About
UN/TDED
Mission
The Trade Data Elements Directory is the lexicon of trade: the controlled vocabulary that defines every data element on an aligned trade document — its number, name, definition and representation. This project publishes the 2005 edition (ECE/TRADE/362, ISO 7372:2005) as an open, machine-readable dataset, so that the vocabulary of trade can be maintained and consumed as data, not as a scanned PDF.
Name and colours
- UN blue #009EDB — the official blue of the United Nations (Pantone 2925), used for the slash and the accents.
- Category colours — one colour per tag range, in tag order.
- The name — written the UN standards-family way, like UN/CEFACT and UN/EDIFACT.
- The tag plate — a bordered plate with the four-digit tag, after the pre-printed field boxes of trade documents.
The UN emblem is the official artwork, in light and dark variants (UN blue #009EDB on light backgrounds).
Operation and governance
This site and its repositories are operated on behalf of the United Nations and the International Organization for Standardization, which jointly maintain ISO 7372 / the TDED through ISO/TC 154/JWG 9.
UNECE — UN/CEFACT
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business
The United Nations body maintaining this directory (ISO 7372 / TDED), jointly with ISO/TC 154 through JWG 9.
ISO/TC 154
Processes, data elements and documents in commerce, industry and administration
The ISO committee that publishes ISO 7372 in parallel with the UN; its plenary resolutions mandate this open-source platform.
The mandate
The work is mandated by ISO/TC 154 document N1727 — resolutions of the 45th plenary meeting of ISO/TC 154, DIN Berlin, 2026-08-31 and 2026-09-04 (all resolutions approved by the six participating members DIN, SAC, BSI, JISC, UNI, KATS):
Resolution P-2026-07 (JWG 9) — Encouragement for exploring the use of an open-source platform to support the maintenance and publication of ISO 7372
"ISO/TC154 resolve to explore the use of an open-source platform (such as the pilot UN Gitlab environment) to support the maintenance and publication of ISO 7372. ISO/TC 154 also request that ISO Central Secretariat can share best practices on OSD and Smart Standards developed that could support this work."
Companion resolutions: P-2026-06 (JWG 9) calls for strengthened ISO- and UNECE-side expert support for ISO 7372's "timely publication before October 2028"; P-2026-01 (JWG 1) initiates a meeting with the UNECE Secretariat on the stalled maintenance and publication of the UN/EDIFACT Directories (D.25A severely delayed). This platform — dataset, website and source code — is the open-source platform those resolutions call for, with UNTDED 2005 as its first complete edition.
Licensing and attribution
The directory content is the UN publication ECE/TRADE/362 (in parallel as ISO 7372:2005), © United Nations / UNECE, reproduced with attribution. The code and this website are open source under MIT. See download for the exact artifacts.