The ISO/IEC Directives define the basic procedures to be followed in the development of International Standards and other publications.

There are, however, other documents containing guiding principles for standards development, which can also be found below.

Contact us

For questions about the ISO Directives please contact us on directives@iso.org

For any general questions on drafting ISO standards, please contact us on drafting@iso.org

Official Rules

Here are the official rules that state how to develop an ISO standard:

  • ISO/IEC Directives Part 1
    Official procedures to be followed when developing and maintaining an International Standard and procedures specific to ISO

  • ISO/IEC Directives Part 2
    Principles to structure and draft documents intended to become International Standards, Technical Specifications or Publicly Available Specifications.

Supplementary Documents

Here are some supplementary documents that may help guide the standards development process:

Guides

Here is some information about Guides, which provide advice to standards writers and national standards bodies: