The ICRP recommends a number of limits for dose uptake in table 8 of report 103. These limits are "situational", for planned, emergency and existing situations. Within these situations, limits are given for the following groups:
* Planned exposure – limits given for occupational, medical and public 
* Emergency exposure – limits given for occupational and public exposure 
* Existing exposure – All persons exposed
For occupational exposure, the limit is 50 mSv in a single year with a maximum of 100 mSv in a consecutive five-year period, and for the public to an average of 1 mSv (0.001 Sv) of effective dose per year, not including medical and occupational exposures.
For comparison, natural radiation levels inside the United States Capitol are such that a human body would receive an additional dose rate of 0.85 mSv/a, close to the regulatory limit, because of the uranium content of the granite structure. According to the conservative ICRP model, someone who spent 20 years inside the capitol building would have an extra one in a thousand chance of getting cancer, over and above any other existing risk (calculated as: 20 a·0.85 mSv/a·0.001 Sv/mSv·5.5%/Sv ≈ 0.1%). However, that "existing risk" is much higher; an average American would have a 10% chance of getting cancer during this same 20-year period, even without any exposure to artificial radiation (see natural Epidemiology of cancer and cancer rates). These estimates are, however, unmindful of every living cell's natural repair mechanisms, evolved over a few billion years of exposure to environmental chemical and radiation threats that were higher in the past, and exaggerated by the evolution of oxygen metabolism.