Checked against primary sources 2026-08-24

The low-voltage and signaling articles were rebuilt, and Article 770 is gone

If your work touches control wiring, fire alarm, data or fiber, the articles you reach for were renumbered as a group, and two of the numbers now point at a subject they did not point at before.

The new structure

Limited-energy systems now get a set of articles organized by what you are doing rather than by circuit class. Three of the numbers are additions this cycle, three arrived with the 2023 edition, and the rest you have seen before.

The third column is there because the restructure is easy to overstate. Nine numbers in one range looks like nine new articles, and it is three.

Article 770 does not exist any more

Optical fiber cable used to have an article of its own. In the 2026 edition it does not, and NFPA's panel 16 says why in as many words: once the redundant text came out there was nothing left in Article 770, so the article went. The requirements live in the limited-energy set above.

If your habit is to turn to 770 for a fiber question, that habit now produces nothing.

Class 4 is the newest technology in the range and Article 726 is not new

Class 4 fault-managed power is not a renaming of something older. A transmitter and a receiver watch the circuit between them, and the transmitter controls the source current so that the energy delivered into any fault is limited. On a fault it shuts down inside milliseconds.

The thing that catches people out is that Class 4 is not power limited to the load the way Class 2 is. It is current limited for faults on the run between transmitter and receiver, which is why it can carry real power a long way on small conductors.

The Code gave that its own article in the 2023 edition. What the 2026 edition changes is the neighborhood. Article 726 now sits inside a set organized around what you are installing, next to a power sources article and two cable articles, rather than beside a Class 1, 2 and 3 structure that has been taken apart.

So if you skipped 726 in 2023 because no job of yours was Class 4, this is the natural cycle to read it, not because the article changed but because everything around it did.

Article 742 is the only number in this set with a claim to being new subject matter, and the claim is arguable. Panel 16 built it out of the primary protector rules that sat in Article 805, moving 805.90(A) into 742.10(A), so whether it counts as a first appearance depends on how much weight you give the number. The one article in the 2026 edition that covers something the Code has never covered is 624, and it is nowhere near this range.

Two numbers in this set point somewhere else now

Article 750 here is grounding and bonding of limited-energy systems. Through the 2023 edition, Article 750 was Energy Management Systems, which is now Article 130.

Article 720 is the same trap in the same range. It used to be circuits and equipment operating at less than 50 volts, and it is now the Article 300 equivalent for limited-energy work. Where the old under-50-volt content went is not something we have verified, so this page does not say.

Same numbers, different subjects, and all of those subjects are real. There is a page here on the 750 case specifically, because it is the most expensive kind of change to miss.

What this page cites

• NEC 720.1 Scope of limited-energy wiring methods, 2026 edition. Through 2023 the number carried Circuits and Equipment Operating at Less Than 50 Volts. source
• NEC 721.1 Power sources for limited-energy systems. Article added in the 2026 edition. source
• NEC 723.1 Raceways, cable routing assemblies and cable trays for limited-energy systems. Created by second revision 7756 in panel 3's second draft. source
• NEC 726.1 Class 4 fault-managed power. Article added in the 2023 edition. source
• NEC 742.10 Overvoltage protection of limited-energy systems. Panel 16's second draft relocates 805.90(A) here. source
• NEC 750.1 Grounding and bonding of limited-energy systems, 2026 edition. source