How Many First Aid Kits Does Your Business Need?

If your business runs more than one vehicle, more than one site, or a workforce that moves between locations, working out how many first aid kits you actually need is not always straightforward. A single kit sitting in the site office is not enough once your crew is spread across different vehicles or job sites, and buying kits one at a time without a plan usually means you end up either underequipped or overspending. This guide walks through what Safe Work Australia expects and how to work out the right number for your business.

What Safe Work Australia Actually Says

The model Work Health and Safety Act does not set a single fixed number of kits that applies to every business. Instead, Safe Work Australia's First Aid in the Workplace Code of Practice takes a risk based approach, where the number of kits and trained first aiders should scale with your workforce size, the level of risk involved, and how spread out your operation is.

The two figures that matter most for working out kit numbers are the size of your workforce and whether your work is classed as low risk or high risk. As a general guide from the Code of Practice, one appropriately stocked kit is expected to cover up to 25 workers in a low risk workplace, or up to 10 workers in a high risk workplace such as construction, mining, or trades involving significant manual handling or hazardous substances.

That figure only tells you the starting point. It assumes those workers are all working in the same location at the same time, which is rarely how a trade or construction business actually operates.

Why Headcount Alone Does Not Answer the Question

A business with 20 workers spread across five separate job sites does not meet its obligations with a single kit, even though 20 workers falls within the low risk threshold of one kit covering 25 people. The Code of Practice is clear that first aid needs to be accessible to workers at the point of work, not centralised in one location that some of your crew may never actually visit during the day.

This is the detail that catches businesses out. The right question is not simply how many workers do we have, but how many separate locations, vehicles, and shifts do those workers operate across.

Kits Per Vehicle

For any business with a mobile workforce, meaning tradies, contractors, or field staff who work from vehicles rather than a fixed site, the standard expectation is a first aid kit in every vehicle. A kit at the depot does nothing for a worker who is thirty minutes away on a job.

This applies whether you run two utes or twenty. Our guide on first aid kit requirements for work vehicles in Australia covers this in more detail if you want the full breakdown for fleet operations.

Kits Per Site

For businesses running multiple fixed sites, such as several construction projects at once, multiple workshop locations, or a head office plus satellite depots, each site needs its own first aid provision sized to the number of workers and the risk level at that specific location. A large head office with ten low risk administrative staff might need only one kit. A construction site nearby with fifteen workers doing high risk trade work will need considerably more, potentially several kits spread across the site depending on how large and spread out it is.

Our guide on how many first aiders you need on a construction site covers the trained personnel side of this in more depth, which works alongside your kit count.

Working Out Your Total Kit Count

A practical way to approach this for most trade, construction, or field service businesses is to work through it in this order:

Count your vehicles. Every vehicle used for work purposes needs its own kit as a baseline, regardless of how many workers are in it on a given day
Count your fixed sites. Any workshop, depot, office, or ongoing project site needs its own kit sized to the workforce and risk level there
Apply the risk multiplier. High risk sites need roughly one kit per 10 workers rather than per 25, so a larger crew on a high risk site may need several kits rather than one
Add for isolation and travel time. Sites or vehicles operating a long way from emergency services often warrant a more comprehensive kit or an additional kit as a safeguard
Review as you grow. Adding a vehicle or opening a new site means adding first aid provision at the same time, not catching up on it later

For businesses working across mining or other high risk industrial environments, our guide on first aid kit requirements for mining sites in Australia goes into further detail on what changes at that end of the risk scale.

Buying at Scale

Once you have worked out your total kit count, buying kits one at a time is rarely the most efficient approach for a business equipping a fleet or multiple sites. Bulk buy pricing brings the cost per kit down significantly compared with individual purchases, and standardising on a single kit type across your entire operation makes restocking and compliance checks far simpler for whoever manages your WHS obligations.

For businesses wanting both a full sized kit for the vehicle or site and a smaller kit for individual workers, the Combo Kits combine a Classic Kit with a Compact Kit at a lower combined price than buying each separately. This suits crews who need a comprehensive kit in the vehicle and a lighter kit that travels with the worker onto the site itself.

If you are equipping a larger fleet or workforce, our business and bulk supply page covers wholesale pricing for orders of twenty kits or more, and our guides for construction companies and mobile workforces go through setup in more detail depending on how your business operates.

The Practical Answer

There is no single number that applies to every business, but the method stays the same regardless of size. Start with a kit in every vehicle and every fixed site, adjust upward for high risk work using roughly one kit per ten workers rather than per twenty five, and review your kit count every time you add a vehicle, open a site, or take on more staff. Getting this right is not just about meeting your WHS obligations. It is about making sure help is actually within reach when someone on your team needs it, wherever they happen to be working that day.

Tax Deductible

First aid kits are one hundred percent tax deductible as a workplace safety expense, which applies across however many kits your business needs to purchase. Keep your receipts and claim the full cost at tax time.

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How Many First Aid Kits Does Your Business Need?