matter "unless the circumstances were directly linked to supermarket's work". It could become reportable "if supermarket staff had contributed to the circumstances of the collision by, eg directing traffic movements, or by erecting an advertising board which obscured drivers' visibility."

For a kitchen fitter or shopfitter working in a retail unit, the test is whether your work created the circumstances, not where it happened. If your traffic marshalling or your signage caused a collision in the customer car park, don't assume it is exempt.

Is stress or PTSD reportable under RIDDOR?

Mental health conditions are generally outside RIDDOR's scope. On work-related stress, the HSE is direct: "For the purposes of RIDDOR reporting, an accident is considered to be something which causes physical injury. This is because stress-related conditions usually result from a prolonged period of pressure, often from many factors, rather than just one distinct event." Post-traumatic stress disorder after a one-off incident is not reportable either, because it is not one of the listed occupational diseases.

Not reportable does not mean not your problem. Employers have a legal duty to assess the risk of work-related stress and act on it, and the HSE's stress guidance sets out what it expects a small firm to do. The HSE also notes that stress "can be discussed with the enforcing authorities" and that a concern "could result in an investigation".

The reportable diseases are set out in two regulations. Regulation 8 covers six named conditions, each tied to a specified kind of work: carpal tunnel syndrome, cramp of the hand or forearm, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma, and tendonitis or tenosynovitis. Regulation 9 separately covers any cancer attributed to an occupational carcinogen or mutagen, and any disease attributed to occupational exposure to a biological agent. A case is reportable once a doctor has diagnosed it in writing and the person's current work involves the relevant exposure.

What about incidents notified under other rules?

Some incidents are excluded from specified RIDDOR reporting requirements because they must be notified under another reporting regime named in the legislation. Regulation 14(6) lists them: the Nuclear Installations Act 1965, the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 and orders made under them, the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017, the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002, and, for civil aviation, Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 996/2010. Note that the HSE's own exemptions page still shows older aviation references; the amended regulation is the one that applies.

Most small building firms will only ever meet one of these: electricians working on distribution networks may report under the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations. Do not assume that reporting an incident to anyone else removes your RIDDOR obligations. Telling a client, principal contractor or insurer does not, by itself, discharge the duty.

Can a firm get an exemption?

Regulation 17 gives the HSE, and the ORR for relevant railway activities, power to grant written exemptions to a person or class of persons, subject to conditions and to being satisfied that health and safety will not be prejudiced. That is a formal certificate in specified circumstances, not something a business is entitled to. Do not assume you are exempt because you are small, self-employed, or think reporting unnecessary.

Recording is not the same as reporting

An injury can need a record without needing a report. The HSE's types of reportable incidents page draws the line:

• More than three consecutive days away from work or unable to do normal duties: you must record the accident (an accident book entry is enough), but you do not need to report it.
• More than seven consecutive days: report it, within 15 days of the accident.
• Specified injuries, deaths and listed dangerous occurrences: report regardless of days lost.

The day of the accident does not count; weekends and rest days do. In Northern Ireland the thresholds differ: an over-three-day injury is reportable there, through HSENI.

Keep your records straight before you need them

Even when an incident is exempt, or below the threshold, clear records protect you if the question comes up later. That starts before the job. If your risk assessments and method statements identify loading and unloading, vehicle movements and traffic management on site, judging what falls inside RIDDOR gets much easier. You can put those together quickly with a free RAMS generator built for trades, or see how ready-made RAMS templates handle site traffic and delivery hazards.

Every construction project needs a construction phase plan before work starts, whatever its size. On a project with more than one contractor the principal contractor prepares it; on a single-contractor job, that contractor does. If yours sets out how vehicles and pedestrians are kept apart, deciding whether a collision on your site road is the reportable kind is a much quicker call.

If you want to see what's included across documents, the pricing and plan options lay it out. The Site Book will not tell you what is reportable, that is your call against the HSE rules, but it helps you produce the paperwork that makes those calls easier.

The short version

You are not exempt from reporting under RIDDOR because you are small or self-employed. Work out whether you are the responsible person, then whether the incident meets the criteria. Most public-road vehicle accidents, injuries caused by medical treatment itself, and armed forces duty incidents are exempt; loading and unloading, work alongside roads, substance escapes and genuinely private site roads are not. Stress and one-off PTSD are not reportable, but stress is still a risk you must assess. Record anything over three days; report anything over seven, and every specified injury or dangerous occurrence.

When in doubt, check the current HSE guidance or ask the enforcing authority rather than guessing. This guide explains the rules for Great Britain as the HSE and the regulations state them at the time of writing. It is not legal advice and it does not guarantee that you are compliant.