NSRS Modernization: What NATRF2022 and the New Datums Mean for Surveyors

The National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) is the official foundation for positions in the United States.

NGS says the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) and the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88) are still its official horizontal and vertical datums.

Both, NGS says, have shortcomings that are best addressed by defining new datums.

The flaws are measurable.

NAD 83 is misaligned to the Earth's center by about 2.2 meters, according to NGS.

NAVD 88 has its own problems: NGS describes it as biased by about half a meter and tilted about 1 meter coast to coast relative to the best global geoid models available today.

Today's NSRS is realized by a combination of over 1,000 continuously operating GNSS stations and an aging network of over 1,000,000 geodetic survey marks.

On the vertical side, NAVD 88 and the other leveling-based geodetic vertical datums will be replaced by a gravity-based geopotential datum, with orthometric heights defined from GNSS-determined ellipsoid heights and an updated geoid model.

The bridge model is already in service: GEOID18 is NGS's hybrid geoid for converting NAD 83 GPS ellipsoid heights to NAVD 88 orthometric heights, and NGS intends it to be the last hybrid geoid model before the current vertical datums are replaced.

For working surveyors, these two datums show up wherever coordinates and elevations get reported — the datum line on a control report, the elevation on a stake, the coordinates behind a plat.

When the replacement lands, that vocabulary changes with it.

Horizontally, NGS will replace the three NAD 83 reference frames with four plate-fixed terrestrial reference frames defined relative to ITRF2020: NATRF2022 (North America), PATRF2022 (Pacific), CATRF2022 (Caribbean) and MATRF2022 (Mariana).

Each frame is named for, and will rotate at the same average rate as, the tectonic plate it covers.

That design is the answer to a problem the next section unpacks: keeping coordinates meaningful while the ground itself moves.

Vertically, the new geopotential datum is NAPGD2022 — the North American-Pacific Geopotential Datum of 2022.

GEOID2022 defines its zero-orthometric-height surface, and NAPGD2022 will replace all existing vertical datums, NAVD 88 included.

The "2022" in names like NATRF2022 and GEOID2022 carries no scientific meaning.

NGS says it is a common label linking the pieces of the modernized NSRS, which are being released over 2024 to 2026.

None of it is official yet.

As of October 2026, NGS's beta releases for the modernized NSRS are available for public testing until at least March 2027, and the current NSRS remains the official NSRS of the United States while the rollout and testing continue.

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A plate-fixed frame changes what a coordinate means over time.

Each 2022 frame rotates at the same average rate as its tectonic plate, so a point riding that plate holds close to the same coordinates in that frame even as the plate carries it relative to the rest of the planet.

The vertical model carries time in it too.

NGS describes GEOID2022 as the link between GPS-derived ellipsoid heights and orthometric heights, with a 1-arcminute spatial resolution and both static and dynamic — time-varying — components.

Time-dependence is not a new idea in NGS tooling.

The agency's HTDP — Horizontal Time-Dependent Positioning — tool models positions that change over time, and NGS says it will be mothballed in the modernized NSRS.

It stays available until the modernized NSRS exits its testing phase and becomes official.

Datum hygiene already points this way.

NGS supports a reference epoch only for NAD 83(2011) epoch 2010.00, and it has never formally adopted NAD 83(CORS96) as an NSRS datum — a sign that "NAD 83" alone is not always the whole label.

The habit to build now is reporting coordinates with their full context: which datum and realization, which frame, and where the job's precision warrants it, which epoch.

That habit carries straight into the modernized NSRS, where frame context becomes part of everyday work.

One date on the transition calendar is fixed: January 13, 2027.

That is NGS's deadline for submitting geodetic survey projects — OPUS Projects and differential leveling projects — that create or update geodetic control on NGS datasheets within the current NSRS.

NGS frames that deadline around published-control submissions, not everyday OPUS use.

Routine single-point OPUS solutions are not the submission path that closes on that date.

After January 13, 2027, OPUS Projects 5, WinDesc and Translev remain available until the modernized NSRS is fully implemented — but NGS will no longer accept new submissions to the current NSRS.

The switch itself has no firm date.

NGS's FAQ says the Federal Geodetic Control Subcommittee (FGCS) will be asked to vote to approve the modernized NSRS and the new datums once testing is complete, likely in mid 2027.

That estimate belongs to NGS's FAQ — not a published schedule — and NGS's own pages have carried different timing estimates at different times.

Until that process completes, the current NSRS — NAD 83 and NAVD 88 — stays official.

The production-side status is mixed.

As of NGS's Track Our Progress page in October 2026, beta public feedback periods were complete for NAPGD2022, the four 2022 terrestrial reference frames and SPCS2022.

Still pending beta release were the Data Delivery System, new mark pages, NCAT Beta 2 and the modernized OPUS products.

Federal agencies have a statutory clock of their own.

Under Section 2809 of the Geospatial Data Act of 2018, federal civilian agencies handling geospatial data must use the new reference frames within 5 years of adoption, and state agencies receiving federal funds for geospatial data must conform.

Everyone else follows state and local law or contract terms.

The headline number: NGS says moving to the modernized NSRS will change every existing latitude, longitude, ellipsoid height and orthometric height in the United States, as reported in the current NSRS, by as much as four meters.

The movement comes from the redefinition of the datums — not from the ground shifting under a monument.

That makes the datum statement on a plat, a control report or a GIS layer the load-bearing line it has always been, with more frames to tell apart once the new system lands.

NGS says its NCAT tool will let users transform between any NGS-defined historic datum and the new datums when the modernized NSRS rolls out, so existing data can be converted rather than re-collected.

WGS 84 data does not ride the same rails: WGS84 frames are not defined by NGS and are not supported in NADCON or VERTCON, and NGS plans a separate 14-parameter Helmert transformation tool in NCAT for them.

State Plane is set to become SPCS2022 — the third generation of the State Plane Coordinate System, after SPCS 27 in the 1930s and SPCS 83 in the 1980s — referenced to the four 2022 terrestrial reference frames.

NGS says every state and territory gets a statewide zone in SPCS2022, most states also have a multiple-zone layer, some have special-use zones, and states can carry up to three zone layers.

The zones were negotiated: 41 states submitted 67 zone requests or proposals, and 27 states designed their own zones, which NGS approved.

Like the frames underneath it, SPCS2022 is part of the modernized NSRS — planned and in testing, not official yet.

The foot changes with the system, not ahead of it.

NIST and NOAA deprecated the US survey foot on December 31, 2022, and from January 1, 2023 the foot means the international foot, exactly 0.3048 meter.

That deprecation applies to the modernized NSRS.

NGS continues to support the US survey foot for existing systems, such as SPCS 83 zones defined in survey feet.

Access is the other quiet change.

NGS says access to the modernized datums will be primarily through the NOAA CORS Network and the International GNSS Service, rather than through marks in the ground with published coordinates.

The contrast with today is stark: the current NSRS is realized in part by more than a million marks in the ground, while access to the modernized datums runs mainly through those networks.

The doorway to the datum moves from a mark to a network.

Real-time networks (RTNs) sit on the same seam.

NGS's RTN guidelines already advise users to record the datum, adjustment and epoch an RTN uses, and whether it aligns with the NSRS, because network coordinates depend on them.

Our research did not establish when or how RTN operators will move to the 2022 frames, so that record is the line to check on each job.

State law is the last layer.

States have datum laws that will need updating for the new datums, which is why NSPS, AAGS and NGS developed a legislative template; NSPS assists state legislatures with drafting, and NGS posts examples of 11 new state laws.

No one has to switch datums today — the current ones are still the official ones.

But the transition is the kind of change that rewards the people who saw it coming, on the crew and in the office alike.

For a licensed surveyor, the datum statement on a signed plat or report is part of the work product itself, and getting the frames right is part of getting the deliverable right.

For crew members, CAD technicians and surveyors in training, it is a rare window — a body of knowledge that is useful in the field and the office at the same time, ahead of a systemwide change in how coordinates are published and used.

If you are positioning yourself for that work, browse land surveyor jobs on the board, and use the land surveyor career guide to see how the licensed career fits together around skills like these.

Career information, not legal, tax or licensing advice. The modernization's dates and status continue to move — confirm current status with NGS, and confirm what your deliverables must carry with your state licensing board or the agency that reviews your work.