What Is the Civil Penalty for Unknowingly Violating HIPAA?

An unknowing HIPAA violation falls within the lowest civil monetary penalty tier and, for penalties assessed on or after January 28, 2026, carries an inflation-adjusted penalty range of $145 to $73,011 per violation when it is established that the HIPAA Covered Entity or Business Associate did not know and, by exercising reasonable diligence, would not have known the violation occurred.

Civil Penalty Range for Unknowing Violations

The unknowing tier applies when the violation occurred without knowledge and would not have been discovered through reasonable diligence at the time. Within that tier, the enforcement authority sets a dollar amount within the per-violation range based on the case facts and the penalty factors applied in enforcement actions.

Calendar Year Caps and OCR Enforcement Discretion

The inflation-adjusted table for HIPAA administrative simplification violations lists a calendar year cap of $2,190,294 for identical violations within the unknowing tier for penalties assessed on or after January 28, 2026. The Office for Civil Rights also issued a Notice of Enforcement Discretion in 2019 addressing how it applies annual limits across tiers, and organizations typically treat both the published regulatory caps and OCR’s stated enforcement approach as relevant to penalty exposure analysis.

No Penalty When Corrected Within the Cure Period

HIPAA’s enforcement framework includes an affirmative defense that bars a civil money penalty when the violation is not due to willful neglect and is corrected within the allowed cure period that begins when the organization knew or, by exercising reasonable diligence, would have known the violation occurred.