The ISO 9001 (the internationally recognised standard for Quality Management Systems – QMS) revision has been officially published this month.
A three-year transition period will apply, giving organisations until approximately September 2029 to update their QMS. Until then, ISO 9001:2015 certificates remain valid.
The core requirement of the standard remain the same, with targeted updates (summarised below) introduced to reflect how the business environment has changed since 2015.
ISO 9001:2026 Key Changes
- Climate Change Integration: adopts the 2024 amendment that requires businesses to consider climate change as a material business risk. (Clause 4.1)
- Stronger Leadership: places larger responsibility on leadership roles to foster a quality culture and ethical behaviour. (Clause 5.1)
- Risks & Opportunities: clarifies risk-based thinking by separating actions for addressing risks from those targeting opportunities (Clause 6.1)
- Greater emphasis on people: greater recognition that quality depends not only on processes but also on quality culture and ethical behaviour, these are more directly addressed. (Clause 7.3)
- Digital & AI Documentation: expands ‘documented information’ to account for automated, digital and AI-generated records, and software security. (Clause 7.5)
- More support for users: publication of Annex A, including clarification of key concepts, terminology and the ISO 9001:2026 updates.
