What is ISO 19650?
ISO 19650 is the international standard series for managing information about buildings and civil engineering works across the whole life of an asset, from design and construction through to operation. It describes a process, so it names no software and mandates no file format.
The series sets out who asks for information, who produces it, what metadata every information container carries, and the states that information moves through before it becomes the record the asset owner keeps. The common data environment sits at the centre of it.
Full title: Organization and digitization of information about buildings and civil engineering works, including building information modelling (BIM) · Published in Australia as AS ISO 19650 · In the UK as BS EN ISO 19650
Six parts, and the two you will be asked for.
The standard grew out of British practice. BS 1192 set the original conventions for collaborative production of information, PAS 1192 extended them for building information modelling, and ISO 19650 took the same ideas international.
Parts 1 and 2 are the ones most tenders cite, because they cover the concepts and the delivery phase where a project sits. Part 3 is the one asset owners live in, because it covers the asset once the project team has gone.
Read the practical guide to ISO 19650 and the CDE- Part 1 · Concepts and principles2018
Sets the vocabulary, the information management process, and the common data environment concept the rest of the series builds on.
- Part 2 · Delivery phase of the assets2018
Covers the project phase, from the information requirements set at appointment through to handover. Most tender requirements point here.
- Part 3 · Operational phase of the assets2020
Covers the asset in operation, where the owner maintains the asset information model across decades rather than a project.
- Part 4 · Information exchange2022
Covers how information is exchanged between parties and checked at each exchange point.
- Part 5 · Security-minded approach2020
Covers sensitive assets and the security controls that apply to the information held about them.
- Part 6 · Health and safety information2025
Covers how health and safety information is classified, shared, and delivered across the life cycle.
Standards Australia adopted parts 1 and 2 in November 2019 as AS ISO 19650.1:2019 and AS ISO 19650.2:2019, identical adoptions of the international standards, with parts 3 and 5 following in 2021. The UK publishes the series as BS EN ISO 19650, with a National Annex under the UK BIM Framework that sets the status codes and the naming fields projects work to. ISO is revising the series, and drafts of parts 1 and 2 went out for public comment during 2026, so check which edition a tender is written against.
The vocabulary the standard runs on.
Most of ISO 19650 follows from six ideas. Get the container, its metadata, and the states right, and the rest of the process falls into place.
Any named, structured set of information: a drawing, a model, a document, a spreadsheet, or a report. The container is the unit the standard manages, and each one carries the metadata needed to find it, trust it, and place it in context.
A consistent naming convention identifies each container, and a revision code records which iteration you hold.
A status code, also called a suitability code, records what a container may be used for. The UK National Annex sets S codes for shared information and A and B codes for published information, and the project information standard defines what each one means, for example suitable for construction.
Work in progress, shared, published, and archived. A check, a review, and an approval move a container between them, and superseded containers go to archived, where they stay retrievable.
ISO 19650-1 describes the common data environment as an agreed source of information for a project or asset, for collecting, managing, and disseminating each container through a managed process.
The appointing party is the client, usually the asset owner, who sets the information requirements and receives the finished record. The appointed parties are the consultants, contractors, and suppliers who produce information against those requirements.
A platform carries the workflow, and you run the process.
Lunr supports an ISO 19650 information workflow. No software makes you compliant on its own, because compliance is a property of how you work. What a platform can do is hold the states, the gates, and the record so the discipline survives a busy week.
Define the states your project uses, the reviews and approvals that move a container between them, and the roles that can act at each gate. See configurable workflows.
Automatic numbering applies your register format as documents are booked in, and title-block tags are read into metadata, so the number, revision, and discipline come off the sheet rather than out of a typist.
Issue a transmittal to an external party without granting repository access, or invite that party in as a collaborator with the access their role requires.
Validate the handover package against a manifest, then keep the published information, the revision history, and the audit trail after the project team leaves.
work in progress · shared · published · archived · full audit trail · the owner keeps the record
Keep reading.
What the standard asks of a CDE, the four states, the audit trail, and a checklist to take to procurement.
One agreed source of information, with states and approvals that hold after handover.
The path into a common data environment from the appointing party's side.
The status that releases a drawing to be built from, and where it sits against the A codes.
Questions about ISO 19650.
- What are the parts of ISO 19650?
- The series has six published parts. Part 1 covers concepts and principles (2018), part 2 the delivery phase of the assets (2018), part 3 the operational phase of the assets (2020), part 4 information exchange (2022), part 5 a security-minded approach to information management (2020), and part 6 health and safety information (2025). Parts 1 and 2 are the ones most tender requirements cite, because they cover the concepts and the project delivery phase.
- Is ISO 19650 the same as BIM?
- No. Building information modelling is a way of producing and structuring information about an asset. ISO 19650 is the discipline for managing that information: who asks for it, who produces it, what metadata it carries, and how it is checked, approved, and handed over. A project can work to ISO 19650 with drawings and documents alone, and a project can produce models without managing them to the standard.
- What is an information container?
- An information container is any named, structured set of information: a drawing, a model, a document, a spreadsheet, or a report. ISO 19650 treats the container as the unit that gets managed, and asks that each one carry a consistent name, a revision code, and a status code so it can be found, trusted, and used only for what it is suitable for.
- Does ISO 19650 apply in Australia?
- Yes. Standards Australia adopted parts 1 and 2 as AS ISO 19650.1:2019 and AS ISO 19650.2:2019 in November 2019, as identical adoptions of the international standards, with parts 3 and 5 following in 2021. Australian government and infrastructure clients increasingly write ISO 19650 information requirements into tenders, so an asset owner meets the standard through the requirements they set and the environment they run.
- What does ISO 19650 require of a common data environment?
- It asks for an agreed source of information, where each container is named, revised, and given a status code, and moves through work in progress, shared, published, and archived by a managed process rather than by drag and drop. It expects controlled access for each party, a recorded decision behind every state transition, and an audit trail complete enough to reconstruct months or years later. A folder with a tidy naming convention meets none of those, because it cannot enforce a transition or record who approved what.
Run the ISO 19650 workflow, and keep the record.
Book a walkthrough and watch Lunr move a container through work in progress, shared, and published, with the decision and the reviewer recorded at every gate.
10M+ documents under management · Hosted in Australia and the US · SAML · Full audit trail · Export anytime
- entity
- Lunr Labs Pty Ltd
- location
- Melbourne AU
- workspace
- documents.lunr.app
- rev
- 2026