ISO 9001:2026 was published on 16 September 2026. The confirmed facts and the shifts per clause are set out in ISO 9001:2026 is published: what is confirmed and what is not. This page covers execution: how to run the transition as a project, in what order, and what to record along the way.
Start with your certification body, not with the standard
The three-year transition period is not the date that drives your planning. What drives it is when your certification body holds accreditation for the 2026 edition and at which audit they will assess against it. Ask in writing and record the answer. Where that moment coincides with a recertification, it is usually the natural switchover point and saves a separate assessment.
Take a baseline before changing anything
First establish where the edition is named literally. In practice “ISO 9001:2015” appears in more places than expected: quality policy, manual, procedure headers, the audit programme, role descriptions, customer contracts, quotation templates, the website and the email signature block. A list of locations and owners becomes your checklist later.
Compare requirement by requirement, not clause by clause
A clause-level comparison produces the conclusion that little has changed, and that conclusion does not survive an audit. Work requirement by requirement and record what you find.
| Column | What you enter |
|---|---|
| Requirement | The clause number and the requirement in your own words. |
| Process affected | The existing process that delivers it, or the finding that none exists. |
| Evidence available | The document or record you would show an auditor today. |
| Remaining work | What still has to happen, specific enough to hand to someone. |
| Owner and date | Who does it and when it is due. |
Put quality culture and change management first
These are the two subjects where most organisations currently have nothing in place. For the other shifts a process usually exists that you sharpen; for these two you often have to build something new, and that takes elapsed time. Start there rather than finishing there.
Change management is the quickest to make demonstrable: record how a proposed change is assessed, communicated and evaluated afterwards, then apply it to a change you are making anyway. That gives you evidence rather than a procedure with no application.
Record what does not apply as well
A reasoned conclusion that a subject is not relevant to your organisation is a valid answer. A missing answer is not. Retain the reasoning, the date and who made the decision, together with the version of the source you relied on.
An order that works
- Ask your certification body when they transition and at which audit.
- Obtain the published standard and stop working from summaries.
- List every location naming “ISO 9001:2015” and assign owners.
- Complete the comparison register requirement by requirement, including requirements that do not change.
- Begin with quality culture and change management, which have the longest lead time.
- Test your own work with an internal audit before the certification body arrives.
If you also work with ISO 27001, read ISO 9001:2026 when you already run an ISO 27001 ISMS, which sets out how much of this work your existing management system already covers.