Overview
IEC 62474 is two things at once. It is a standard format for declaring what's in an electrotechnical product, and it is a living, maintained list of which substances the industry has agreed must be declared.
The standard has two halves: a stable XML exchange format and a continuously updated Declarable Substance List. It is maintained by IEC/TC 111 and pairs with EN IEC 63000 for RoHS documentation.
The two halves
1. The standard (the rules)
An IEC International Standard specifying the data-exchange requirements and an XML schema for material declarations between suppliers and customers. It defines how a declaration is structured.
2. The database (the reference data)
A publicly accessible, regularly updated reference database hosted by the IEC. It contains:
- the Declarable Substance List (DSL), the authoritative set of substances that must be declared, with the reason each is listed;
- supporting reference lists such as exemptions and material classes.
It is maintained by a dedicated Validation Team of national experts, who add and update substances on a roughly half-yearly cadence. That is fast enough to keep pace with the REACH Candidate List. Germany feeds in through DKE/K 135.
The split matters. The standard changes rarely, but the substance list changes often. Keeping them separate lets declarable substances update continuously while the exchange format stays stable.
What counts as declarable
The list sorts substances by why they're on it.
See declarable substance for the obligation-vs-interest distinction.
The lineage
IEC 62474 consolidated several earlier efforts.
How it relates to other topics
- Provides the substance list that IPC-1752A and IPC-1754 can declare against.
- Developed and maintained by IEC/TC 111.
- The cross-sector IEC 82474-1 (ISO/IEC, 2025) builds on this approach.
- Supersedes JIG-101 as the industry reference for declarable substances, and sits alongside sector lists like GADSL and RISL.
- For measuring substances rather than declaring them, see IEC 62321.
Note: This is an educational summary maintained by the Pareo team. Always check the current DSL contents and schema version against the official IEC 62474 database.