The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) determines the maximum tolerable amount of time needed to bring all critical systems back online. This covers, for example, restore data from back-up or fix of a failure.

Four levels of RTO need to be specified:

- Critical (maximum tolerable amount of time needed to bring all critical systems back online is seconds)

- Serious (maximum tolerable amount of time needed to bring all critical systems back online is minutes)

- Significant (maximum tolerable amount of time needed to bring all critical systems back online is hours)

- Minor (maximum tolerable amount of time needed to bring all critical systems back online is days)