IP code

The IP code or Ingress Protection code indicates how well a device is protected against water and dust. It is defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) under the international standard IEC 60529 which classifies and provides a guideline to the degree of protection provided by mechanical casings and electrical enclosures against intrusion, dust, accidental contact, and water. It is published in the European Union by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) as EN 60529.

The standard aims to provide users more detailed information than vague marketing terms such as waterproof. For example, a cellular phone rated at IP67 is "dust resistant" and can be "immersed in 1 meter of freshwater for up to 30 minutes". Similarly, an electrical socket rated IP22 is protected against insertion of fingers and will not become unsafe during a specified test in which it is exposed to vertically or nearly vertically dripping water. IP22 or IP2X are typical minimum requirements for the design of electrical accessories for indoor use.

The digits indicate conformity with the conditions summarized in the tables below. The digit 0 is used where no protection is provided. The digit is replaced with the letter X when insufficient data has been gathered to assign a protection level. The device can become less capable; however, it cannot become unsafe.

There are no hyphens in a standard IP code. IPX-8 (for example) is thus an invalid IP code.

In the original IEC 60529 standard from year 1976, the letters IP are used without providing an explanation, and referred as "characteristic letters". In the next editions of the standard, from years 1989 and 1999 respectively, the IP is explained to denote "international protection" on both French and English pages. According to the Finnish national committee of the IEC, one possibility is that the abbreviation is a combination of English word ingress and French word pénétration which stands for ingress, but finding the correct answer would require doing a historical study on the 1970's standardization, which is difficult because the experts preparing the original standards are likely retired or deceased.

This table shows what each digit or part of the IP code represents.

The first digit indicates the level of protection the enclosure provides against access to hazardous parts (e.g., electrical conductors, moving parts) and the ingress of solid foreign objects.

The second digit indicates the level of protection that the enclosure provides against harmful ingress of water.