The 2026 National Electrical Code was issued on September 9, 2025, and adoption is now rolling through jurisdictions one at a time. Public summaries from EC&M, Interstates, and JADE Learning provide useful context; NFPA 70 remains the controlling source. If you draw one-lines for a living, the practical question isn't "what changed in the code" — it's "what changes on my sheet." We went through the 2026 revisions looking only for that, and the honest answer is that five changes alter the drawing and a lot of the widely-quoted ones don't.
1. Service disconnect moves outdoors — the only change that alters topology
Section 230.70(A) now requires the service disconnect for one- and two-family dwellings to be located outside: either on the dwelling itself, or within sight and not more than 50 feet away. The enclosure is marked EMERGENCY DISCONNECT on dwellings — white letters on a red field, at least half an inch tall — and SERVICE DISCONNECT on other occupancies. A remote shunt-trip pushbutton does not satisfy this; the actual disconnecting means has to be out there.
This has a downstream consequence that's easy to miss: once the disconnect is outdoors, that indoor panel stops being service equipment and becomes feeder equipment. Which means your drawing has to show the four-wire feeder, the isolated neutral, and the equipment grounding conductor — details that were unnecessary when the main lived inside. If a source disconnect for a generator, PV array, or storage system isn't adjacent, 230.70 also wants a plaque or directory at the service disconnect giving its location, which belongs in your general notes.
2. Available fault current and SCCR belong on the sheet
Section 408.6 requires switchboards and panelboards in anything other than one- and two-family dwellings to be field marked with the available fault current at the line terminals, the date that calculation was made, and the equipment short-circuit current rating. The calculation documentation has to be retained, and if an upstream change alters the available fault current, it gets recalculated and re-marked. Newly installed or replaced overcurrent devices can't have an interrupting rating below the available fault current.
Strictly read, the NEC is asking for field marking and documentation, not dictating one-line format. But the cheapest path to compliance is putting the data on the drawing in the first place: available fault current, equipment SCCR or breaker AIC, and the calculation date, tagged at each relevant bus. Then the label schedule is a transcription job instead of a research project.
3. The 3 VA/ft² trap
Dwelling general lighting and general-use receptacle load dropped from 3 VA per square foot to 2 VA for service and feeder calculations — that's 120.41 and 120.82(B)(1) for the standard and optional methods. This is the change getting the most airtime, and it's the one most likely to be applied wrong.
Because 3 VA/ft² did not disappear. Section 120.13 still uses it to determine the minimum number of branch circuits for general lighting and general-use receptacles. It just no longer feeds the feeder and service total.
Two more things moved in the same neighborhood. Under 120.5(E) and 120.42, Article 120 establishes the load value only — the 125% continuous-load multiplier applies to conductor and overcurrent device sizing, and is not added again inside the Article 120 total. And the optional dwelling method in 120.82 now takes the first 8 kVA at 100% with the remainder at 40% (it was the first 10 kVA), while EVSE goes in at 100% of nameplate with no demand factor. Net effect on a house with a charger: general load down, EVSE demand up.
4. Power control systems have to be drawn
Sections 120.7(B) and 120.7(C) allow a listed power control system to be used in the load calculation, with the control setting capped at 80% of the overcurrent device protecting the monitored circuit; the performance and listing requirements live in Article 130, Part II. Calculations now have to distinguish controlled from noncontrolled loads.
If a project is leaning on a PCS to avoid a service upgrade — which is increasingly why one gets specified — the one-line needs to show the PCS, where it monitors, which loads are under control, the associated overcurrent device, and the control setting. The NEC doesn't prescribe a standard PCS symbol, so pick one and put it in your legend.
5. Medium voltage got renumbered — and there is no Article 269
The 2023 Article 235 was broken apart into 265 (branch circuits), 266 (feeders), 267 (outside branch circuits and feeders), 268 (services), and 270 (grounding and bonding) for systems over 1000V AC / 1500V DC. Note the gap: there is no Article 269. Every reference on a medium-voltage sheet needs updating.
Two substantive changes ride along. 265.20(A) and 270.122(B) change medium-voltage load calculation and add equipment-grounding-conductor sizing tables for MV cable — so phase conductor and EGC sizes on your cable schedule need re-verification, not just a reference swap. Separately, 245.6 requires documentation of adjustable relay and trip settings to be available to design, installation, operations, inspection personnel, and the AHJ, which in practice means a protection settings schedule alongside the one-line showing relay function, CT and PT ratios, and setting references.
Three changes everyone is citing that don't touch the drawing
Arc flash labeling (110.16). The 1,000A threshold is gone and the requirement now reaches service and feeder equipment in non-dwellings likely to be serviced energized, and generic labels are no longer acceptable — the marking has to carry nominal voltage, arc flash boundary, incident energy or minimum PPE, and the assessment date. But all of that is a field label on equipment, not one-line content. What your drawing package owes is a clean one-to-one correspondence between equipment IDs and the arc flash study, which is an equipment schedule column, not a symbol.
Article 220 becoming Article 120. Load calculations moved wholesale into Article 120. It is a renumbering. Update every 220.xx reference in your calculation sheets, general notes, and detail callouts — no new symbols, no new content.
Chapter 8 folding into Chapter 7. Chapter 8 lost its standalone status and the main limited-energy rules moved into Chapter 7 under Articles 720, 721, 722, 723, 742, and 750; a reduced Chapter 8 still exists. This is a code organization change. It does not mean communications systems now belong on the power one-line. If limited-energy risers are in your scope, update references there and carry on.
Check the adoption trigger before redrawing
The NEC is a model code, not automatically binding law. The edition in force depends on jurisdictional adoption, amendments, and a project transition trigger such as permit filing, permit issuance, plan acceptance, or installation commencement. The maintained 2026 NEC adoption-by-state evidence tracker separates those dates and links each verified action to a government source. Confirm the result with the AHJ before issuing drawings.