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Permit-Required Confined Space Entry Supervisor (General Industry)
Learn the entry supervisor's job under the permit-required confined space standard: confirming acceptable entry conditions, signing the permit, overseeing entry and terminating it.
Based on OSHA 29 CFR 1910.146 (permit-required confined spaces) · about 6 min read
Need proof of training? The full course (28 min) adds practice questions, a job scenario, the final quiz and a certificate your employer can verify.
The entry supervisor is the person responsible for:
Determining if acceptable entry conditions are present at a permit space where entry is planned
Authorizing entry and overseeing entry operations
Terminating entry as the standard requires
Acceptable entry conditions are the conditions that must exist in a permit space to allow entry and to ensure that employees can safely enter and work within it.
Know the hazards. The employer must ensure that you know the hazards that may be faced during entry, including the mode, signs or symptoms, and consequences of exposure.
A space that is large enough and so configured that an employee can bodily enter and perform assigned work, has limited or restricted means for entry or exit, and is not designed for continuous employee occupancy.
A permit-required confined space
A confined space that has one or more of these:
Contains or has a potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere
Contains a material that has the potential for engulfing an entrant
Has an internal configuration such that an entrant could be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross-section
Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard
If the workplace contains permit spaces, the employer informs exposed employees of their existence, location and danger, by danger signs or other equally effective means.
Conditions in the space are tested before entry is authorized to determine if acceptable entry conditions exist. Where isolation is infeasible because the space is large or part of a continuous system such as a sewer, pre-entry testing is done to the extent feasible and entry conditions are continuously monitored where entrants are working.
The space is tested or monitored as necessary during entry to determine if acceptable entry conditions are being maintained.
Atmospheric testing order: oxygen first, then combustible gases and vapors, then toxic gases and vapors.
Purging, inerting, flushing or ventilating the space is done as necessary to eliminate or control atmospheric hazards.
Before entry is authorized, the employer documents the completion of the required measures by preparing an entry permit.
Before entry begins, the entry supervisor identified on the permit signs it to authorize entry.
Before you endorse it, you verify by checking the entries on the permit that all tests specified by the permit have been conducted and all procedures and equipment specified by the permit are in place.
The completed permit is made available to entrants at the time of entry, by posting at the entry portal or an equally effective means.
The permit's duration may not exceed the time required to complete the assigned task or job identified on it.
Among other things, the permit identifies
The acceptable entry conditions
The results of initial and periodic tests, with testers' names or initials and when the tests were performed
The rescue and emergency services that can be summoned and the means for summoning them
Any additional permits, such as for hot work, issued for work in the space
The employer provides at least one attendant outside the permit space for the duration of entry operations.
You verify that rescue services are available and that the means for summoning them are operable.
The permit program includes procedures for summoning rescue and emergency services, for rescuing entrants, for providing emergency services to rescued employees, and for preventing unauthorized personnel from attempting a rescue.
You remove unauthorized individuals who enter or attempt to enter the permit space during entry operations.
Whenever responsibility for the entry operation is transferred, and at intervals dictated by the hazards and operations, you determine that entry operations remain consistent with the terms of the entry permit and that acceptable entry conditions are maintained.
Conditions in the space are verified as acceptable throughout the duration of an authorized entry.
Your notes on the permit feed the review of the permit space program. Examples of circumstances requiring a review are:
Any unauthorized entry of a permit space
Detection of a permit space hazard not covered by the permit
Detection of a condition prohibited by the permit
An injury or near-miss during entry
A change in the use or configuration of a permit space
Employee complaints about the effectiveness of the program
The program is reviewed, using the canceled permits, within 1 year after each entry and revised as necessary. The employer may perform a single annual review covering all entries performed during a 12-month period; if no entry is performed during a 12-month period, no review is necessary.
When the employer has reason to believe the program's measures may not protect employees, entry operations are reviewed and the program is revised to correct the deficiencies before subsequent entries are authorized.
Fact-checked against the regulation text on October 09, 2026. This certificate records completion of awareness training based on OSHA 29 CFR 1910.146. It is not an OSHA card or license, and it does not by itself meet the training requirements of 29 CFR 1910.146(g). Your employer must still provide training so that you acquire the understanding, knowledge, and skills necessary for the safe performance of the duties assigned under 1910.146, before you are first assigned those duties, before there is a change in assigned duties, whenever there is a change in permit space operations that presents a hazard you have not previously been trained on, and whenever the employer has reason to believe there are deviations from the entry procedures or inadequacies in your knowledge or use of them. The training must establish proficiency in the duties required by the standard, and your employer must certify that it has been accomplished, with each employee's name, the signatures or initials of the trainers, and the dates of training.
This guide explains the rule in plain words. Always read the regulation itself and your employer's site-specific procedures.