SANS Standards

The Standards Division of the SABS has changed its name and will henceforth publish standards under the banner of Standards South Africa. All of their national standards are being redesignated as SANS (South African National Standard) standards

All South African standards that were previously published by the South African Bureau of Standards with the prefix "SABS" have been redesignated as South African National Standards and will henceforth be published by Standards South Africa (a division of SABS) with the prefix "SANS".

Various series of SABS standards, such as specifications, mark specifications, codes of practice, standard methods, adoptions of international and regional standards, and others, have been consolidated into one coherent numbered list. Compulsory specifications, recommended practices and coordinating specifications, in the "VC", "ARP" and "CKS" series respectively, are unaffected.

Old standard numbers will not fall away immediately, but will run in parallel with the new numbering system for five years during which time both numbers will be legally valid.

A full list of the numbering changes has been published in the Government Gazette (see Government Notice No. 1373 in Government Gazette 24002 of 8 November 2002) and is available at our offices

Some examples:	Old	New
Main standards	SABS 97	SANS 97
SABS 1507	SANS 1507
SABS test methods add 5000 to the number	SABS SM 524	SANS 5524
SABS SM 1283	SANS 6283
SABS IEC test methods	SABS IEC 60811	SANS 60811
SABS Code Of Practice add 10000 to the number	SABS 0198	SANS 10198

It is important for standards users to note that any reference to a SABS standard, in any context or forum, will be deemed to be a reference to the corresponding SANS standard in the list referred to above, and vice versa.