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Every SSPC surface preparation, application, and visual standard in one place — what each one requires, where it applies, and what an inspector or AMPP QP auditor will hold your crew to.
Written by the consulting team that helps coatings contractors earn and keep AMPP QP certification. 27+ years on the contractor's side of the audit table.
The SSPC standards are the working language of industrial coatings in North America. When a spec says the steel must be cleaned to SSPC-SP10, or the dry film thickness verified per SSPC-PA 2, those documents define exactly what “done right” means — and they are what an inspector or auditor will hold your crew to.
SSPC (the Society for Protective Coatings, originally the Steel Structures Painting Council) merged with NACE International to form AMPP, the Association for Materials Protection and Performance. The standards kept their SSPC designations, which is why specs and search habits still say “SSPC-SP6” rather than an AMPP number. Where a standard was jointly issued with NACE, both designations appear on the same document (SSPC-SP10 / NACE No. 2 is the common example).
We work with these standards from the contractor's side of the table. Freer Consulting has spent 27+ years preparing companies for third-party certification audits, including the AMPP QP programs that certify coatings contractors. This guide is the reference we wished our clients had on day one.
The standards group into six families. Each one gets its own deep-dive page or post; here is the map, with a link down to the detail.
Cleanliness grades for steel before coating, from solvent wipe-down to white metal blast. They split into hand & power tool cleaning (SP1, SP2, SP3, SP11, SP15) and abrasive blast cleaning (SP5–SP16). Most coating failures trace back here.
AB1, AB2 and AB3 govern the abrasives themselves: mineral and slag media, recycled ferrous media cleanliness, and ferrous metallic abrasives. They live with the blast standards on the abrasive blast cleaning page.
Books of reference photographs used to judge prepared surfaces by eye. SSPC VIS 1, the pictorial guide for blast-cleaned steel, is the one that settles arguments in the field.
How coatings go on and how the work is verified — including SSPC-PA 2, the dry film thickness procedure every inspector carries. Covered in our PA standards explainer on the blog.
Advisory documents rather than pass/fail standards. The two that matter most to contractors — Guide 6 (containment) and Guide 15 (soluble salt testing) — are covered in our Guide 6 and Guide 15 explainer on the blog.
QP1, QP2 and QP3 are not technical standards — they are AMPP's contractor certification programs, auditing whether your company can execute all the standards above on real work. That is what we do for a living: see our AMPP/SSPC QP certification consulting.
Every active SP standard, what it requires in one line, and where to read more. Bookmark this table.
| Standard | Name | One-line scope | Full reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSPC-SP1 | Solvent Cleaning | Remove oil, grease and soluble contaminants; required before every other method | SP1 section |
| SSPC-SP2 | Hand Tool Cleaning | Remove loose rust, mill scale and paint with hand tools | SP2 section |
| SSPC-SP3 | Power Tool Cleaning | Remove loose material with power tools | SP3 section |
| SSPC-SP5 | White Metal Blast Cleaning | Blast to a uniformly clean, bare surface | SP5 section |
| SSPC-SP6 | Commercial Blast Cleaning | Blast clean with limited staining permitted | SP6 section |
| SSPC-SP7 | Brush-Off Blast Cleaning | Light blast; tightly adherent material may remain | SP7 section |
| SSPC-SP10 | Near-White Metal Blast Cleaning | Blast clean with only slight staining permitted | SP10 section |
| SSPC-SP11 | Power Tool Cleaning to Bare Metal | Power tool to bare metal with a surface profile | SP11 section |
| SSPC-SP13 | Surface Preparation of Concrete | Prepare concrete to receive a coating or lining | SP13 section |
| SSPC-SP14 | Industrial Blast Cleaning | Blast grade between brush-off and commercial | SP14 section |
| SSPC-SP15 | Commercial Grade Power Tool Cleaning | Power tool grade between SP3 and SP11 | SP15 section |
| SSPC-SP16 | Brush-Off Blast, Coated & Non-Ferrous | Light blast for galvanized, stainless and non-ferrous metals | SP16 section |
| SSPC-SP WJ-1–WJ-4 | Waterjet Cleaning | Four waterjetting cleanliness grades (replaced SP12) | Waterjetting section |
Three designations still show up in old specs and still get searched, but you should not bid or build to them without a conversation with the spec owner.
SSPC-SP4 (Flame Cleaning). Discontinued. If a legacy spec calls for SP4, flag it for clarification rather than improvising a method.
SSPC-SP8 (Pickling). Acid pickling of structural steel — still a valid standard, but rarely specified outside specialty shop work.
SSPC-SP12 (Waterjetting). Superseded by the four-grade SSPC-SP WJ-1 through WJ-4 series, issued jointly with NACE. Specs written before the change still cite SP12 with a condition suffix. Our waterjetting section maps the old callouts to the new grades.
North American specs speak SSPC, international and marine specs speak ISO 8501-1, and older documents add NACE numbers on top. The grades describe the same physical reality, but they are not identical — and treating them as interchangeable has lost real money in real disputes.
| Method | SSPC | NACE (joint) | ISO 8501-1 | Plain English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blast | SP5 White Metal | No. 1 | Sa 3 | Visually clean bare metal, no staining |
| Blast | SP10 Near-White | No. 2 | Sa 2½ | Slight staining only |
| Blast | SP6 Commercial | No. 3 | Sa 2 | Limited staining permitted |
| Blast | SP14 Industrial | No. 8 | Sa 1–Sa 2 | Most contamination off, traces remain |
| Blast | SP7 Brush-Off | No. 4 | Sa 1 | Loose material removed |
| Hand tool | SP2 Hand Tool | (none) | St 2 | Loose material removed by hand |
| Power tool | SP3 Power Tool | (none) | St 3 | Loose material removed by power tool |
| Power tool | SP11 / SP15 | (none) | no direct equiv. | Bare metal with profile; exceeds St 3 |
The systems define cleanliness differently at the root: ISO 8501-1 grades a surface against photographic plates organized by the steel's initial rust grade (A through D), while the SSPC standards define grades in written text, chiefly through staining allowances expressed as a percentage of each unit area, with the VIS photographs as a supplementary guide. Most of the time they land in the same place; at the boundaries (especially pitted steel) they can genuinely disagree. The resolution is always available in advance: the spec names one governing system, and acceptance references that system's documents only. If your spec names both without precedence, raise an RFI before blasting, not after.
The “NACE No. 2” style designations date from when SSPC and NACE jointly issued the blast standards; SSPC-SP10/NACE No. 2 is one standard with two names, and the legacy designations remain on the documents post-merger. As for “SSPC 2018”: that is almost always an edition citation — either the 2018 edition of an individual standard or the 2018 compilation volume. The spec's cited edition governs the contract; where the spec is silent, confirm the intended edition with the specifier in writing.
Here is the distinction that matters commercially. Any crew can read SSPC-SP10. An AMPP QP audit asks something harder: can your company prove, with documentation, trained people, calibrated equipment, and a functioning quality system, that you hit SP10 every time, on every job — including the ones nobody inspected?
That gap between knowing and proving is where we work. Freer Consulting prepares coatings contractors for QP1, QP2, and QP3 certification: we build the quality manual, set up the documentation your auditor will ask for, train your people on what the audit actually examines, and stay with you through the audit itself. No layers of salespeople — the person who answers the phone is the consultant who does the work.
If a QP audit is somewhere on your horizon (most owners start 6 to 12 months out), talk to us about where your shop stands.
SSPC stands for the Society for Protective Coatings. The organization was founded as the Steel Structures Painting Council, which is why older documents carry that name. SSPC merged with NACE International to form AMPP, the Association for Materials Protection and Performance.
Yes — AMPP now administers and publishes them, but the standards kept their SSPC designations. A spec citing SSPC-SP6 and a document published by AMPP as SSPC-SP6 are the same standard. Joint legacy standards carry both SSPC and NACE numbers.
Official standards are purchased from the AMPP store; they are copyrighted documents and the full text is not free. This guide summarizes what each standard requires and how it is used so you can identify the right one before you buy it, but it does not replace the standard on a contract job.
A standard (SP, PA, AB, VIS) sets requirements you can be held to: a defined cleanliness grade, a measurement procedure, an acceptance criterion. A guide (like Guide 6 or Guide 15) is advisory; it describes recognized methods without setting pass/fail requirements unless a project spec elevates it.
All of the ones your work scope touches. In practice, QP audits dig hardest into surface-prep verification (the SP grades and VIS comparisons), dry film thickness records per SSPC-PA 2, and, for QP2 contractors, containment per Guide 6. Each child page on this hub has a “what auditors look for” note for exactly this reason.
We are a small firm by design. No layers of salespeople, no junior staff learning on your invoice. The consultants who scope your project are the practitioners who deliver it, working on-site or remotely through the Global Virtual Playbook we pioneered for clients across the US and internationally.
We establish long-term, productive relationships with our clients, growing with your company and providing services as you need them. Our experience means we get it right the first time — and our standards ensure your company realizes the benefits of getting it right, again and again.
The same engineering bench that prepares your AMPP/SSPC QP work also supports AISC, API Spec Q1, and ISO 9001 programs — so when your shop carries more than one certification, we keep them aligned on one quality system instead of running disconnected ones.
“I've worked with the Freer Team for over 6 years on our safety, quality, and environmental management system compliance and they've proven time and time again to provide consistent and comprehensive work on all fronts. They are always there when we need them.”
The fastest answer is a 30-minute call with someone who has sat through these audits. No obligation, and we will tell you plainly where you stand.