Free ISO 9001:2026 Quick Checklist: Twenty Questions on What Changed, With Clause References
Prefer a scored result? Answer the same twenty questions online and get an instant readiness report by area with your priority actions; the PDF checklist comes with it.
Get the quick checklist (PDF, six pages). Twenty questions on what is new or changed in ISO 9001:2026, each with its clause reference, a self-score and the next step that fits your result. Answer it in twenty minutes with the people who run your system.
Get the quick checklist → Free of charge; a short form opens first and the link is emailed to you as well.
This is a free ISO 9001:2026 checklist for one job: finding out, quickly and honestly, where your quality management system stands against the requirements that are new or changed in the 2026 edition. It is written in plain language rather than in the standard’s wording, every question points to the clause it tests, and the scoring tells you what to do next. It is not the full clause-by-clause review; that is the detailed gap assessment Sterling’s consultants run with you, described further down.
What the quick checklist covers
The twenty questions follow the requirements that ISO 9001:2026 added or reworded, and nothing else, because everything carried over from ISO 9001:2015 is already tested by your existing audits. They cover the decision on which interested-party requirements the system addresses (4.2 c)), quality culture and ethical behaviour as leadership and awareness duties (5.1.1 i), 7.3 e)), the policy’s link to context and strategy (5.2.1 e)), risks and opportunities analysed and evaluated separately (6.1.2, 6.1.3), the considerations that now apply when changes are planned (6.3), knowledge that is retained, applied and shared (7.1.6), the separate evaluation and review of actions on risks and actions on opportunities (9.1.3 e) and f), 9.3.2 g) and h)), and the merged Clause 10, which no longer has a 10.3. Two closing questions cover the transition itself: whether your certification body has confirmed its accreditation date for the 2026 edition, and whether one internal audit and one management review have been completed against the new text.
Each question is scored 2, 1 or 0: two where the evidence exists today, one where the practice exists but the evidence is thin, zero where neither exists. The result page of the PDF reads the total for you. Thirty-four to forty means the system is ready to plan the transition audit; twenty-two to thirty-three means specific gaps to close first, usually in leadership and planning; below twenty-two means a structured gap assessment before anything is rewritten.
How to use it in twenty minutes
Do not fill it in alone at a desk. Sit with the people who run the processes, put each question to the person who actually holds the evidence, and score on what you can point to, not on what could be produced quickly. Culture and ethical behaviour (7.3 e)) is a question for anyone doing work under the organisation’s control, not for the quality manager; the policy’s support for strategic direction (5.2.1 e)) is a question for top management; the analysis behind the risk register (6.1.2) is a question for the process owner who did it. The commonest position in a certified Philippine SME is a row of ones: the practice is there, the evidence is not.
Read the result by pattern rather than by total. Thirty points with the zeros concentrated in leadership and planning is a different project from thirty points spread evenly, and the first is the harder one, because it needs decisions from the top before anyone updates a procedure.
After the checklist: the detailed review and the transition itself
The quick checklist tells you whether you have a transition project or a tidy-up. What it cannot do is test every requirement in Clauses 4 to 10, weigh the evidence the way a certification auditor will, or turn the gaps into a plan with owners and dates. That is the detailed gap assessment, and it is the first step of every ISO 9001:2026 engagement Sterling runs. Our consultants work through the full requirement set with your process owners, on site or remotely, using Sterling’s own clause-by-clause question bank of more than two hundred evidence questions, and hand you a written gap report: the changes that apply to you, the evidence gaps, the documents that still cite the 2015 edition, and the order in which to close them.
From there the engagement runs in whichever parts you need: awareness and transition training for your team and internal auditors, documentation updates, implementation support for the new requirements, an internal audit and management review to the 2026 edition, a pre-assessment before the certification body arrives, and support through the transition audit itself. Certification is issued by an accredited certification body after its own audit; Sterling prepares you for it and never issues the certificate.
ISO 9001:2026 transition with Sterling → Request a gap assessment →
For organisations certified to ISO 9001:2015
Your certificate stays valid through the transition period set by Global ACI-TECH-3-TR 2029-09-30 (M), published on 16 September 2026: the transition ends on 30 September 2029, transition audits start body by body during 2027 as certification bodies’ accreditations are extended, and initial certifications are issued only to the 2026 edition from 31 March 2028. The practical sequence is short: obtain the standard and brief leadership, ask your certification body in writing for its accreditation date, treat the transition as a planned change under 6.3, complete the gap assessment, list every document that cites 2015, update the registers, templates, review agenda and awareness material, train the internal auditors, complete one internal audit and one management review to the 2026 edition, and book the transition audit early, while auditor calendars are open.
Using it between audits
Once the transition is done, the quick checklist is still useful as a quarterly self-check on the 2026 items, because a certified system drifts in predictable places: the interested-party analysis is never revisited (4.2, 9.3.2 c)), actions on risks and on opportunities stop being evaluated separately (9.1.3 e) and f)), planned changes skip the considerations in 6.3, and knowledge leaves with the people who held it (7.1.6). A dated series of completed checklists is itself evidence of monitoring for 9.1.1 and a ready-made input to management review.
What the checklist is not
It is not the standard and it does not reproduce the standard’s text; buy ISO 9001:2026 from ISO or the Bureau of Philippine Standards and read it alongside the PDF. It is not a certificate, and a completed checklist proves nothing to a buyer; only an accredited certification body’s audit does that. It is not a documentation pack: it tells you what evidence to look for, not what to write. And it is not a substitute for a consultant’s gap assessment when a contract deadline or a transition date depends on the result.
Who wrote it and how it is kept current
The checklist was written by Sterling International Consulting’s ISO 9001 consulting team in the Philippines from the ISO 9001:2026 standard and the Global ACI transition requirements. Its transition facts will be revised if any of them change, and the version date is shown in the file and on this page. If you find an error, write to info@iso-certification.ph and it will be corrected in the next version.
Download the ISO 9001:2026 quick checklist (PDF) → Free; a short form opens first.
Frequently asked questions
Is the ISO 9001:2026 quick checklist really free? Yes. It is free of charge and carries no watermark. Before the file opens we ask for your name, work email, company, mobile number and role, and we email you a copy of the link; that is the only condition.
Does it cover the whole of ISO 9001:2026? No, and deliberately so. It covers the requirements that are new or changed in the 2026 edition, in twenty questions. Everything carried over from ISO 9001:2015 is tested in the full clause-by-clause gap assessment that Sterling runs with you, which covers every requirement in Clauses 4 to 10.
Can we use it if we are still certified to ISO 9001:2015? Yes; that is who it is written for. Run it before you plan the transition, use the score to size the project, and repeat it after the updates as a check before the internal audit to the 2026 edition.
Can we have the full detailed checklist as well? The detailed question bank is Sterling’s own working tool and is used within our gap assessments, internal audits and transition projects rather than distributed as a file. If you want the full picture, ask for a gap assessment; you receive the findings as a written gap report with owners and dates.
Is the checklist enough to get certified? No. It shows where you stand on the 2026 changes; it does not build the system or produce the evidence. Certification is issued by an accredited certification body after Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits, or after a transition audit for existing certificate holders. The route, timeline and cost are on the ISO 9001 certification page.
Why plain language rather than the standard’s wording? Because the standard’s text is copyright ISO, and because a question an auditor would actually ask gets better answers than a clause read aloud. Each question still points to the clause it tests, so the checklist works alongside the standard, not instead of it.
Read next
The ISO 9001:2026 transition consulting page for certificate holders; the clause-by-clause register of ISO 9001:2015 vs 2026 changes; the ISO 9001 certification page for first-time implementers; and the gap assessment request.
Sources
ISO 9001:2026, Quality management systems — Requirements, sixth edition, published 16 September 2026 (ISO catalogue stage 60.60): Clauses 4 to 10, in particular 4.2 c), 4.3, 5.1.1 i), 5.2.1 e), 6.1.2, 6.1.3, 6.3, 7.1.6, 7.3 e), 9.1.1, 9.1.3 e) and f), 9.3.2 c), g) and h), 10.1, 10.2; https://www.iso.org/standard/9001. ISO 9001:2015 for the transition comparison. Global ACI (Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated), successor to IAF and ILAC from 1 January 2026: Global ACI-TECH-3-TR 2029-09-30 (M), Transition Requirements for ISO 9001:2026, version 1.0, issued 4 September 2026, published 16 September 2026 on global-aci.org; verified 18 September 2026.