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| Types | nonprofit organization |
|---|---|
| Legal status | Registered association |
| Headquarters | Berlin |
| Country | Germany |
| Membership | 4,042 (2025) |
Deutsches Institut für Normunge.V. (DIN; inEnglish, theGerman Institute for Standardisation) is aGerman non-profit organization and acting as national organization forstandardization. DIN is the GermanISO member body. DIN is headquartered inBerlin. There are around thirty thousand DINStandards, covering nearly every field of technology.
Founded in 1917 as theNormenausschuß der deutschen Industrie (NADI, "Standardisation Committee of German Industry"), the NADI was renamedDeutscher Normenausschuß (DNA, "German Standardisation Committee") in 1926 to reflect that the organization now dealt with standardization issues in many fields, not just for industrial products. In 1975, it was renamed again toDeutsches Institut für Normung, or 'DIN' and is recognised by the German government as the official national-standards body, representing German interests at the international andEuropean levels.
Theacronym, 'DIN' is often incorrectly expanded asDeutsche Industrienorm ("German Industry Standard"). This is largely due to the historic origin of the DIN as "NADI". The NADI indeed published their standards asDI-Norm (Deutsche Industrienorm). For example, the first published standard was 'DI-Norm 1' (abouttapered pins) in 1918. Many people still mistakenly associate DIN with the oldDI-Norm naming convention.
One of the earliest, and probably the best known, isDIN 476 — the standard that introduced theA-series paper sizes in 1922 — adopted in 1975 as International StandardISO 216. Common examples in modern technology includeDIN andmini-DIN connectors for electronics, and theDIN rail.
DIN SPEC 3105, published in 2020, is "the first German standard to be published under anopen license (CC-BY-SA 4.0) [...] to implement an open standardisation process".[1]
DIN is a nonprofit organization by German law. The nonprofit ownsDIN Solutions GmbH, which produces the DIN contents andDIN Media (formerlyBeuth Verlag), which sells the DIN-standard manuals. DIN is shareholder ofDIN Bauportal GmbH andDQS Holding GmbH.[2]
The designation of a DINstandard shows its origin (# denotes a number):
Some of the DIN standards date back to the time ofNazi Germany. For example, standardDIN 5009, which describes theGerman Phonetic spelling code, is based on the postal spelling table, that was heavily edited by the Nazis. Until 1934 it specified "D" for David, "S" for Samuel, "Z" for Zacharias and "N" for Nathan. However, this went against the Nazis' ethnic-racial ideology and they decided to revise the letter board. The postal spelling table was partially revised in 1950 and formed the basis for the first version of the standard in 1983. The standard was revised again in 2022, using city names instead of person names.[3][4]
DIN standards are not freely accessible to the public. DIN sells subscriptions with the descriptions of the DIN-standards via DINSolutions GmbH andDIN Media.
For four EN standards, which are available as DIN-EN standards for a fee from DIN Media GmbH (formerly Beuth Verlag),[5][6][7][8] theEuropean Court of Justice (ECJ) decided on March 5, 2024, in theMalamud decision, that these must be made available free of charge because these standards are part of European Union law.[9]
How DIN creates standards is not transparent.[citation needed] The majority of the standardization committees consist of representatives of the companies that are affected by the standards. DIN does not publish the names of committee members.[10]
In 2023, theFederal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building launched an initiative to question DIN standards because they are considered a cost driver. “A central goal is to speed up planning and construction and reduce construction costs in order to create more affordable housing. “The building standards are now being reviewed,” said a spokesman for Klara Geywitz's (SPD) ministry in 2023.[11]
