Which HAZWOPER Course: 40-Hour, 24-Hour or 8-Hour?
Three HAZWOPER courses cover most crews, and the full HAZWOPER course range also holds the Spanish versions and short courses on decontamination and monitoring.
- OSHA 40-Hour HAZWOPER Training Online. The page you are on. It is for general site workers doing hazardous substance removal, including equipment operators, general laborers and the supervisors working alongside them.
- 24 Hour Hazwoper Online Course. For workers on site only occasionally for a limited task, such as ground water monitoring or land surveying. It also covers workers who stay in areas already monitored and fully characterized, where respirators are not needed. View the 24 Hour Hazwoper Online Course
- 2026 8 Hour HAZWOPER Refresher. The annual course that keeps 40-hour and 24-hour training current. Crews take it every year after the initial course. View the 2026 8 Hour HAZWOPER Refresher
Match the course to the work, not the job title. A worker who moves from occasional limited tasks to general site work, or who starts wearing a respirator, steps up to the 40-hour tier.
What the Crew Can Do After the 40-Hour HAZWOPER Course
A crew that finishes the 40 hours is able to recognize what is on a site and work inside the controls that keep them safe.
- Read the site before entering it. Site characterization, site control and the site-specific safety and health plan are covered, so a worker knows what the zones mean.
- Recognize the hazard, not just the smell. Chemical, physical, biological, radiological and weather hazards are taught together, with routes of entry and the numbers that matter on a meter.
- Handle drums without guessing. Inspection, opening, staging, bulking and labelling are covered, along with shock-sensitive and laboratory-pack containers.
- Come off the site clean. Decontamination line design, the five permeation factors and emergency decontamination all sit in the hazards module.
A crew that knows the zones, the hazards and the decon line is a crew that can be supervised safely from day one.
Informative and easy to navigate. Tended to be overly repetitive but this helped with reinforcement. Would appreciate more graphics or flowcharts to summarize concepts.
Great course, would do again.