Wyoming Forklift Certification

Wyoming Forklift Certification Requirements

Wyoming does not defer to federal OSHA for workplace safety. It runs its own OSHA-approved State Plan, administered by the Wyoming Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Wyoming OSHA) within the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services. This plan covers both private-sector employers and state and local government workers, and it enforces powered-industrial-truck (forklift) standards equivalent to federal 29 CFR 1910.178. One important carve-out: mining operations — including Wyoming’s coal mines and the underground trona mines near Green River — fall under the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), not Wyoming OSHA. Forklifts in warehouses, distribution yards, soda ash processing plants, and general industry stay under Wyoming OSHA jurisdiction.

What Wyoming OSHA requires of forklift operators

Wyoming OSHA follows the federal three-part training model. An operator is not certified until all three are complete:

• Formal instruction — classroom-style learning covering truck controls, stability, load handling, pedestrian safety, and site hazards. This can be delivered online, through lecture, video, or written material.
• Practical training — hands-on demonstrations and supervised operation of the specific truck the employee will use.
• Workplace evaluation — a qualified person watches the operator run the actual equipment in the actual workplace and confirms competency.

The employer must keep a written record showing the operator’s name, the evaluation date, and the name of the trainer or evaluator. That record is what Wyoming OSHA looks for during an inspection.

How often re-certification is required in Wyoming

Wyoming OSHA requires a performance re-evaluation at least once every three years. A refresher and new evaluation are also triggered sooner if an operator is involved in an accident or near-miss, is observed operating unsafely, is assigned a different type of truck, or if conditions in the workplace change.

Where our online course fits

Our $58 online course delivers the formal instruction portion — the OSHA-aligned knowledge training. It takes about an hour, works on any phone, tablet, or computer, and issues a certificate valid for three years across the US, Canada, and Mexico. Because hands-on training and the workplace evaluation must happen on your equipment, the employer completes those final steps; our Train-and-Certify kit gives supervisors the checklists and evaluation forms to do it correctly.

From oil and gas service yards around Casper to freight terminals along I-80, wind-energy logistics, agriculture, and soda ash distribution near Green River and Cheyenne, Wyoming employers rely on properly certified operators — and in a state that recorded the nation’s highest workplace fatality rate in 2024, documented training is both a legal duty and a real safeguard.