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The Eurocodes

Developed in the early to mid 2000s, the Eurocodes were meant as a way to unify the building standards for most of Europe. Technically, the Eurocodes are a collection of 10 major standards: EN 1990 through EN 1999, sometimes also referred to as “EC0” through “EC9”. The countries which have adopted the Eurocodes are not exactly the same group as the European Union - they are instead a different group of countries which are members of the European Committee for Standardization - and include, for example, the United Kingdom (despite Brexit), Norway, and Turkey. Because each country still wanted - and in some cases needed - to modify the standards slightly to their own geography, weather, or common construction techniques, the Eurocode standards each set out numerous Nationally Determined Parameters (NDPs), which are usually defined in a National Annex (NA) that each country develops independently for each standard. Unfortunately, while the standards themselves are fairly well unified, there is no central repository of either the standards or the National Annexes. The National Annexes in particular are developed by each individual country’s standards body or government building department, and so are generally only available directly from the national body responsible for them. Below, we’ve outlined what all the National Annexes are, where you can actually get a copy of them, if they cost money, and if they’re available in English. But first:

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The Main Eurocode Documents

The main Eurocode documents - the standards that are the same for all countries - can be acquired through almost any country’s standards body. The important point, however, is that they are all the same. “BS EN 1991-1-4” is exactly the same content as “DIN EN 1991-1-4”, “SR EN 1991-1-4”, or any other prefix. They’ll have different cover pages, but the content is identical. Of note, you can get these main Eurocode documents for free, from public.resource.org.

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The National Annexes

The National Annexes are generally provided by each country’s national standards body, but may also be provided by a government building department. In the table below, you’ll find each of the countries which use the Eurocodes, and where to get a hold of their National Annex documents. Where possible, we’ve linked to the English version of the page, though sometimes only the national language(s) are available. Usually, these take the form of some type of online store for the standards body, so in these, you’ll need to do a search for the specific EN 199X standard for which you’re seeking the National Annex. There are also a couple countries for which we have not yet found where to acquire their National Annexes, if they exist. If you’re able to help us complete this table, then please send a message to hello@calcs.com!