ISO 9001:2026 transition planner: your dates, your route, your plan
Answer three questions. The planner maps your certification cycle onto the transition window, tells you which visit to transition at, and gives you a dated sequence. Nothing to sign up for to see it.
Where are you today?
Your dates
Email me this plan
The same dates and sequence, in your inbox, so you can take it to your certification body and your team.
What the planner works from
ISO 9001:2026 is scheduled for publication on 16 September 2026. Certification bodies then need their own accreditation to the new edition, expected to run to about August 2027, and a three-year transition puts the anticipated deadline at around 16 September 2029, subject to the IAF confirming the arrangements. Your ISO 9001:2015 certificate stays valid for the whole transition.
Certification runs on a three-year cycle: two surveillance visits and a recertification audit. A transition is done at one of those visits, with extra audit time, or at a dedicated visit. The planner finds the visit that fits inside the window and works the preparation back from it: a gap assessment against the published text, the system updates, then an internal audit and management review before the certification body arrives.
Phase lengths scale with the complexity of the operation: sites, departments, shifts and regulation, not headcount. They are realistic working figures for a system that is run properly, not the fastest anyone has ever done it. For the full picture of what changes in the revision, read the ISO 9001:2026 update and how a transition is run.
Transition planner — common questions
Does the planner replace advice from my certification body?
No. It gives you a realistic sequence and the dates that matter, built on the published timeline and the way certification cycles run. Your certification body confirms when it can audit against ISO 9001:2026 and how much extra audit time a transition needs. Take the plan to that conversation.
Why can a transition audit not happen straight after publication?
Certification bodies must first be accredited to the new edition themselves. That process is expected to run to about August 2027, so the first ISO 9001:2026 certificates are anticipated from then. The year in between is the useful part: the work can be done properly with no queue.
What happens if we do nothing until 2029?
Your ISO 9001:2015 certificate stays valid through the transition, but it cannot run past the end of it, expected around 16 September 2029. Certification bodies will be congested in the last months. The planner shows the earliest comfortable visit so you are never in that queue.
We are not certified yet. Should we wait for ISO 9001:2026?
No. Build the system now against the 2026 text. If your certification audit lands before your certification body is accredited to the new edition, the certificate is issued to ISO 9001:2015 and transitions at a later surveillance visit at little extra cost. Waiting only delays the benefit.
Want the plan checked against your actual system?
A transition gap assessment gives you a clause-by-clause answer and a realistic view of the work before you commit to anything. Obligation-free, and we work on systems we did not build.