This International Standard describes how to digitally exchange soil-related data. It aims to facilitate the exchange of valid, clearly described and specified soil-related data between individuals and organizations via digital systems and enables any soil data producer, holder or user to find and transfer data in an unambiguous way. This International Standard contains definitions of features, several parameter specifications and encoding rules that allow consistent and retrievable data exchange. It also allows to explicitly geo-reference soil data by building on existing ISO standards, thus facilitating the use of soil data within geographical information systems (GIS). Because soil data are of various origin and obtained according to a huge variety of description and classification systems, this International Standard provides no attribute catalogue, but a flexible approach to the unified encoding of soil data by implementing the rules of ISO 19156-2 observations and measurements (O & M) for the use in soil science. Figure 1 shows the fluxes of soil data, generic to many kinds of applications in relation to the work of ISO/TC 190 Soil Quality, that can be organized by using the rules of this International standard.