National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN ISO 11553‑2:2026. It is identical to ISO 11553‑2:2026. It supersedes BS EN ISO 11553‑2:2008, which is withdrawn.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee CPW/172, Optics and Photonics.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

This publication has been prepared under a mandate given to the European Standards Organizations by the European Commission and the European Free Trade Association. It is intended to support requirements of the EU legislation detailed in the European Foreword. A European Annex, usually Annex ZA or ZZ, describes how this publication relates to that EU legislation.

For the Great Britain market (England, Scotland and Wales), if UK Government has designated this publication for conformity with UKCA marking (or similar) legislation, it may contain an additional National Annex. Where such a National Annex exists, it shows the correlation between this publication and the relevant UK legislation. If there is no National Annex of this kind, the relevant Annex ZA or ZZ in the body of the European text will indicate the relationship to UK regulation applicable in Great Britain. References to EU legislation may need to be read in accordance with the UK designation and the applicable UK law. Further information on designated standards can be found at www.bsigroup.com/standardsandregulation.

For the Northern Ireland market, UK law will continue to implement relevant EU law subject to periodic confirmation. Therefore Annex ZA/ZZ in the European text, and references to EU legislation, are still valid for this market.

UK Government is responsible for legislation. For information on legislation and policies relating to that legislation, consult the relevant pages of www.gov.uk.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 31 October 2026.

This European Standard was approved by CEN on 29 August 2026.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

This document (EN ISO 11553‑2:2026) has been prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 172 "Optics and photonics" in collaboration with Technical Committee CEN/TC 123 “Lasers and photonics” the secretariat of which is held by DIN.

This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by April 2027, and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at the latest by April 2027.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

This document supersedes EN ISO 11553‑2:2008.

This document has been prepared under a standardization request addressed to CEN by the European Commission. The Standing Committee of the EFTA States subsequently approves these requests for its Member States.

For the relationship with EU Legislation, see informative Annex ZA, which is an integral part of this document.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national standards body/national committee. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CEN website.

According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organizations of the following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

Endorsement notice

The text of ISO 11553‑2:2026 has been approved by CEN as EN ISO 11553‑2:2026 without any modification.

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.

The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).

ISO draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a) patent(s). ISO takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, ISO had not received notice of (a) patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at www.iso.org/patents. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not constitute an endorsement.

For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html.

This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 172, Optics and photonics, Subcommittee SC 9, Laser and electro-optical systems, in collaboration with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Technical Committee CEN/TC 123, Lasers and photonics,in accordance with the Agreement on technical cooperation between ISO and CEN (Vienna Agreement) and with IEC/TC 76, Optical radiation safety and laser equipment.

This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (ISO 11553‑2:2007), which has been technically revised.

The main changes are as follows:

The document was changed to type-C standard;
added dates to references in the whole document and main body of the text;
several terms and definitions were modified or newly added;
the covered hazards as well as the requirements concerning the hazards were added in more detail;
Clause 4 was rewrote with new structure, the Table 1 was newly added, serving to list the significant hazards and hazardous situations;
Table 2 was newly added in Clause 4, serving to list the further hazards and hazardous situations;
Clause 5 was rewrote with new structure. Table 3 was newly added in Clause 5 to describe the work place safety for HLM;
Several subclauses of Clause 5 were rewrote with more detail;
Table 3 was modified in Clause 6.
Several subclauses of Clause 7 were added with more information;
several subclause headings were modified and several technical requirements were amended;
some of the lists were renumbered;
previous Annex B was deleted, and example of risk assessment for HLM was added as Annex B;
new Annex C, Annex D, Annex E, Annex F, Annex G and Annex H were added.

A list of all parts in the ISO 11553 series can be found on the ISO website/IEC website.

Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.

Introduction

This document is a type-C standard as stated in ISO 12100:2010.

This document is of relevance particularly for the following stakeholder groups representing the market players with regards to machinery safety:

hand-held or hand-operated laser processing machines (HLMs) manufacturers (small, medium and large enterprises); including manufacturers of sub/part machines such as devices or devices assembly related to laser radiation, as well as system integrators (small, medium, and large enterprises);
NOTE Devices or device assemblies include, but are not limited to, those for: guiding; shaping, delivery, protective, locking, control, enabling, limiting, impeding, switching, exhaust, stop, loading/feeding, scanning and warning devices.
health and safety bodies (regulators, accident prevention organizations, market surveillance, etc.).

Others can be affected by the level of machinery safety achieved with the means of the document by the above-mentioned stakeholder groups:

machine users/employers (small, medium and large enterprises);
machine users/employees (e.g. trade unions, organizations for people with special needs);
service providers, e.g. for maintenance (small, medium and large enterprise);
consumers (in case of machinery intended for use by consumers);
bystanders.

The above-mentioned stakeholder groups have been given the possibility to participate in the drafting process of this document.

The machinery concerned and the extent to which hazards, hazardous situations or hazardous events are covered are indicated in the Scope of this document.

When requirements of this type-C standard are different from those which are stated in type-A or type-B standards, the requirements of this type-C standard take precedence over the requirements of the other standards for machines that have been designed and built according to the requirements of this type-C standard.

The purpose of this document is to prevent serious and irreversible injuries to persons and damage to property

by listing potential hazards generated by hand-held or hand-operated laser processing machines;
by describing the risk assessment procedure for all relevant hazards;
by specifying safety measures and verification procedures necessary for reducing the risk caused by specific hazardous conditions;
by providing references to pertinent standards;
by specifying the information which is to be supplied to the user so that they can establish proper procedures and precautions at the workplace.

1 Scope

This document deals with all significant hazards, hazardous situations or hazardous events relevant to hand-held or hand-operated laser processing machines (HLMs), when they are used as intended and under conditions of misuse which are reasonably foreseeable by the manufacturer. HLM is the machine, as defined in ISO 11553‑1:2020, 3.7, in which laser radiation is generated, where the laser provides sufficient energy/power to cause a phase transition in a part of the workpiece and where the laser output or workpiece to be processed is guided manually or hand-held during the laser material processing.

This document defines general design requirements of HLM. HLM includes the laser device, beam-guiding device (e.g. mirror, fibre, lenses), beam-shaping device (e.g. telescope, focusing), and controls. The laser assembly as an integral part of the HLM or only the laser processing head is hand-held or hand-operated during the laser material processing.

This document does not apply

to laser processing machines which are remotely controlled by a manual controller (hand-operated controller), such as joy sticks, keyboard, etc., without touching a workpiece or a part mechanically connected with the laser material processing head by using the hand(s) of the operator (user)
to laser processing machines without a drive system which may not belong to machinery. And the laser processing apparatus without moving parts, which may not be considered as machinery in “Type C standard”.
- to medical or cosmetic applications for the treatment of living human or animal tissue;
- to weapon applications, (e.g. such as with regard to military applications, direct close combat.)

NOTE “hand-operated laser processing machine” is synonymous with “hand-guided laser processing machine” in this document. Hand-operated laser processing machines often use manual force reduction means such as wheels, supports, etc., for manual positioning of the laser processing heads or the workpieces.

It is applicable to HLMs using laser radiation to process materials.

The purpose of this document is to draw attention to the hazards related to HLMs and to prevent personal injury. Depending on the application and the location/operating conditions of HLMs, a number of different significant hazards can arise. This document describes both the areas of hazards analysis and risk assessment as well as protective measures.

Requirements dealing with noise as a hazard are covered by ISO 11553‑3:2013.

This document does not apply to laser products or equipment manufactured solely or expressly for applications which are excluded from the Scope of ISO 11553‑1:2020. This document is not applicable for HLMs which have been manufactured before the date of publication of this standard.

HLMs include the following types:

HLMs which are designed as all-in-one laser assembly including the beam delivery/forming(shaping) system and optional features such as gas nozzles, material (e.g. powder, wire) feed system;
HLMs where the relevant devices are connected by a beam guidance system (e.g. optical fibre) and power/control cables to an external laser assembly device and which includes only the beam delivery/forming(shaping) system and optional features such as gas nozzles, material (e.g. powder, wire) feed system;
laser processing machines where the workpiece is manually moved under/relative to the laser beam (see informative Annex A).

The intended use of HLMs covers both:

movement of elements or workpieces by hand to be processed under/relatively to stationary laser beams as shielded , and
movement of the laser processing head (beam shaping device) by hand to move laser beam(s) over or relative to elements or workpieces to be processed.

Laser processing machines, where laser processing is performed with hand-held or hand-operated workpieces outside the fixed (neither hand-held nor hand-operated by the operator or user) laser processing machines are out of the scope of this document. Such a fixed laser processing machine is to be covered by ISO 11553‑1:2020.

HLMs are intended for the industrial use and can be only operated by trained and authorized personnel in indoor and/or outdoor environments/locations (e.g. cleaning of facades, statues).

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 List of significant hazards

4.1 General

4.2 Main hazards

4.3 Significant hazards and hazardous situations covered by this document

4.4 Reasons of laser radiation hazards due to emission of unintended laser radiation or a misguided laser beam

4.5 Laser hazards regarding application

5 Safety requirements and risk reduction measures

5.1 General

5.2 Requirements related to mechanical hazards

5.3 Requirements related to electrical hazards

5.4 Requirements related to thermal hazards

5.5 Requirements related to incoherent radiation hazards

5.6 Requirements related to laser radiation hazards

5.7 Requirements related to control system

5.8 Requirements related to Hazards related to materials and substances

5.9 Requirements related to ergonomic hazards

5.10 Requirements related to Hazards from/to unauthorized or third parties

5.11 Requirements related to hazards caused by lack or inadequacy of visual or acoustic warning means

6 Verification of safety requirements and measures

6.1 General

6.2 Methods for verification and validation

6.3 Required verification and validation

6.4 Verification and validation of protective safeguards

7 Information for user

7.1 General

7.2 Instruction handbook/Manual

7.3 Verification and validation of protective measures

7.4 Information for use associated with the environment

8 Labelling

8.1 Information to be indicated in labels

8.2 Label styles

Bibliography