You must identify all permit-required confined spaces in your workplace. Use a person with the knowledge, skills, and abilities, capable of identifying actual and potential hazards related to permit-required confined spaces and with the authority to take prompt corrective action, such as an entry supervisor or competent person.
Important: Identification of Permit-Required Confined Space(s) involves a two-step process.
Step 1:Identify confined spaces.
Confined space. A space that is all of the following:
• Large enough and arranged so an employee could fully enter the space and work.
• Has limited or restricted entry or exit. Examples of spaces with limited or restricted entry are tanks, vessels, silos, storage bins, hoppers, vaults, excavations, and pits.
• Not primarily designed for continuous human occupancy.
See Appendix A Frequently Asked Questions and Examples of Confined Spaces by visiting "Find Safety Rules" on the labor and industries website.
Step 2: Evaluate the actual and potential hazards of each confined space to identify the permit-required confined space(s).
Permit-required confined space or permit space. A confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics capable of causing death or serious physical harm.
• Contains or has a potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere.
• Contains a material with the potential for engulfing someone who enters.
• Has an internal configuration that could allow someone entering to be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor, which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross section.
• Contains any physical hazard. This includes any recognized health or safety hazards including engulfment in solid or liquid material, electrical shock, or moving parts.
• Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard that could either:
(a) Impair the ability to self-rescue; or
(b) Result in a situation that presents an immediate danger to life or health.
See Appendix B Examples of Permit-Required Confined Space Hazards by visiting "Find Safety Rules" on the labor and industries website.
[Statutory Authority: RCW 49.17.010, 49.17.040, 49.17.050, and 49.17.060. WSR 26-15-109 (Order 26-05), s 296-809-20002, filed 7/21/26, effective 8/21/26. Statutory Authority: RCW 49.17.010, 49.17.040, 49.17.050, 49.17.060 and chapter 49.17 RCW. WSR 18-02-071, § 296-809-20002, filed 1/2/18, effective 2/5/18. Statutory Authority: RCW 49.17.010, 49.17.040, 49.17.050, 49.17.060. WSR 15-24-102, § 296-809-20002, filed 12/1/15, effective 1/5/16; WSR 04-03-081, § 296-809-20002, filed 1/20/04, effective 5/1/04.]