CAN/ULC edition tracker: published edition versus adopted edition

Last updated: September 2026

Last checked: 5 September 2026. Every published edition below was read that day from the ULC Standards catalogue product page for that standard. Every Ontario designation was read from the free 2024 Building Code Compendium and from the Ontario Fire Code on e-Laws. This page is reviewed at least every three months and after any national or provincial code comes into force. Editions change. Confirm before you put a number in a compliance document.

Quick answer

• The published edition and the adopted edition are two different things. A standard exists when ULC publishes it. It becomes a requirement only when a code designates it, by year, in a referenced-documents table.
• The installation standard is the clearest example. The current published edition is CAN/ULC 524:2024, the 8th edition. Both Ontario codes still designate CAN/ULC-S524:2019.
• The worst gap in the set is integrated testing. The current published edition is the 2nd edition (2026). Both Ontario codes still designate CAN/ULC-S1001-11, the 1st edition, from 2011.
• Six of the thirteen standards are not designated by either Ontario code at all. They are pulled in one level down by S524 and S537 themselves.
• Almost every province is now on a National Building Code 2020 base, but the in-force dates run from January 2024 to 2026, and Quebec is mid-transition until 17 October 2026.
• The referenced-documents table is the answer. The article text says "CAN/ULC-S524" with no year. The year is in the table, and that is the number that governs.

Why the newest standard is almost never the one you build to

You buy the current standard, you read it, you build to it. That should be the end of it, and it is not, because a CAN/ULC standard is not law on its own. It becomes enforceable only when a building code or a fire code references it, and codes reference a specific edition frozen at the moment the code was written. Everything on this page follows from that one fact, which we cover in more depth in the adoption gap glossary entry.

So at any moment there are three different answers to "what does the standard say": what the newest published edition says, what the edition your code designated says, and what your authority having jurisdiction actually enforces. Those are frequently three different documents, and the differences are not cosmetic. The 2019 edition of S524 renumbered the whole standard and rewrote the fault tolerance rule. If you are quoting a clause from a different edition than the inspector is holding, you will not agree, and neither of you will be wrong.

Table 1: published edition versus Ontario's designated edition

Published editions read from the ULC Standards catalogue on 5 September 2026. Ontario Building Code designations from Division B Table 1.3.1.2 of the 2024 Building Code Compendium. Ontario Fire Code designations from Division B Table 1.2.1.A of O. Reg. 213/07 as consolidated on 1 January 2026.

Four things in that table deserve a second look.

S536 and S537 are the same edition twice. The 6th edition of each was published on 1 August 2019, and that is the edition Ontario designates. But S536 was revised on 5 August 2024 and now sells as 536:2024, and S537 was revised on 5 April 2021 and now sells as S537:2019-REV1. So the document on the shelf and the document Ontario designated carry the same edition number and different content. Whether your AHJ treats the revision as part of the designated edition is a question worth asking out loud, because nothing in the Fire Code table answers it.

S1001 is the widest gap on the page. Both codes point at the 1st edition from 2011. The 2nd edition published on 23 March 2026 and was revised on 4 June 2026. That is a fifteen-year separation between what you can buy and what the code names, and it matters on any project with integrated systems testing in the scope.

S530 is no longer a 1991 document. For decades the heat detector standard was S530-M91, revised and reaffirmed. A 2nd edition published on 11 December 2024 and was revised on 24 October 2025. If you have read anywhere, including on this site before today, that the current heat detector standard dates from 1991, that is now out of date.

S540 is the one row where published and designated agree. The 2nd edition was published in 2013 and reaffirmed in 2023 without substantive change. The Building Code designates S540-13. Same document.

The six standards neither Ontario code designates

S527, S528, S529, S530, S559 and S573 appear nowhere in the Ontario Building Code's referenced-documents table and nowhere in the Ontario Fire Code's. That is not an oversight and it does not mean they are optional. They reach a job one level down, through S524 and S537, which reference them. It does mean that if somebody tells you "the Ontario Building Code requires S528 manual stations", they are describing the chain loosely at best.

We cannot tell you which editions of those six a job is held to, because the answer is inside S524:2019, which is copyrighted and paywalled. We have not read it and we are not going to guess. If you own a copy, its referenced-documents list is where you look.

Table 2: which code is in force where, and what it is built on

Ontario is the only row where we have read the designated CAN/ULC editions ourselves, in the two tables cited above. For the rest, the practical inference is that a jurisdiction on an NBC 2020 base inherits the 2019 editions of S524, S536 and S537, because that is the generation NBC 2020 was aligned to. We are stating that as an inference, not as something we read in each province's referenced-documents table, and it is exactly the kind of cell you should confirm before it goes into a report.

Alberta is the one province outside Ontario where a dated, government-published confirmation exists: Alberta moved to the 2019 edition of the inspection and testing standard effective 1 May 2024, ahead of Ontario by about twenty months. Our Alberta guide sets out the STANDATA behind that. The same detail for the other provinces is covered in the British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada guides, and the Ontario position is set out in the 2026 Fire Code guide.

Two rows carry live risk. Quebec is in transition. Work starting before 17 October 2026 may be built to either the NBC 2015 based chapter that came into force in January 2022 or the NBC 2020 based chapter that came into force on 17 April 2025. Two different sets of designated editions are legitimate in the same province on the same day, so the permit date decides. Newfoundland and Labrador has jumped a generation. It is the first jurisdiction to move to the 2025 national codes, effective 12 July 2026. We have not been able to establish which CAN/ULC editions the 2025 National Building Code designates, so that row is marked unconfirmed rather than filled in.

Why the gap exists: three clocks that never line up

The standards clock. ULC publishes when its technical committee finishes. There is no fixed cycle. S573 has been in its 1st edition since 2018 and has been revised four times. S1001 went fifteen years between editions. UL Canada also stopped issuing bulletins announcing standard adoptions, so nobody emails you when a new edition lands.

The model code clock. The National Building Code and National Fire Code ran on a five-year cycle, 2010, 2015, 2020, and the 2025 editions are now out. A model code freezes its referenced editions at the point of drafting, which is typically a year or two before publication. NBC 2020 was drafted against standards that existed in 2019.

The provincial clock. Each province then adopts the model code on its own schedule, which in this cycle ranged from January 2024 to 2026 for the same NBC 2020. Ontario adds a fourth complication, because its Building Code and its Fire Code are separate instruments amended independently, and for years they designated different editions of the same standard. They finally agree on the 2019 editions of S524 and S537, which is worth knowing if you learned this trade when they did not.

Stack the three and a standard published in December 2024 has, realistically, a three to seven year wait before it is designated anywhere.

How to check any of this yourself, for free

Find the referenced-documents table, not the article. In a National Building Code and in every code built on it, including Ontario's, it is Table 1.3.1.2 in Division B, Part 1, titled Documents Referenced in Division B. In the Ontario Fire Code it is Table 1.2.1.A in Division B. That table has three columns: the issuing agency, the document number including its edition year, and the title.

Read the year in the table, never the article. Ontario's Article 3.2.4.5 says fire alarm systems shall be installed in conformance with CAN/ULC-S524, with no year attached. If you stop there you have learned nothing about which edition governs. The year is in the table, and the table is the operative instruction.

Where to get each document at no cost. Ontario's free 2024 Building Code Compendium is at publications.gov.on.ca. The Ontario Fire Code is on e-Laws. The National Building Code and National Fire Code are free from the NRC publications archive. The CAN/ULC standards themselves are not free and never have been, which is why so much bad information circulates about what is in them.

A supplier's word is not a source. Distributors sell against the current published edition, because that is what is in stock and what the manufacturer certified to. That is a reasonable commercial position and it tells you nothing about what your permit is assessed against. Nor does a data sheet reading "listed to CAN/ULC 529:2026". Listing is a product question. Designation is a code question.

What to do when your AHJ says otherwise

The AHJ's adopted edition governs, full stop. If the inspector is working from the edition the code designates and you are working from the edition you bought last month, the inspector is right and you have a rework item.

A specification can require a newer edition than the code, and that binds you as contract rather than as code. If the consultant wrote CAN/ULC 524:2024 into the spec, you owe them 524:2024 whether or not any code has adopted it. A spec cannot go the other way and let you build to less than the designated edition.

Permit date usually decides. Work is generally assessed against the code in force when the permit was issued, not the code in force when you got to site. On a long project that can mean the designated edition changed under you and does not apply to your scope.

Write the edition into your own paperwork. "Verified in accordance with CAN/ULC-S537:2019" is a statement someone can check. "Verified in accordance with CAN/ULC-S537" is not.

Both designation formats are correct

You will see the same standard written three ways: CAN/ULC-S524-14 with separate -AMD1 and -REV1 documents, then CAN/ULC-S537:2019 with the colon and the "S" retained, then CAN/ULC 524:2024 with the "S" dropped. The "S" has gone from most of the family but not all of it, which is why both forms appear in Table 1. Underneath the cosmetics is one real change: UL Canada now treats every amendment as a new edition instead of issuing standalone amendment documents. That is how a standard carries a 2024 designation while its edition number has not moved since 2014, which is exactly what happened to S528.

How this page differs from our other two edition pages

Which edition of the standard applies to your job explains the mechanism and how to reason about it. Which CAN/ULC edition does my province use is the lookup by jurisdiction. This page is the maintained data behind both: the numbers, the dates, the sources and the date they were last checked. If the three ever disagree, this one was checked most recently. What each standard actually covers is in the S524, S537, S536 and S1001 guide.

What we could not confirm

Which CAN/ULC editions the National Building Code 2020 designates, read from its own table. We have Ontario's Table 1.3.1.2, and Ontario's Building Code is NBC 2020 plus Ontario amendments, so the 2019 editions are almost certainly the national position. We could not open the NBC's own Division B table to prove it, and Ontario amends, so we have not asserted it as read.

Which CAN/ULC editions the National Building Code 2025 designates. Not established. That leaves Newfoundland and Labrador's row incomplete, and it will matter more as other provinces move to the 2025 codes.

The editions of S527, S528, S529, S530, S559 and S573 that apply on a job. They come through S524 and S537, both paywalled. Unread, so unstated.

Fire code designations outside Ontario. We have the codes in force and their model code base for every province listed. We have read a referenced-documents table for none of them. Treat those cells as the base code, not as a verified edition list.

Whether any Canadian code has yet designated CAN/ULC 524:2024. We looked and found none. If you know of one, tell us and we will correct this page and date the correction.

General information, not compliance advice. Confirm the designated edition with your authority having jurisdiction before relying on it. CAN/ULC standards are copyrighted and available from UL Standards & Engagement and authorised resellers, and no text from any standard is reproduced here.

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Fire Alarm Academy provides educational content only. It does not confer any certification, licence or credential, and it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by the Canadian Fire Alarm Association, the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario, ULC Standards, UL Standards and Engagement, CSA Group, the Electrical Safety Authority, any authority having jurisdiction, or any manufacturer. Always work from the edition of any standard adopted by your authority having jurisdiction.