Self-employed workers - When health and safety law applies

2. When health and safety law applies

If you are self-employed, health and safety law applies to you if:

you employ anyone – even temporarily, such as on a short-term contract
your work activity poses a potential risk to the health and safety of others^[5], for example using chemicals that could cause harm, creating noise, dust or fumes, or using equipment that could injure someone
you do work involving 6 specific high-risk work activities^[6] covered by the law – this includes work:

If you are self-employed, health and safety law does not apply to you when:

Overviewhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/index.htm
Deciding if your work activity creates a risk to othershttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/risk-to-others.htm
High-risk work activities that apply to the self-employedhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/high-risk-activities.htm
How to comply with the law if it applies to youhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/what-the-law-says.htm
potential risk to the health and safety of othershttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/risk-to-others.htm
high-risk work activitieshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/high-risk-activities.htm
Previouspage Overview https://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/index.htm
Nextpage Deciding if your work activity creates a risk to others https://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/risk-to-others.htm
View a printable version of the whole guidehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/print.htm
Health and safety law poster, free leaflet and pocket cardhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/lawposter.htm
Health and safety basics for your businesshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/
Managing risks and risk assessment at workhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/index.htm