Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)

Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) are a set of standardized, digital descriptions of the built asset industry. It is an open, global standard published under a Creative Commons license, and as ISO 16739.

IFC provides machine interpretability of information and thereby enables automation of workflows. It is vendor-neutral and available to everyone.

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Latest Version

The latest official version of IFC is 4.3.2.0. This version is commonly referred to as IFC 4.3 and is also published by ISO as a final ISO 16739-1 standard.

Previous versions of IFC are also available. Older official versions are IFC 4.0.2.1 (IFC 4) and IFC 2.3.0.1 (IFC 2x3). The current version that is in development is IFC 5.

Latest official release: 4.3.2.0

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Software implementations

Next Generation of IFC

IFC is currently undergoing a major refactoring. This is being developed under the title of IFC 5. The IFC 5 release will bring IFC to the next technical level, unlocking advanced use-cases. IFC 5 will make sure IFC is ready for the coming decades.

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IFC Validation and Compatibility

A software developer intending to provide compliant IFC solutions has to export IFC data that validates against the full IFC standard. Everyone can check their IFC file validity using the official buildingSMART International IFC Validation Service. Metrics from the IFC Validation Service are used to generate ‘scorecards’ about the performance of software tools exporting IFC. The scorecards also provide insight into software capabilities.

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IFC may be encoded in various electronic formats, each having benefits and tradeoffs of software support, scalability, and readability. The recommended file format to exchange IFC 2x3, IFC 4 and IFC 4.3 data is the STEP Physical File Format (SPFF) as .ifc.

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Compliance and Certification

The IFC Software Certification Program has multiple components. Scorecards of IFC performance in software tools are generated based on metrics from the buildingSMART IFC Validations service results. Additionally specific use-cases can be certified by accredited organisations.

Import certification is done with publicly available test files. Currently experiments are being undertaken to certify for round-tripping of IFC data.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is IFC a file format?

IFC data can be captured (serialised) in an .ifc file (STEP file format) or other formats like .ifcXML or .ifcZIP. However, the IFC standard is much more than just a file format. It is primarily a data schema explaining how to organise objects, their properties, relations and more. The IFC
is also a flagship project governed by buildingSMART, encompassing domain and implementers agreements, documentation, collaboration platform, certification scheme and development process.

Does the IFC schema cover all building-related terms?

The latest IFC version 4.3 contains over 1300 entities and their types and approximately 2500 properties organised in over 750 sets. Still, as the name “Industry Foundation Classes” suggests, those are only the basic terms, and the industry often needs to extend them to more specialist terms or additional properties. The IFC allows users to add specific classes and additional properties to elements.

How do I know if my IFC file is valid?

What is the difference between IFC versions?

The latest official IFC version is IFC4.3 ADD2, which became a new ISO16739 standard in 2024. There were many previous versions of the standard, with the popular 2x3 (2005), IFC4 (2013) and IFC4 ADD2 TC1 (2018). The newest IFC4.3 brings support for the infrastructure domain and game-changing alignment definitions. The differences between previous versions can be traced through official IFC releases.
We are working in parallel on a minor IFC4.4 update (mostly semantic layer) and a major IFC5, which will be a significant technological leap forward.

What is the link between IFC and bSDD?

Both IFC and bSDD contain definitions of data structures. While the IFC is a standard, the bSDD is a service for distributing definitions that can be used in IFC models (extend IFC). Terms in bSDD are published by many independent organisations. In fact, the core IFC terms are also registered in bSDD for easier mapping between data dictionaries. Think of bSDD as a shared library of classes and properties that can be utilised to extend IFC with data. Thanks to this synergy, we allow users to add new concepts while popularising the usage of consistent terms across the industry. Read more about the bSDD.

What software supports IFC?

First of all, IFC implementation is version- and view-specific. For example, the software can support IFC version 4.3 ADD2 Reference View. That is because IFC spans many aspects, so some tools only implement a narrower part of IFC that they are using (a model-view-definition - MVD).
You can read about the process of official IFC compliance certification as well as a self-declared list of tools that claim compliance with the standard.

Find Your Classes and Properties

Since IFC only holds definitions that can have a global consensus, it is the ‘foundation’ of the industry. IFC is the global foundation that is implemented in software on which users can build their own specific content. Additional properties, classification references, material lists and other content can be used hand-in-hand with IFC. buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) allows non-IFC content to be linked to IFC.

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