ISO 9001:2026 has been published — what it means for your certification

On 16 September 2026, ISO published the sixth edition of ISO 9001, replacing ISO 9001:2015 after eleven years. If your company holds a quality management certificate, this is the most significant change you will deal with this decade — but it is an evolution of the standard you already know, not a rebuild.

Here is what has actually changed, and what you need to do about it.

Your certificate is still valid

Publication of ISO 9001:2026 does not automatically invalidate an existing ISO 9001:2015 certificate. Organisations certified to the 2015 edition must complete their transition by 30 September 2029. Continue meeting your certification obligations and check your certificate expiry date and transition programme with your certification body.

You can complete the transition during a scheduled surveillance or recertification audit, or through a separate transition audit. Agree the timing, evidence and any additional audit time with your certification body, allowing enough time to address findings before the deadline.

Starting certification during the transition

From 31 March 2028, new and initial accredited certifications may only be issued to ISO 9001:2026. Ask your provider when it will stop accepting applications to the previous edition. UKAS also says certification to the 2026 edition must not be described as accredited until the provider's accreditation transition has been approved.

What has changed

Climate change is now a requirement, not an amendment

In February 2024, ISO amended dozens of management system standards to require organisations to consider whether climate change is a relevant issue. In the 2026 edition that amendment is written into the body of the standard, in clause 4.1 (context) and clause 4.2 (interested parties).

The climate-change considerations already applied through the 2024 amendment; they did not first become applicable with the 2026 revision. Review how you have considered their relevance to your quality management system. RKMS explains clause 4.2 and interested parties.

Risks and opportunities are separated

Clause 6.1 has been restructured into subclauses that deal with risk and opportunity separately, rather than treating them as a single combined requirement. This is a fair reflection of how most organisations work anyway — the controls you put around a risk look nothing like the way you pursue an opportunity. Expect auditors to want to see both, evidenced distinctly.

Quality culture and ethical behaviour

Clause 5.1, on leadership and commitment, now asks top management to promote a quality culture and ethical behaviour, with supporting guidance elsewhere in the standard. This is the change most likely to catch organisations out, because it is not satisfied by a procedure. It is evidenced through what leadership actually does — how decisions get made, how problems get raised, whether people are willing to report a nonconformity.

If leadership involvement has been thin in your system, start there. RKMS covers the existing expectations in its guide to clause 5.1 leadership and commitment.

Improvement, digitalisation and data

Clause 10 on improvement has been consolidated, with explicit recognition that emerging technologies, digitalisation and reliable data are now part of how organisations improve. If you are still running your quality system on spreadsheets and a shared drive, this is a nudge worth taking seriously — not because the standard forbids it, but because demonstrating data-driven improvement is much harder that way.

Harmonized Structure and a bigger Annex A

The standard follows ISO’s Harmonized Structure, which makes integration with ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 considerably easier. Annex A has been substantially expanded with clearer guidance on clauses 4 to 10 — genuinely useful if you maintain your system in-house.

What to do next

  1. Get a copy of the new standard. Read Annex A properly; it is more helpful than it used to be.
  2. Do a gap analysis against the 2015 system you already run. For most well-maintained systems this is a half-day exercise, not a project.
  3. Talk to your certification body about which audit visit your transition will sit in, and book it.
  4. Deal with climate change and quality culture first. They are the two areas where evidence takes longest to build, because you cannot write them on the morning of the audit.

If you are new to all this and want the fundamentals first, RKMS has a plain-English explanation of what ISO 9001 actually is, and a guide to what happens in a certification audit.

Getting help

A transition is a good moment to bring in someone who has already read the standard cover to cover. The consultants listed on GetISO work with companies across the UK on exactly this — find one in your area from our directory, and check that whoever you appoint understands the difference between UKAS and non-UKAS certification before you commit.

ISO 9001 information reviewed 27 September 2026. Sources: ISO publication and transition deadlines; ISO guidance on the changes; UKAS transition bulletin. See our updated ISO 9001 FAQs.