Cal/OSHA Porta Potty Requirements for California Job Sites

This page is general information, not legal advice. It summarises the regulations as published on the Department of Industrial Relations website and links to each one. For a ruling on your site, read the sections themselves, call Cal/OSHA Consultation Services, or ask your safety consultant.

How many portable toilets does Cal/OSHA require?

The rule is 8 CCR §1526, Toilets at Construction Jobsites. Subsection (a) reads:

"A minimum of one separate toilet facility shall be provided for each 20 employees or fraction thereof of each sex. Such facilities may include both toilets and urinals provided that the number of toilets shall not be less than one half of the minimum required number of facilities."

"Or fraction thereof" means you round up. Twenty-one workers need two toilets, not one.

On a site where every unit is a single-user portable toilet marked for all-gender use (see the next section), the count works out as follows.

The table is our arithmetic from the quoted ratio. Count every employee on the site at its busiest, and get agreement between the general contractor and the subcontractors on who is providing the units. Our porta potty calculator has a construction mode that applies the same rule.

Two short provisions sit beside the ratio:

• §1526(b): "Under temporary field conditions, not less than one toilet shall be available."
• §1526(c): where flush toilets are not feasible because there is no sanitary sewer or the water supply is inadequate, the employer must provide non-water-carriage facilities. Unless local regulations prohibit them, these may include "chemical toilets, recirculating toilets, or combustion toilets." This is the subsection that makes a standard portable toilet an accepted way to comply.

What does "of each sex" mean for a mixed crew?

Read plainly, subsection (a) counts men and women separately. A crew of 30 men and 5 women would need two facilities for the men and one for the women: three in all, though 35 people is fewer than two brackets of 20.

Two exceptions, added by an amendment that took effect on July 1, 2020, change that for single-user toilets.

Exception 1: fewer than five employees. The text reads: "Where there are less than five (5) employees, one (1) single-user toilet facility designated for all-gender use is sufficient."

Exception 2: single-user all-gender facilities count toward the total. A single-user toilet designated for all-gender use counts as one of the required separate facilities if three conditions are met:

1. The total number of toilet facilities meets the subsection (a) ratio.
2. All single-user toilet facilities are designated for all-gender use.
3. All multi-user separate facilities are provided in equal number to each sex.

A standard porta potty is a single-user facility. If every unit on the site is single-user and marked all-gender, conditions 1 and 2 are met by the count and the signs, and condition 3 does not come into play because there are no multi-user facilities. On that reading the 35-person mixed crew needs two units, not three.

What this means in practice:

• Mark every unit all-gender. The exception depends on the designation. If some single-user units are signed "Men" or "Women," condition 2 is not met.
• If you assign units by sex, count by sex. Round each group up separately and add the results.
• Urinals. The rule allows urinals to make up part of the count, but toilets must be at least half of the required number. A single-user portable toilet counts as a toilet.

This is our reading of the published text, not an interpretation issued by Cal/OSHA. If your site has a restroom trailer with separate multi-stall men's and women's sides, condition 3 applies and you should check the count with your safety consultant.

What are the hand-washing rules?

Washing facilities are covered by 8 CCR §1527. The ratio is in subsection (a)(1):

"A minimum of one washing station shall be provided for each twenty employees or fraction thereof."

The same subsection says a washing station must at all times:

• be maintained in a clean and sanitary condition;
• have an adequate supply of water for effective washing;
• have a readily available supply of soap or another suitable cleansing agent;
• have single-use towels or a warm-air blower;
• "be located and arranged so that any time a toilet is used, the user can readily wash."

Then comes the part most often missed with porta potties. When the washing station is provided with a non-water-carriage toilet, which is what a portable toilet is, it must:

1. carry a sign or equivalent notice that the water is intended for washing; and
2. "be located outside of the toilet facility and not attached to it."

There is one exception: where there are fewer than five employees and only one toilet facility, the washing facility may be inside the toilet. So a hand sanitizer dispenser or a small sink inside the unit does not meet the rule for a crew of five or more. A separate hand-wash station with water, soap and paper towels does.

Section 1527(a)(2) adds a requirement for crews that apply paints or coatings or handle other harmful substances: washing facilities "in near proximity to the worksite," with soap and, where needed, special cleansing compounds.

Are mobile crews exempt?

Partly. Section 1526(e) says the toilet rule does not apply "to mobile crews having readily available transportation to nearby toilet facilities." Section 1527 has a matching exception for washing stations.

The regulation does not define "mobile crew," "readily available" or "nearby," and we did not find a Cal/OSHA interpretive letter that sets a distance. A crew that moves between short service calls with its own trucks fits the wording more easily than a crew parked on one lot for three weeks. If you plan to rely on the exception for a fixed job site, get advice first.

How often do the units have to be pumped?

The regulation does not say. Section 1526(d) sets a condition, not a schedule:

"Toilet facilities shall be kept clean, maintained in good working order, designed and maintained in a manner which will assure privacy and provided with an adequate supply of toilet paper."

Weekly pumping is an industry convention, not a Cal/OSHA number. The test is the state of the unit when someone opens the door. A unit shared by 20 workers on ten-hour summer shifts can fail that test well before a week is up, and the fix is a second weekly visit or another unit. Victory Portable Restrooms includes a weekly pump, clean and toilet paper restock on job site rentals and offers extra visits. Details are on our construction porta potty rental page.

You will see a figure repeated online of one unit per 10 workers for a 40-hour week with weekly service, attributed to the ANSI/PSAI Z4.3 industry standard. We could not read the standard to confirm it, and it is not part of Title 8.

How is Cal/OSHA different from federal OSHA?

California runs its own OSHA-approved State Plan, so California employers follow Title 8. The federal construction sanitation rule, 29 CFR 1926.51, is useful mainly because out-of-state articles and calculators are built on it. Its Table D-1 reads:

The first two rows overlap at exactly 20 employees. That is how the table is published.

Worked through, a 100-person crew needs five toilet facilities in California and, under the federal table, three seats and three urinals. A 40-person crew needs two in California and one seat and one urinal federally. The federal figures are our arithmetic, rounded up.

On washing, federal §1926.51(f) requires lavatories "in all places of employment" with running water, soap and towels or air blowers, but gives no number per employee. California gives the number.

What applies to vineyards and farm crews?

Agricultural hand-labor is covered by a different section, 8 CCR §3457, Field Sanitation. It applies to operations such as hand-weeding, hand-planting and hand-harvesting, which takes in most vineyard work in the Temecula Valley.

The records line matters when you choose a supplier: ask for a dated ticket at every service. Our Satellite Tufway toilets have a 70-gallon holding tank, and our Satellite Tag 4 hand-wash stations have a 22-gallon fresh-water tank, so both are above those minimums.

Section 3457 covers field employees. Winery guests are a separate question, covered in our permit guide.

Does a construction site need an ADA-accessible unit?

Not under the federal accessibility standards, if the units are for the crew only. Section 203.2 of the 2010 ADA Standards says:

"Portable toilet units provided for use exclusively by construction personnel on a construction site shall not be required to comply with 213 or to be on an accessible route." (U.S. Access Board)

Three cautions:

• California's own code. California Building Code §11B-203.2 carries the same exemption. Portable toilet units "provided for use exclusively by construction personnel on a construction site" do not have to comply with Section 11B-213 or be on an accessible route (2025 CBC text in the Division of the State Architect's advisory manual, PDF).
• "Exclusively" is the key word. Units that the public, clients on a walk-through, or occupants of a building that stays open during the work will use are not exclusively for construction personnel. For public use California requires 5% of the units in each cluster, and never fewer than one, to be accessible (CBC §11B-213.2, exception 3).
• Your own workforce. The exemption concerns building standards. It does not settle what an employer owes a worker with a disability, which is an employment-law question outside this guide.

We stock ADA-accessible units for sites that need one.

What would an inspector check?

We did not find a published Cal/OSHA checklist specific to portable toilets, so this list is drawn only from the wording of §1526 and §1527. Each item is something the regulation states and that can be seen on a site walk. The Cal/OSHA Pocket Guide for the Construction Industry also has a short section on toilets, washing facilities and sanitation (Pocket Guide, PDF).

1. Enough units for the head count that day, including subcontractors.
2. Units marked all-gender, if you are counting on the single-user exception.
3. A washing station for every 20 workers, outside the toilet and not attached to it.
4. Water, soap and single-use towels actually in the station, with a sign that the water is for washing.
5. Clean units in working order, with a door that closes and latches for privacy.
6. Toilet paper in every unit.
7. Washing facilities near the work where paints, coatings or other harmful substances are in use.

A storm water inspector is a separate matter. The California Stormwater Quality Association's practice sheet for sanitary waste says to place portable toilets at least 50 feet from drainage conveyances and traffic areas where site conditions allow, to provide containment, and to secure units in high winds (CASQA WM-9, November 2009, county-hosted copy, PDF). We offer containment trays to set under units for that.

Penalty amounts are outside this guide. We did not research them and will not guess.

Cal/OSHA portable toilet FAQ

Do I need a separate women's unit? Not if every unit is single-user and designated all-gender, under Exception 2 to §1526(a). If you label units by sex, you must count each sex separately.

Is hand sanitizer inside the unit enough? Not for five or more employees. Section 1527 requires a washing station with water, soap and towels, outside the unit and not attached to it.

Does a three-person crew need a porta potty? Yes, one single-user all-gender toilet, unless the crew is a mobile crew with transportation readily available to nearby toilets.

Does the homeowner's bathroom count on a remodel? The regulation requires the employer to provide toilets and does not say whose building they are in. We found no Cal/OSHA guidance on using a client's bathroom. Most remodel contractors rent a unit so the question does not arise. See home remodels.

Who provides the toilets, the general contractor or each sub? Every employer is responsible for its own employees. On most sites the general contractor supplies units for everyone and sizes them to the total head count. See our page for general contractors.

Does the city also require a permit for the unit? We found none for a unit on private property. A unit in the street or on the sidewalk needs an encroachment permit. See porta potty permits.

Set up a compliant site

Tell us the crew size and how long the job runs. We will quote the units and hand-wash stations the count calls for, deliver from our Murrieta yard, usually the same or the next day, and service weekly. Construction units start at $189 per 28 days; the full breakdown is on our pricing page.

Call (951) 517-3600 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, or send the form.