Construction site toilets: what the regulations require

Toilets on a construction site are not a courtesy. The Construction Regulations, 2014, made under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, set a minimum, and it is the contractor's job to meet it. Here is what they say, and what they leave to you. It is a plain-language summary, not legal advice.

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The rule: regulation 30

Regulation 30(1) says a contractor must provide clean, hygienic and maintained facilities at, or within reasonable access of, every construction site. That is in addition to the construction site provisions of the Facilities Regulations, 2004. The facilities are:

• At least one sanitary facility for each sex and for every 30 workers
• Shower facilities, agreed after consulting the employees or their representatives, or at least one shower for every 15 people
• Changing facilities for each sex
• Sheltered eating areas

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What one for every 30 means in practice

Read the way most contractors apply it, the count is per sex. A crew of 45 men and 10 women needs at least two facilities for the men and one for the women, not two in total.

It is also a minimum. Long shifts, overlapping crews, visitors and a spread-out site all push the real number up.

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Clean, hygienic and maintained

The regulation does not just ask for toilets. It asks for facilities that are clean, hygienic and maintained. With mobile toilets, that comes down to servicing: how often the units are emptied, cleaned and restocked, and whether that keeps pace with the number of people using them. A unit that is full by Wednesday is not meeting the rule, however many of them there are.

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The Facilities Regulations and SANS 10400-P

The Facilities Regulations, 2004 require every employer to provide sanitary facilities in line with the National Building Regulations, which in practice means the fixture tables in SANS 10400-P. Those tables are for permanent workplaces. They matter if your project includes a site office block, or a building people will work in once it is finished.

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New regulations on the way

Draft Construction Regulations were published for public comment in March 2025, and the draft keeps regulation 30 word for word. At the time of writing we know of no final version, so the 2014 regulations still apply. Check the Department of Employment and Labour's notices before relying on any summary, this one included.

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Getting it right on your site

Tell us how many people will be on site, how many of them are women, the shift pattern and how long the job runs, and we will work out the units and a servicing schedule to match. Every unit we hire out has a hand wash basin, soap dispenser, toilet roll holder, SHE bin and 125L waste drum.