An ALTA/NSPS land title survey is a survey of a parcel's boundaries, monuments, improvements, easements and evidence of possession, performed to a national minimum standard and certified on a plat whose primary consumers are the lender and the title insurer.
ALTA adopted the current 2026 standards on October 8, 2025, NSPS followed on October 17, 2025, and they took effect February 23, 2026.
This guide covers what the standards ask of the surveyor and the crew.
What is an ALTA/NSPS survey?
An ALTA/NSPS land title survey is a survey of a parcel's boundaries, monuments, improvements, easements and evidence of possession, carried out to a national minimum standard and certified on a plat whose primary consumers are the lender and the title insurer.
Both standards bodies adopt the text: ALTA adopted the 2026 edition on October 8, 2025, and NSPS followed on October 17, 2025.
Under the 2026 standards, a complete ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey has four parts: the fieldwork required under Section 5, the plat or map prepared under Section 6, any Table A items the client requests, and the Section 7 certification.
The pieces travel together — a plat without the fieldwork behind it, or a certification that omits the Table A items actually included, is not the complete product the standards describe.
The naming is fixed by the standard itself.
The plat must carry the caption "ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey," and "ALTA survey" is the working shorthand for the same document.
If you are working toward the license that signs surveys like this one, our land surveyor career guide maps the role, the license path and the ladder behind the seal.
Who requires ALTA/NSPS surveys and why?
The demand comes from the title side of a transaction.
ALTA's and NSPS's own FAQ describes the split: an ALTA survey is often ordered by the buyer or the seller, while its primary consumers are the lender and the title insurer.
Several parties lean on one document, and the FAQ notes the scope can change even after the survey has been delivered.
That is why the FAQ advises a written contract before work starts, specifying the scope, the Table A items with any qualifications, and the names of the certified parties.
The order itself has to name the standard.
The request must specify that a "2026 ALTA/NSPS LAND TITLE SURVEY" is required and which of the optional Table A items, if any, are to be incorporated — so the Table A selections are settled at ordering, not negotiated halfway through fieldwork.
Timing is set as well.
Under the ALTA/NSPS FAQ, if the contract for the survey is executed on or after February 23, 2026, the survey must be performed under the 2026 standards, with limited exceptions for contracts signed earlier.
The standards also put the surveyor's own signature at the end of the work: the plat must carry the surveyor's name, license number, signature and seal.
The crew's fieldwork and the office's drafting all funnel into that signed, sealed document.
What do the ALTA/NSPS standards require?
The current edition is the 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements for ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys, effective February 23, 2026.
It supersedes all previous ALTA/ACSM and ALTA/NSPS versions, including the 2021 standards — so a scope template, a proposal or a habit built around the 2021 text needs rechecking before you reuse it.
The standards do not override local rules.
Where they conflict with a state's or locality's standards of practice, the more stringent requirement applies.
On precision, the standards set a maximum.
The maximum allowable Relative Positional Precision is 2 cm (0.07 ft) plus 50 parts per million of the direct distance between the two corners being tested, at the 95% confidence level.
If site conditions push a result beyond that, the reason must be noted on the plat.
Precision is a measure, not a verdict.
The standards define Relative Positional Precision from the error ellipse of the line between monuments at adjacent boundary corners, and state that it is not a substitute for the application of proper boundary law principles.
A tight number does not settle a boundary question.
Everything else follows the sections: Section 5 spells out the fieldwork, Section 6 the plat or map, and Section 7 the certification, with Table A as the client's optional add-ons.
The next two sections walk through the pieces in the order a job actually hits them.
The edition changes — check before you seal
What are Table A items?
Table A is the standards' menu of optional items.
The client chooses which ones the survey includes, and the request has to say so — that is what turns a baseline ALTA/NSPS survey into a scoped job.
Items 1 through 20 are optional standard items, and their wording and fee are negotiable.
Anything beyond them is negotiated separately and numbered 21(a), 21(b) and so on — an engineering design survey requested alongside an ALTA survey, for example, is negotiated under item 21.
The 2026 table reads:
- Item 1 — monuments set at major corners
- Item 2 — addresses
- Item 3 — flood zone classification (by scaled map plotting only)
- Item 4 — gross land area
- Item 5 — vertical relief and contours
- Item 6(a)/(b) — zoning information and setbacks, from a zoning report supplied by the client
- Item 7 — building dimensions, square footage and height
- Item 8 — substantial features
- Item 9 — parking spaces
- Item 10 — party/division walls
- Item 11 — underground utilities, from plans or private locates
- Item 12 — governmental agency requirements
- Item 13 — adjoining owners' names
- Item 14 — distance to the nearest intersecting street
- Item 15 — features shown using imagery, under a written agreement with the client on source and date, with a note on the survey
- Item 16 — evidence of recent earth moving or construction
- Item 17 — proposed right-of-way changes
- Item 18 — plottable offsite (appurtenant) easements
- Item 19 — professional liability insurance in a stated amount
- Item 20 — an encroachment summary table (new in 2026)
- Item 21 — negotiated extras
Item 20 is the 2026 addition: a table summarizing potential encroachments over boundary lines in both directions, into documented rights of way and easements, into setbacks where setback requirements were provided, and access or use between adjoining parcels without a documented easement.
The surveyor compiles the table without expressing a legal opinion.
Item 11 carries its own caution in the standards: without excavation, the exact location of underground utilities cannot be accurately, completely and reliably depicted — and 811 locate requests from surveyors may be ignored in some jurisdictions.
If you learned the table under an earlier edition, note that item 20 is new to 2026 — an item number carried over from an older file may not point at the same item in the 2026 table.
Check the current table before you quote an item number in a contract, a proposal or a survey request.
Reviewing the title commitment
An ALTA/NSPS survey starts in the title file, not in the field.
The standards require that the surveyor be provided with complete copies of the most recent title commitment — or, if no commitment is available, other title evidence satisfactory to the title insurer.
The package also includes the current record description and the recorded easements that benefit or burden the property.
The plat answers the title evidence.
It must carry a summary of every right of way, easement and other survey-related matter in the title evidence, saying for each whether it lies within or crosses the property.
The summary also notes conditions: location shown, location not determinable, blanket easement, illegible documents.
That summary is analysis, not transcription.
If the surveyor finds a recorded easement the title evidence does not list, the standards require the surveyor to advise the insurer before the plat is delivered, and to show or explain the easement on the plat with a note that the insurer was advised.
One 2026 change sits in this step.
The documents provided to the surveyor under the 2021 standards included the current record descriptions of adjoining properties; that item is absent from the 2026 standards, so adjoiner descriptions are no longer a provided document.
For the office, this step shapes everything downstream.
The commitment review defines which easements the crew looks for on the ground, and the plat's summary has to reconcile with both the record and what the fieldwork finds.
Field and office workflow on an ALTA/NSPS survey
Fieldwork begins at the corners.
The standards require the survey to record the location, size, character and type of any monuments found during the fieldwork — including their relationship to the surface of the ground — and, if Table A item 1 is selected, of the monuments set.
Possession evidence gets broad treatment.
The fieldwork must show evidence of possession or occupation along the perimeter, regardless of how close it sits to the boundary.
Walls, buildings, fences and other improvements within five feet of each side of the boundary lines must be located and described by character and location.
Easement evidence is a standing assignment.
The fieldwork shows observed evidence of documented easements, evidence of undocumented use — prescriptive easements — by others than the apparent occupants, and surface indications of underground easements such as utility cuts, vent pipes and utility locate markings.
Utility evidence has its own footprint.
The survey shows observed utility evidence — manholes, valves, meters, overhead lines, guy wires and the like — on and within five feet of the surveyed property, and utility poles on and within ten feet.
The plat side has fixed content.
The sheet is at least 8.5 by 11 inches, drawn at a legible, standard engineering scale with a graphic scale, and it carries a north arrow, a legend and a vicinity map.
The caption reads "ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey," and the plat bears the surveyor's name, license number, signature and seal.
Notes of any parol statements by owners or occupants about title or boundary issues belong on it as well.
How the crew captures all this is the surveyor's call.
The standards reference practices generally recognized as acceptable by the surveying profession rather than naming tools.
The ALTA/NSPS FAQ ties that wording to the arrival of drones, AI and LiDAR.
The method can be modern; the evidence and the precision still have to meet the standards.
The crew's work and the signature are different things.
The NCEES Model Law exempts the work of a licensee's employees or subordinates from licensure if it includes no final surveying designs or decisions.
The work must also be done under the licensee's responsible charge and verified by the licensee.
The Model Law is a template, though: each state's statute sets its own rule for unlicensed crew work.
The licensed surveyor sits at the other end: the office or CAD side compiles the plat under their direction, and the plat bears the surveyor's name, license number, signature and seal.
The difference from any other job is the checklist — every item above is a requirement of the standards, not a preference.
The surveyor's certification
The certification is not free-form.
The plat must bear only the standard certification, unaltered except where a jurisdiction requires otherwise, and that certification states the survey was made in accordance with the 2026 standards.
It also lists the Table A items included in the survey and the date the fieldwork was completed.
Certification can be extended to successors and assigns of the lender if requested.
Clients sometimes ask for an "update" of an older ALTA survey, and the ALTA/NSPS FAQ is direct about it: there is no such thing as an update.
An update is a new survey, certified to current conditions and to the current standards — the 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements as of February 23, 2026.
For the surveyor, the certification sits on top of the state license.
The standards come from ALTA and NSPS, and the authority to practice comes from a state licensing board.
The certification speaks to the standards; the license number and seal on the plat speak to the license behind it.
Career information, not legal, tax or licensing advice — confirm the current standards with ALTA and NSPS, and your licensing, sealing and responsible-charge obligations with your state licensing board.