What’s New in RDF 1.2 W3C Group Note Draft 14 July 2026 More details about this document This version: https://www.w3.org/TR/2026/DNOTE-rdf12-new-20260714/ Latest published version: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-new/ Latest editor's draft: https://w3c.github.io/rdf-new/spec/ History: https://www.w3.org/standards/history/rdf12-new/ Commit history Latest Recommendation: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-new Editor: Ora Lassila Former editor: David Wood Feedback: GitHub w3c/rdf-new ( pull requests , new issue , open issues ) [email protected] with subject line [rdf12-new] … message topic … ( archives ) Copyright © 2026 World Wide Web Consortium . W3C ® liability , trademark and permissive document license rules apply. Abstract This document provides the reader with a summary of changes to RDF introduced in RDF version 1.2. Status of This Document This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C standards and drafts index . This document is intended to provide the reader with a summary of changes to RDF introduced in RDF version 1.2. This document was published by the RDF & SPARQL Working Group as a Group Note Draft using the Note track . Group Note Drafts are not endorsed by W3C nor its Members. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than a work in progress. The W3C Patent Policy does not carry any licensing requirements or commitments on this document. This document is governed by the 18 August 2025 W3C Process Document . Set of Documents This document is one of eleven RDF 1.2 and twelve SPARQL 1.2 documents produced by the RDF & SPARQL Working Group . List of documents RDF 1.2 Documents: What’s New in RDF 1.2 (this document) RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Data Model RDF 1.2 N-Quads RDF 1.2 N-Triples RDF 1.2 Primer RDF 1.2 Schema RDF 1.2 Semantics RDF 1.2 TriG RDF 1.2 Turtle RDF 1.2 XML Syntax RDF 1.2 Interoperability SPARQL 1.2 Documents: What’s New in SPARQL 1.2 SPARQL 1.2 Concepts SPARQL 1.2 Query Language SPARQL 1.2 Update SPARQL 1.2 Service Description SPARQL 1.2 Federated Query SPARQL 1.2 Query Results JSON Format SPARQL 1.2 Query Results CSV and TSV Formats SPARQL 1.2 Query Results XML Format SPARQL 1.2 Entailment Regimes SPARQL 1.2 Protocol SPARQL 1.2 Graph Store Protocol Table of Contents Abstract Status of This Document Set of Documents 1. Introduction 2. Abstract Syntax 3. New Serialization Formats 4. Semantics A. Acknowledgments A.1 Acknowledgments for RDF 1.1 A.2 Acknowledgments for RDF 1.2 B. References B.1 Informative references 1. Introduction This document is informative in nature. Its purpose is to provide a summary of differences between RDF versions 1.1 and 1.2 and to introduce new additions in a very brief manner. Readers new to RDF should start with the RDF 1.2 Primer [ RDF12-PRIMER ] and then move on to the specifications in which they are most interested. This document is meant to serve as a guide for those already familiar with RDF 1.1 who wish to understand changes in version 1.2. Normative specifications of RDF can be found in the following documents: A document describing the basic concepts underlying RDF, as well as abstract syntax ( RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Data Model ) [ RDF12-CONCEPTS ] A document describing the formal model-theoretic semantics of RDF ( RDF 1.2 Semantics ) [ RDF12-SEMANTICS ] Specifications of concrete syntaxes for RDF, such as Turtle [ RDF12-TURTLE ], TriG [ RDF12-TRIG ], N-Triples [ RDF12-N-TRIPLES ], N-Quads [ RDF12-N-QUADS ] and JSON-LD [ JSON-LD11 ]. RDFa [ RDFA-PRIMER ] is also a concrete syntax for RDF, but it was not defined by the RDF Working Group. The 2004 RDF/XML syntax was updated to be in line with the RDF 1.2 specifications [ RDF12-XML ]. A document describing RDF Schema [ RDF12-SCHEMA ], which provides a data-modeling vocabulary for RDF data. The following prefixes are used in this document: Prefixes and IRIs Namespace prefix Namespace IRI RDF vocabulary rdf http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# The RDF built-in vocabulary [ RDF12-SCHEMA ] xsd http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema# The RDF-compatible XML Schema datatypes 2. Abstract Syntax 3. New Serialization Formats RDF 1.1 introduces a number of new serialization formats. RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax makes it clear that RDF/XML is no longer the only recommended serialization format; RDF itself should be considered to be the data model (the abstract syntax), not any particular serialization. Figure 1 RDF 1.0 and 1.1 serialization formats 4. Semantics Most of the changes between RDF and RDF 1.1 do not have any effect on implementations of entailment. Datatype entailment formally refers to a set of 'recognized' datatypes, replacing datatype maps in RDF 1.0 Semantics, but this does not have any effect on implementation. Datatype entailment formally refers to a set of 'recognized' datatype IRIs. The RDF 1.0 Semantics used the concept of a datatype map: in the new semantic description, this is the mapping from recognized IRIs to the datatypes they identify. This change does not have any effect on implementation or semantic entailments. RDF entailment has two required datatypes xsd:string and rdf:langString which must be recognized, but this doesn't appreciably add to RDF entailment as these two datatypes replace plain literals. One change that does affect entailment is that graphs containing invalid literals (e.g., "a"^^xsd:integer ) are immediately inconsistent for recognized datatypes, even in sub-RDFS entailment regimes. RDF 1.1 includes RDF Datasets. However, the semantics of RDF Datasets in RDF 1.1 is minimal and entailment per se is only defined on RDF graphs so there are no changes here. A. Acknowledgments A.1 Acknowledgments for RDF 1.1 This section is non-normative. The editor gratefully acknowledges the members of the RDF Working Group who contributed to this document, including Richard Cyganiak, Gavin Garothers, Pat Hayes, Sandro Hawke, Gregg Kellogg, Markus Lanthaler, Peter Patel-Schneider, Eric Prud-hommeaux, Guus Schreiber and Manu Sporny. The membership of the RDF Working Group included Thomas Baker, Scott Bauer, Dan Brickley, Gavin Carothers, Pierre-Antoine Champin, Olivier Corby, Richard Cyganiak, Souripriya Das, Ian Davis, Lee Feigenbaum, Fabien Gandon, Charles Greer, Alex Hall, Steve Harris, Sandro Hawke, Pat Hayes, Ivan Herman, Nicholas Humfrey, Kingsley Idehen, Gregg Kellogg, Markus Lanthaler, Arnaud Le Hors, Peter F. Patel-Schneider, Eric Prud'hommeaux, Yves Raimond, Nathan Rixham, Guus Schreiber, Andy Seaborne, Manu Sporny, Thomas Steiner, Ted Thibodeau, Mischa Tuffield, William Waites, Jan Wielemaker, David Wood, Zhe Wu, and Antoine Zimmermann. A.2 Acknowledgments for RDF 1.2 This section is non-normative. In addition to the editors, the following people have contributed to this specification: Andy Seaborne, Gregg Kellogg, Niklas Lindström, Peter F. Patel-Schneider, and Pierre-Antoine Champin Members of the RDF & SPARQL Working Group Group included James Anderson, Dörthe Arndt, Jerven Bolleman, Erich Bremer, Pierre-Antoine Champin, Souripriya Das, Enrico Franconi, Adrian Gschwend, Olaf Hartig, Gregg Kellogg†, Ora Lassila, Niklas Lindström, Thomas Lörtsch, Peter Patel-Schneider, Dave Raggett, Felix Sasaki, Andy Seaborne, Ruben Taelman, Thomas Pellissier Tanon, Ted Thibodeau Jr, Dominik Tomaszuk, Gregory Williams, William Van Woensel, and Antoine Zimmermann † Gregg Kellogg passed away in September 2025. His vast contributions to RDF and the broader ecosystem of related standards are gratefully acknowledged. Editor's note Recognize members of the Task Force? Not an easy to find list of contributors. B. References B.1 Informative references [JSON-LD11] JSON-LD 1.1 . Gregg Kellogg; Pierre-Antoine Champin; Dave Longley. W3C. 16 July 2020. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld11/ [RDF12-CONCEPTS] RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Data Model . Andy Seaborne; Gregg Kellogg; Olaf Hartig; Pierre-Antoine Champin. W3C. 7 April 2026. W3C Candidate Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-concepts/ [RDF12-INTEROP] RDF 1.2 Interoperability . Pierre-Antoine Champin. W3C. W3C Editor's Draft. URL: https://w3c.github.io/rdf-interop/spec/ [RDF12-N-QUADS] RDF 1.2 N-Quads . Gregg Kellogg; Dominik Tomaszuk. W3C. 12 June 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-n-quads/ [RDF12-N-TRIPLES] RDF 1.2 N-Triples . Gregg Kellogg; Dominik Tomaszuk. W3C. 24 June 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-n-triples/ [RDF12-PRIMER] RDF 1.2 Primer . Pierre-Antoine Champin; Niklas Lindström. W3C. 16 April 2026. DNOTE. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-primer/ [RDF12-SCHEMA] RDF 1.2 Schema . Dominik Tomaszuk. W3C. 28 March 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-schema/ [RDF12-SEMANTICS] RDF 1.2 Semantics . Peter Patel-Schneider; Enrico Franconi; Dörthe Arndt. W3C. 7 April 2026. W3C Candidate Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-semantics/ [RDF12-TRIG] RDF 1.2 TriG . Gregg Kellogg; Dominik Tomaszuk. W3C. 12 June 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-trig/ [RDF12-TURTLE] RDF 1.2 Turtle . Gregg Kellogg; Andy Seaborne; Dominik Tomaszuk. W3C. 12 June 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-turtle/ [RDF12-XML] RDF 1.2 XML Syntax . Gregg Kellogg; Jerven Bolleman. W3C. 18 June 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf12-xml/ [RDFA-PRIMER] RDFa 1.1 Primer - Third Edition . Ivan Herman; Ben Adida; Manu Sporny; Mark Birbeck. W3C. 17 March 2015. W3C Working Group Note. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-primer/ [SPARQL12-CONCEPTS] SPARQL 1.2 Concepts . The W3C RDF & SPARQL Working Group. W3C. W3C Editor's Draft. URL: https://w3c.github.io/sparql-concepts/spec/ [SPARQL12-ENTAILMENT] SPARQL 1.2 Entailment Regimes . Peter Patel-Schneider. W3C. 9 April 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-entailment/ [SPARQL12-FEDERATED-QUERY] SPARQL 1.2 Federated Query . Ruben Taelman; Gregory Williams. W3C. 23 April 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-federated-query/ [SPARQL12-GRAPH-STORE-PROTOCOL] SPARQL 1.2 Graph Store Protocol . Andy Seaborne; Thomas Pellissier Tanon. W3C. 19 December 2024. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-graph-store-protocol/ [SPARQL12-NEW] What’s New in SPARQL 1.2 . The W3C RDF & SPARQL Working Group. W3C. W3C Editor's Draft. URL: https://w3c.github.io/sparql-new/spec/ [SPARQL12-PROTOCOL] SPARQL 1.2 Protocol . Andy Seaborne; Ruben Taelman; Gregory Williams; Thomas Pellissier Tanon. W3C. 26 April 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-protocol/ [SPARQL12-QUERY] SPARQL 1.2 Query Language . Olaf Hartig; Andy Seaborne; Ruben Taelman; Gregory Williams; Thomas Pellissier Tanon. W3C. 25 June 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-query/ [SPARQL12-RESULTS-CSV-TSV] SPARQL 1.2 Query Results CSV and TSV Formats . Ruben Taelman; Gregory Williams; Thomas Pellissier Tanon. W3C. 28 March 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-results-csv-tsv/ [SPARQL12-RESULTS-JSON] SPARQL 1.2 Query Results JSON Format . Andy Seaborne; Ruben Taelman; Gregory Williams; Thomas Pellissier Tanon. W3C. 28 March 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-results-json/ [SPARQL12-RESULTS-XML] SPARQL 1.2 Query Results XML Format . Ruben Taelman; Dominik Tomaszuk; Thomas Pellissier Tanon. W3C. 27 December 2024. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-results-xml/ [SPARQL12-SERVICE-DESCRIPTION] SPARQL 1.2 Service Description . Ruben Taelman; Gregory Williams. W3C. 23 April 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-service-description/ [SPARQL12-UPDATE] SPARQL 1.2 Update . Ruben Taelman; Andy Seaborne; Thomas Pellissier Tanon. W3C. 12 June 2026. W3C Working Draft. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql12-update/ ↑