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IEC 60204-1 Wire Colour and Pushbutton Colour Chart

Electrical designers and panel builders often need the colour for a conductor or a pushbutton and do not want to open the standard. This chart lists the commonly applied colours from IEC 60204-1 for conductors, pushbuttons and indicator lamps on machines.

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Group	Colour	Typical meaning or use	Note
Conductor	Black	AC and DC power circuits	Main circuits
Conductor	Red	AC control circuits
Conductor	Blue	DC control circuits
Conductor	Orange	Circuits that stay live when the main supply is disconnected	Externally supplied interlock circuits
Conductor	Green and yellow	Protective earth conductor	Never use this combination for any other purpose
Conductor	Light blue	Neutral conductor	Where a colour is used to identify neutral
Pushbutton	Red	Emergency stop, on a yellow background	Mushroom head, latching
Pushbutton	Red	Stop or off	Black, grey or white also allowed
Pushbutton	White, grey, black or green	Start or on
Pushbutton	Yellow	Intervention in abnormal conditions, suppress abnormal state
Pushbutton	Blue	Reset or mandatory action	White, grey or black also allowed for reset
Indicator lamp	Red	Emergency, danger, immediate action required
Indicator lamp	Yellow	Abnormal condition, impending critical condition
Indicator lamp	Green	Normal condition, safe to proceed
Indicator lamp	Blue	Mandatory action required
Indicator lamp	White	Neutral, other conditions	Use when other colours do not apply

This chart reflects the commonly applied provisions of IEC 60204-1 (and its US counterpart NFPA 79 differs in places, for example in control circuit conductor colours). Customer specifications, regional codes and the edition in force take precedence. Verify against the current edition before releasing drawings.

Variant standards per order

Optional: a short review of how regional electrical variants can be captured on configured machine orders.

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How to use this chart

Filter by group to see conductor, pushbutton or indicator lamp rows. When laying out a panel, set a project wiring standard from the chart and put it in the electrical design brief, so every panel builder uses the same convention. Add any customer exceptions, such as site standards that require specific control colours.

Pick one colour scheme per project
Record the standard edition on the drawing
Mark orange conductors clearly: they stay live
Label with wire numbers as well as colours

Why colour conventions matter

A maintenance technician isolates the main supply and expects the cabinet to be dead. Orange conductors warn that interlock circuits fed from an external source may still be live. Colour on its own is not enough, since colour blindness and lighting affect perception, so combine colour with wire numbers, terminal labels and legends on devices.

Worked example

On a 400 V machine with a 24 V DC control supply, you would use black for the main power, blue for 24 V DC control wiring, red for any 230 V AC control circuits, green and yellow for protective earth, and orange for an external interlock from a conveyor. Emergency stop is a red mushroom button on a yellow backing plate.

Common mistakes

Using red for a start button because it looks like power is a common error. Another is wiring a reset in green. Mixing NFPA 79 and IEC conventions on one machine also confuses service teams, so decide by destination market and state it in the manual.

Frequently Asked Questions

What colour is a DC control wire?

Blue is the commonly applied colour for DC control circuits under IEC 60204-1, red for AC control and black for power. Customer standards or NFPA 79 may specify different colours, so confirm the destination requirement.

What does an orange wire mean?

Orange identifies circuits that may remain live when the main supply is disconnected, usually interlocked circuits supplied from another source. Treat them as live until verified otherwise.

What colour must an emergency stop be?

Red, ideally a mushroom head on a yellow background. See ISO 13850 for the function requirements, including that the device latches and resets only by a deliberate action.

Can I use green and yellow for anything but earth?

No. The green and yellow combination is reserved for protective conductors. Using it for signal or other conductors is a safety and compliance problem.

If you sell machines worldwide and want the right electrical standard variant attached to each order in your ERP, we can help configure that.

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