About the committee · since 1972

For five decades, the rules behind every electronic handshake in global trade have been written here.

From the timestamp on your last transaction to the syntax of every cross-border invoice — from the data tags customs agents scan to the signatures that have to hold up in court decades from now — ISO/TC 154 is where the world agrees on the format.

Browse the catalogue See the five-decade story
1972FoundedBy ISO Council; first plenary in Stockholm, 1973.
0Published standardsCurrently maintained by the committee.
0Active groupsWorking groups, advisory groups, and joint groups.
0Member bodies21 P-members and 26 observers across five continents.
0Plenary meetingsAcross Europe, North America, and Asia since 1973.
3SecretariatsSNV → NEN → SAC. A continuous institutional chain.

— What that means, concretely

Three artifacts already in your life.

ISO/TC 154 standards are not abstract documents on a shelf. They are the strings your systems already parse, the tags your customs forms already carry, the timestamps your database already stores. You have been using our work for years.

  1. 01
    2026-06-21T14:32:07+08:00
    ISO 8601

    The format every timestamp in your logs, every database row, every API response is required to use. Without it, no two systems could agree on when anything happened.

    Read the standard →
  2. 02
    UNH+1+INVOIC:D:97B:UN
    ISO 9735 (EDIFACT)

    The header segment that opens every electronic invoice, customs declaration, and order message crossing borders under the UN/EDIFACT syntax.

    Read the standard →
  3. 03
    1004 Document message date
    ISO 7372 (TDED)

    A data element tag from the United Nations Trade Data Elements Directory — the controlled vocabulary every customs and trade system reads from.

    Read the standard →

— Why we exist

A common language is infrastructure.

Vision

All parties in the supply and value chain use standardised data exchange to reduce the cost of managing processes in the private and public domain, and to foster trade facilitation.

Mission

To undertake and to facilitate the development and maintenance of international standards for electronic business in the supply and value chain — regardless of the media used.

Wherever possible, ISO/TC 154 fosters harmonisation between and within international standards development organisations — particularly through the Memorandum of Understanding between IEC, ISO, ITU, and UNECE concerning standardisation in the field of electronic business.

— What we cover

Four pillars, one committee.

The official scope — international standardisation and registration of business, administration, and supporting data used for information interchange — resolves in practice into four interlocking domains.

  1. 01

    Processes

    Standardisation and registration of business and administration processes used for information interchange between and within organisations.

    • Process identification
    • Process specification
  2. 02

    Data elements

    The universal trade vocabulary — TDED (ISO 7372) — maintained jointly with UN/CEFACT. Every data field in a cross-border document traces back to a registered tag.

    • Data identification
    • Data specification with content
  3. 03

    Documents

    Layout keys and forms that paper and electronic trade documents have shared since the 1970s — still the backbone of customs and commercial paperwork.

    • Forms layout (paper / electronic)
    • Location of codes in trade documents
  4. 04

    Syntax

    Custodian of the EDIFACT syntax (ISO 9735) — the grammar that lets trading partners parse each other's messages without bilateral agreements.

    • EDIFACT application level syntax
    • Maintenance and versioning

— The portfolio

Eight standards that hold up the world.

ISO/TC 154 has published over 40 international standards. These eight are the load-bearing ones — the ones whose absence would break something billions of systems rely on tomorrow.

See all standards in the catalogue

— How we are organised

A continuous chain of institutional stewardship.

ISO/TC 154 is chaired by Ms. Pan Wei (SAC) and managed by Jianfang Zhang (SAC/CNIS), supported by 0 active working groups. The secretariat has changed hands three times in five decades — each transition a deliberate, peer-reviewed handover.

Chair

Ms. Pan Wei

SAC, China · Chair and convenor of the CAG since January 2026.

Profile →
Committee Manager

Jianfang Zhang

SAC, China · CNIS. Anchoring the secretariat since 2014.

Profile →
Working groups

0 active

WG 5 (Date and time), JWG 1 (EDIFACT syntax), WG 6 (Trusted eComms), WG 7 (Digital Business), JWG 9 (Smart Trade), and more.

All groups →
  1. 1972 — 2008

    SNV · Switzerland

    Swiss Association for Standardization — Zurich / Winterthur

    Founding secretariat. Held the committee through its founding decade, the consolidation of the date/time standards into ISO 8601, and the original UN/EDIFACT syntax work.

  2. 2008 — 2014

    NEN · Netherlands

    Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute — Delft

    A six-year Dutch interlude. Three successive committee managers supported two GS1- and DIN-affiliated chairs through the EDIFACT syntax revision era.

  3. 2014 — nowCurrent

    SAC · China

    Standardization Administration of China — Beijing (hosted at CNIS)

    Current secretariat, hosted at the China National Institute of Standards (CNIS). Three successive SAC-affiliated chairs; anchored by Committee Manager Jianfang Zhang since 2014.

The committee's institutional memory passes from secretariat to secretariat through overlapping committee managers and shared working group convenors — most rules in force today trace back through all three stewards. The full chronology is on the history page.

— Get involved

The committee is open, by design.

ISO/TC 154 is built on consensus across national bodies, liaison organisations, and individual experts. There are several ways to participate — pick the one that fits you.