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STANAG 2019
National defence authorities and NATO bodies implementing NATO joint military symbology, and the suppliers whose contracts require systems to produce or exchange it
STANAG 2019 is NATO's agreement to implement APP-06, the joint military symbology standard for common operating picture displays and data exchange between systems.
STANAG 2019 is the NATO standardization agreement by which participating nations commit to implement APP-06, NATO's joint military symbology standard, edition E. The STANAG itself sets no symbol shapes or data rules; it is the agreement, and the specification lives in APP-06. This is edition 8, promulgated 11 October 2023, and it supersedes STANAG 2019 Edition 7 of 16 October 2017.
The document states its aim as responding to a specific interoperability requirement: providing "new NATO symbology standards and requirements for use of data on service exchange systems that are able to generate symbols effectively for use in common operating picture displays". Nations that ratify it agree "to implement the following standard": APP-06, Edition E. The STANAG's own content is a two-page cover: an aim, an agreement to implement APP-06, and the administrative mechanics of ratification, implementation and review. Every testable requirement, the actual symbol sets, colours and data model, sits in APP-06 itself.
A STANAG binds a nation, not a supplier, and it binds through ratification rather than by existing. Nations are invited to examine their own ratification and advise NATO's Standardization Office of their intention, and once a nation has implemented the agreement it reports that fact through the NSDD's electronic reporting tool. The document records no fixed date by which every nation must comply: NATO's effective date field for this STANAG reads "not applicable", so each ratifying nation's own timeline governs. A supplier meets STANAG 2019 and APP-06 only when a contract or tender says so; the STANAG is silent on industry entirely.
A nation or NATO body is treated as having implemented the STANAG once it has issued the necessary orders and instructions to the authorities and units concerned, and has addressed the STANAG and APP-06 in its own related documents, doctrine development, and education and training on the correct symbology construct, terminology and reporting formats. That is where the practical work lands: not a one-time technical change, but doctrine, training material and reporting formats built around the current edition.
The STANAG is reviewed in accordance with AAP-03, NATO's own standardization procedures, and the result of that review is recorded in the NSDD. It is a NATO non-classified document, free of charge and not sold by NATO or by us; the current edition, and any newer one, is listed in the NATO Standardization Document Database.
The cover names four other documents rather than requiring them as a precondition: STANAG 1241 and its Allied Publication APP-36, NATO's standard identity description structure for tactical use, which the symbology scheme draws on for how it describes identity; and STANAG 2287 and its Allied Publication ATP-112, covering mission task verbs used in planning and disseminating orders. None of these is a precondition the document states must be met first - they are named as related reading.
STANAG 2019 names no certification, audit or inspection regime, no threshold or numeric requirement, and no obligation addressed directly to a supplier or manufacturer. Anyone looking for the actual symbol specifications, colour codes or data schema will not find them here; that detail is in APP-06.
Meeting STANAG 2019 is operational and technical work, not a management-system exercise, and most of it happens in how a nation or contractor builds its systems and trains its people, not inside a compliance tool. What can be evidenced and controlled: the internal procedure naming which edition of APP-06 a programme is building to, training records showing personnel were instructed on the required symbology construct and reporting formats, and the document trail showing a contract's symbology requirement was tracked from tender through delivery and review.
ComplyTrain holds those procedures, training records and the audit trail in one controlled, versioned place, so they can be produced when a customer or a national authority asks for them.
What ComplyTrain does not do: it does not generate or render NATO symbology, and it does not test or verify that a command and control system correctly implements APP-06. That is systems engineering and test work, carried out in the software itself.
The applicable edition, and whatever else a contract requires alongside it, is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause, not by this page. Use the standards explorer to see what sits alongside STANAG 2019 and APP-06, or talk to us about how we help you evidence the processes behind it.
Tell us how you need to work with STANAG 2019 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
It binds nations that ratify it, not suppliers directly. A supplier meets it when a contract or tender invokes STANAG 2019 or the APP-06 standard it covers; outside a contract, it imposes nothing on industry.
STANAG 2019 is the agreement: a short cover document by which nations commit to implement a standard. APP-06 is the technical content, NATO's joint military symbology specification. STANAG 2019 currently points at APP-06, Edition E.
Edition 8, promulgated 11 October 2023, supersedes Edition 7 of 16 October 2017. The document does not itself describe what changed between the two editions.
No such certification exists. The document names no accredited body, notified body or scheme for certifying an organisation or product against it; it describes only a national ratification, implementation and review cycle recorded in NATO's Standardization Document Database.
It is published free of charge by NATO through the Standardization Document Database, and is not sold by NATO or by us.
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