ISO 9001 is the world's most widely adopted quality management standard. ISO 9001:2026 was published on 16 September 2026, replacing the 2015 edition. Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated (Global ACI), the body that took over the IAF's role on 1 January 2026, has set a three-year transition: organisations certified to ISO 9001:2015 have until 30 September 2029 to complete it, and from 31 March 2028 new and initial accredited certifications are issued only to the 2026 edition.
ISO 9001:2026 is an evolutionary update, not a structural overhaul. The 2015 harmonised structure, process approach and risk-based thinking all remain intact. What changes is the level of explicitness on quality culture and ethical behaviour, on climate change in the context clauses, and on the separation of actions for risks from actions for opportunities, plus an expanded informative Annex A.
The clause detail below was prepared from the Draft International Standard, ISO/DIS 9001:2025, before publication. Wording, definitions and clause numbering can move between the draft and the published text, so check a clause reference against ISO 9001:2026 itself before relying on it.
The transition timeline
ISO 9001 revision milestones
2024
Climate amendment
Amd 1:2024 added climate-change considerations to context clauses
2026
Reached Final Draft International Standard
Revision reached ISO/FDIS 9001:2026
16 Sept 2026
ISO 9001:2026 published
Published 16 September 2026, beginning the three-year transition period
2026–29
Transition window
Organisations move certificates from the 2015 to the 2026 edition
31 Mar 2028
New certifications to 2026 only
New and initial accredited certifications issued only to ISO 9001:2026
30 Sept 2029
Transition deadline
Organisations certified to ISO 9001:2015 complete the transition
Publication on 16 September 2026 started the transition clock. Organisations certified to ISO 9001:2015 have until 30 September 2029 to transition. Because the structural changes are modest, the practical effort for a certified organisation is mainly an awareness and understanding exercise, not a wholesale re-documentation of the quality management system.
The understanding gap is the part that does not show up in a documentation review. Process owners, internal auditors and consultants who already know the 2015 edition well are the group most likely to read the new clauses as restatements of what they know. Demonstrating genuine comprehension, not familiarity, is what an ISTO Test of Understanding is designed to measure.
Quality culture and ethical behaviour
The revision adds an explicit requirement for top management to promote a quality culture and ethical behaviour within the organisation. The 2015 edition did not name either. The 2026 edition places the requirement in clause 5.1 (leadership and commitment), where promoting quality culture and ethical behaviour joins the list of things top management demonstrates. Clause 7.3 carries the matching awareness item: persons doing work under the organisation's control are aware of the organisational quality culture and ethical behaviour, alongside the quality policy and the quality objectives.
Culture cannot be documented into existence. An organisation can hold immaculate procedures and still work in a way that cuts corners under pressure, which is why the requirement sits with top management rather than with the documented information clauses. Conformity here is demonstrated the way ISO 19011 treats objective evidence generally: through interview and observation as well as records. Clause 7.5.1 b) also applies, so where an organisation decides that documented information on its quality culture is necessary for the effectiveness of the quality management system, that documented information becomes required.
| Topic | ISO 9001:2015 | ISO 9001:2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Quality culture and ethical behaviour | Not addressed | Clause 5.1 requires top management to promote a quality culture and ethical behaviour |
| Awareness | Clause 7.3: awareness of the quality policy and of the contribution to the QMS | Clause 7.3 adds the organisational quality culture and ethical behaviour to what persons doing work under the organisation's control are aware of |
| Climate change | Not present in 2015; added by Amd 1:2024 to clauses 4.1 and 4.2 | Clause 4.1 requires the organisation to determine whether climate change is a relevant issue; clause 4.2 notes that relevant interested parties can hold climate-related requirements |
| Risks and opportunities | Clause 6.1 addresses risks and opportunities together | Actions to address risks (clause 6.1.2) are separated from actions to address opportunities (clause 6.1.3), and are not treated as derived from each other |
| Supplementary guidance | Informative Annex A clarifying the new structure and terminology; broader guidance sat in the wider ISO 9000 family | Informative Annex A, "Clarification of structure, terminology and clauses", running to 15 pages in the draft text |
| Terms and definitions | Terms cross-referenced to ISO 9000 | Twenty terms stated in clause 3, largely drawn from Annex SL, in addition to the reference to ISO 9000 |
Climate change and sustainability context
ISO 9001:2015 was published before climate change was a mainstream organisational risk lens. The 2024 Annex SL amendment (Amd 1:2024) bridged that gap by adding climate-change considerations to the organisational context clauses across 31 management-system standards, including ISO 9001. ISO 9001:2026 takes the next step by formally integrating those requirements directly into the revised standard, rather than leaving them as an amendment bolt-on.
In practice this means:
- Clause 4.1 requires the organisation to determine the external and internal issues that affect its ability to achieve the intended results of its quality management system, and then adds a sentence of its own: the organisation shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.
- Clause 4.2 carries climate in a Note rather than a requirement. Relevant interested parties can hold requirements related to climate change, and the requirement itself is the general one: determine those parties, their relevant requirements, and which of them the quality management system will address. Where such requirements come from customers, clause 8.2.2 (determining the requirements for products and services) and clause 8.2.3 (review of the requirements for products and services) are the clauses that carry them through.
For most organisations this is not a change to day-to-day quality operations. It changes what the determination under 4.1 and 4.2 has to cover. Clause 4.1 carries no documented-information shall of its own, so the determination is demonstrated through what it feeds: the risks and opportunities under clause 6.1, and the management review under clause 9.3, where clause 9.3.3 does require retained documented information.
Actions for risks, actions for opportunities
In ISO 9001:2015, clause 6.1 treats risks and opportunities in one clause. That framing left open whether an opportunity is something derived from a risk that has been determined. The 2026 edition answers it by splitting the actions while keeping the determination together: clause 6.1.1 determines risks and opportunities from the issues in 4.1 and the requirements in 4.2, then clause 6.1.2 covers actions to address risks and clause 6.1.3 covers actions to address opportunities.
Annex A puts the distinction directly: "Determining and managing risks and opportunities are separate processes. Risks are not opportunities." The two still meet in practice, since the 2026 edition lists taking a risk in order to pursue an opportunity as one way of addressing a risk, but neither set of actions is derived from the other.
The consequence is a planning one. Both groups of actions are planned, each is integrated into the quality management system processes and evaluated for effectiveness, and each is proportionate to the potential impact. For a candidate, the examinable distinction is the nature of the action: what it addresses, and whether a given plan is a risk action, an opportunity action, or a set containing both.
The expanded Annex A
The revision carries an informative Annex A, "Clarification of structure, terminology and clauses", running to 15 pages in the draft text. The 2015 edition already had an informative Annex A covering its new structure, terminology and concepts; the revision broadens that guidance and brings interpretive material inside the standard that earlier editions left to the wider ISO 9000 family.
The annex is informative, so it adds no requirements. What it does is state intent, terminology and how clauses relate to each other, including for the quality-culture requirement and the separation of risk actions from opportunity actions. That is guidance practitioners previously took from third-party interpretations.
What this means for candidates and organisations
For candidates preparing for an ISTO Test of Understanding, the ISO 9001 test now covers the 2026 edition. The new and clarified requirements are the ones to review first: the intent behind quality culture and ethical behaviour, the climate determination in the context clauses, and the separation of risk actions from opportunity actions.
For certified organisations, the preparation work is straightforward:
- Map the gaps: compare current QMS documented information and awareness training against the new and revised clauses, particularly 5.1, 6.1 and 7.3.
- Update training: process owners and internal auditors need to understand what quality culture and ethical behaviour mean in practice, not just on paper.
- Review the context determination: confirm that clauses 4.1 and 4.2 cover whether climate change affects the ability to achieve the intended results of the quality management system, and that the risks and opportunities determined from it are held separately.
- Plan actions for both: actions are planned to address all risks determined and all opportunities determined, as two independent sets rather than one derived from the other.
Our briefing deck walks through all four steps clause by clause, alongside every ISO 9001 edition since 1987.
The ISO 9001 transition guide on this site has further detail on the timeline and what each change means in practice for certification bodies and candidates alike.