Robot safety standards in 2026 explained: ISO 10218 was rewritten for arms and cobots, but walking humanoids still have no published rulebook

The safety rulebook for robots was rewritten in 2025, but only for the machines that already fill factories. ISO 10218, the standard every industrial arm and cobot is built and integrated against, was revised for the first time since 2011, and the United States adopted it as ANSI/A3 R15.06-2025 in September 2025. Walking humanoids, the robots attracting the most capital, still have no published standard of their own. Their draft, ISO 25785-1, avoids the word humanoid altogether.

That gap is why the same week can bring a Korean ministry clearing 20 humanoids to work beside people and a European regulation that will bind every self-learning machine sold in the bloc from January. This explainer sets out what changed in ISO 10218, what the humanoid draft says, and how Korea, China, the EU and the US are filling the space in between.

The 2025 rewrite made safety functions explicit instead of implied

The Association for Advancing Automation (A3), which administers the work in the US, said on Feb 17, 2025 that ISO had published the revised Parts 1 and 2 after nearly eight years of work by hundreds of experts. Part 1 is written for robot manufacturers; Part 2 for the system integrators who turn a robot into a working cell. A3 said the central change was to make functional safety requirements explicit rather than implied, so a buyer can check which safety function does what and how it was tested.

Three older documents were folded in. The cobot rules of ISO/TS 15066, the technical specification that set force and pressure limits for robots working with people, now sit inside the standard. Guidance on end-effectors and on manual loading and unloading came from the technical reports ISO/TR 20218-1 and -2. The revision also introduced robot classes with matching safety functions and test methods, and added cybersecurity requirements for the first time, a recognition that a hacked controller is a safety problem.

Roberta Nelson Shea, global technical compliance officer at Universal Robots and convenor of the ISO working group behind the revision, said at publication that the standards had immense global acceptance but needed updating to keep pace with automation.

The US moved in 204 days, and renamed a familiar stop

A3 published ANSI/A3 R15.06-2025, the American national adoption of ISO 10218 Parts 1 and 2, on Sept 9, 2025, 204 days after it announced the ISO edition. It replaced the 2012 version. The A3 release lists the same enhancements and one change every integrator will notice: "safety-rated monitored stop" becomes "monitored standstill". A3 said a Part 3, covering the users who run robot cells, would follow. Canada adopts the standard as CSA Z434.

The practical effect is that a cobot cell designed in 2026 is assessed against one document rather than a standard plus a separate technical specification. What none of these documents was written for is a robot that stays upright only while its motors are powered.

Humanoids fall over, and that is what the draft is about

A3 wrote that representatives from A3, Agility Robotics and Boston Dynamics, tasked with an ISO safety standard for humanoids in the workplace, chose a different term. The working-group draft of ISO 25785-1, dated May 2025, covers "industrial mobile robots with actively controlled stability". The definition turns on the hazard: a machine that needs constant power to balance will collapse when power is lost, and a heavy robot falling onto a person is a risk that a fixed arm behind a fence never posed. Nelson Shea told A3 that such robots are poor at recovery and, unlike small children, are heavy enough to injure someone if they fall.

MEKAWIRE has found no published edition of ISO 25785-1. Until there is one, a humanoid maker selling into a factory has to argue safety from general machinery principles, from ISO 10218 where the robot uses an arm, and from whatever national route lets it operate.

Korea, China and the EU are each filling the gap differently

Korea has chosen permission and certification. Its trade ministry invited bids on March 23, 2026 for a humanoid safety and security certification centre with up to KRW 9,681 million of state money over 2026 to 2030, about KRW 1,936 million a year, tied to a Daegu-area partner and expected to set three group standards and win KOLAS accreditation. On Oct 13 the ministry's sandbox committee let Robros run 20 walking humanoids beside workers at Nepes, Sungwoo Hitech, HD Hyundai Samho and Delivery Lab, lifting a fencing rule written for fixed robots. Korea already certifies outdoor robots: the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA) issued Neubility two sidewalk-robot certificates on Oct 7 with a 7.2 km/h cap and remote approval at unsignalled crossings.

China has chosen a standards system. A committee under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the Humanoid Robot and Embodied Intelligence Standard System (2026 Edition) on Feb 28, 2026, a six-part framework that runs from AI models and computing to joints, complete robots, applications and safety, with priority projects drafted with more than 70 companies including Unitree and AgiBot.

The EU has chosen product law. The new Product Liability Directive treats software, including AI, as a product from Dec 9, 2026, and the Machinery Regulation applies from Jan 20, 2027, 95 days from today. MEKAWIRE's EU policy explainer covers both in detail.