ISO 9001:2026 migration plan: twelve steps from obtaining the standard to the transition audit

Written from the ISO 9001:2026 standard (sixth edition, published 16 September 2026). Reviewed by Kaushal Sutaria, Lead Auditor, Sterling International Consulting.

A migration from ISO 9001:2015 to ISO 9001:2026 runs in twelve steps: obtain the standard, brief top management, question your certification body, run the gap assessment, plan the transition as a change under 6.3, update context and interested parties, rebuild the risk and opportunity register, revise leadership and policy evidence, retrain people and internal auditors, correct the documented information, audit and review against the 2026 standard, and pass the transition audit. For a Philippine company that starts in the last quarter of 2026, the work takes six to nine months and the audit falls in 2027 or 2028, well inside the Global ACI transition that ends on 30 September 2029.

The twelve steps, with owner, evidence and timing

The table is the plan. Each step names who owns it, what evidence exists when it is finished and when it falls for a company that obtains the standard in September or October 2026 and aims to transition at a surveillance audit in the second half of 2027. Start later and shift every date by the same amount; do not compress steps 8 and 9, which need elapsed time.

#	Step	Owner	Evidence when done	Timing
1	Obtain ISO 9001:2026 and control it	QMS owner	Licensed copy of the sixth edition on the controlled-documents list; the 2015 edition marked superseded	Week 1
2	Brief top management and appoint the transition owner	CEO or general manager	Minutes recording the decision to transition, the named owner, the budget line and the target audit	Weeks 1–2
3	Put four questions to the certification body	Transition owner	Written reply on: the date it anticipates for its accreditation extension to the 2026 edition; the audit it proposes (surveillance, recertification or special); additional audit time and its justified calculation under ISO/IEC 17021-1; on site or remote by ICT	Weeks 2–4; answers may be provisional until its declaration (due 30 June 2027) and the accreditation-body decision (by 30 September 2027)
4	Gap assessment against the ISO 9001:2026 standard	Transition owner with internal auditors or Sterling	Gap report listing every changed or strengthened requirement, the evidence found, the gap and the count of changes	Weeks 3–4
5	Plan the transition as a change under 6.3 a) to g)	Transition owner; approved by top management	Transition plan covering all seven considerations: purpose and consequences; integrity of the QMS; resources and information; who is responsible and who has authority; how the change is communicated; how its effectiveness is monitored and evaluated; how its results are reviewed	Weeks 5–6
6	Update context and interested parties	Top management with QMS owner	4.1 analysis with a reasoned determination on climate change; interested-party register recording, under 4.2 c), which requirements the QMS addresses	Month 2
7	Rebuild the risk and opportunity register	Process owners with QMS owner	Risks determined, then analysed and evaluated, each action proportionate to the harm the risk could do to the intended results of the QMS (6.1.2); opportunities determined, analysed and evaluated on their own, with actions appropriate to context (6.1.3)	Months 2–3
8	Leadership, policy and roles	Top management	Policy reissued to meet 5.2.1 e) and 5.2.2 d); roles under 5.3 a) to f) with e) assigned; a dated record of decisions and actions showing quality culture and ethical behaviour (5.1.1 i) and opportunity-based thinking (5.1.1 k)	From month 2, continuing; needs elapsed time
9	Awareness, competence and knowledge	HR with QMS owner	Awareness sessions covering 7.3 e); internal auditors retrained on the 2026 standard; 7.1.6 handover records for leavers	Months 3–5
10	Correct the documented information	QMS owner	Change log: documented-information wording per Annex A.2 e); Clause 10 renumbered (10.1 and 10.2, no 10.3); contingency communication covering disruptions under 8.2.1 e); complaints linked to nonconformities (10.2.1 NOTE)	Months 3–5
11	Internal audit and management review against the 2026 standard	Internal auditors; top management	Audit programme re-based on the 2026 criteria; audit report citing 2026 clauses; nonconformities closed; management review minutes with inputs 9.3.2 c), g) and h) and evaluation under 9.1.3 e) and f)	Months 5–7
12	Transition audit booked, conducted and closed	Transition owner with the certification body	Audit plan; audit report; nonconformities closed to the certification body’s satisfaction; ISO 9001:2026 certificate issued by a body whose accreditation covers the 2026 edition	2027 onwards, once the certification body’s extension is in place (second half of 2027 in this example); well before 30 September 2029

Which audit route fits your certificate cycle?

Under Global ACI-TECH-3-TR 2029-09-30 (M) the transition audit can be folded into a scheduled surveillance or recertification visit, or held as a special transition audit, and can run on site or remotely by ICT. The right route depends on where your three-year cycle sits when your certification body’s accreditation extension arrives, and that date may not be confirmed until the accreditation-body decisions due by 30 September 2027.

Route	Fits when	Watch
At a scheduled surveillance audit	Your next surveillance falls after the certification body’s extension and steps 1 to 11 can be complete by then	Additional audit time is added to the surveillance; confirm the extension date before you book
At the recertification audit	Your certificate expires after the extension, in 2027 or 2028	The largest single audit; nonconformities against both the recertification and the transition close before the 2026 certificate is issued
Special transition audit	A tender, a customer or a group deadline needs the 2026 certificate before the next scheduled audit	An extra audit event and its cost; remote by ICT is allowed

If recertification falls before your certification body has been extended, recertify to the 2015 edition and transition at the following surveillance; a 2015 certificate issued then still stops being valid on 30 September 2029.

The dates that fix the plan

Five Global ACI dates fix the plan. Global ACI, which on 1 January 2026 assumed the roles formerly held by IAF and ILAC, published its transition requirements (version 1.0, issued 4 September 2026) on 16 September 2026, the day ISO published the standard. The transition runs three years to 30 September 2029, and the first accredited ISO 9001:2026 certificates will appear during 2027 as accreditation is extended body by body.

Date	Milestone
31 March 2027	Accreditation bodies ready to assess certification bodies for the 2026 edition
30 June 2027	Certification bodies’ transition declarations due
30 September 2027	Accreditation-body transition decisions completed
31 March 2028	From this date, new certifications are issued only to ISO 9001:2026
30 September 2029	All transitions completed; ISO 9001:2015 certificates and accreditations no longer valid

Two consequences follow. A transition audit cannot yield an accredited 2026 certificate until your certification body’s own extension is in place, so the step 3 questions are asked early and again after 30 September 2027. And certification bodies audit in cycle, so the months before 30 September 2029 will be taken by the companies that waited; an audit in 2027 or 2028 leaves room to close nonconformities before the 2015 certificate lapses.

How Sterling Revise™ runs steps 4 and 5

Sterling Revise™ is our fixed-scope transition service and covers steps 4 and 5 in four weeks. Week 1 is the documentation review and gap assessment against the ISO 9001:2026 standard; week 2 delivers the gap report with the number of changes before you commit to anything; weeks 3 and 4 produce the transition plan, the certification-body booking and the first document updates.

The work is delivered through Sterling OS™ by local Filipino lead auditors, Mark Santos in Metro Manila, Zia Bautista in Cebu and Ann Reyes in Davao, who audit for certification bodies and know how a transition audit is written up. Before any of that, the free online ISO 9001:2026 gap check gives you a scored readiness report in about ten minutes, on screen and by email, and a lead auditor walks you through it. Where documents and registers already live in Effivity, steps 7 and 10 are configuration and version changes rather than rewrites. Sterling does not certify; it prepares you for the certification body’s decision.

Where migration plans fail

Plans fail in six predictable places, each a step skipped or taken out of order: the manual rewritten before the gap report exists (step 4), quality culture treated as a signed statement rather than a record of conduct (step 8), risks and opportunities left in one column (step 7), the audit booked before the certification body’s extension is confirmed (step 3), no internal audit against the 2026 standard (step 11), and 10.3 left in the documents (step 10).

• Starting at step 10 means editing pages the standard did not change and missing the ones it did.
• The auditor asks what top management did, not what it signed; step 8 starts in month 2 for that reason.
• Clauses 6.1.2 and 6.1.3 are separate determinations with separate evaluation in 9.1.3 e) and f).
• An audit conducted before the certification body’s accreditation is extended cannot yield an accredited 2026 certificate.
• A transition audit without a prior internal audit against the 2026 criteria produces findings you could have closed yourself.
• There is no 10.3 in the 2026 edition; 10.1 absorbs it.

Plan your transition with the free gap check and Sterling Revise™

The free gap check tells you where you stand; Sterling Revise™ turns that into steps 4 and 5 of this plan, with a written gap report and the count of changes before you commit, then a fixed-price proposal for the rest. Local Filipino lead auditors in Makati, Cebu and Davao run the work on site or online, and can conduct the step 11 internal audit if your own auditors are not yet trained on the 2026 standard. Plan my transition with Sterling Revise™.

Frequently asked questions

How long does an ISO 9001:2026 migration take? Six to nine months from obtaining the standard to audit readiness for a single-site company with a maintained system; multi-site groups and neglected systems take longer. The elapsed time is set by steps 8 and 9, the evidence of quality culture and awareness, not by document editing. The audit date depends on your certification body’s extension during 2027.

Can we transition at our next surveillance audit? Yes, if that surveillance falls after the extension of your certification body’s accreditation to the 2026 edition and steps 1 to 11 are complete. The certification body adds audit time with a justified calculation under ISO/IEC 17021-1 and may conduct the audit remotely by ICT.

Do we have to buy the standard, or can we work from a summary? Buy it. The transition audit is conducted against the standard itself, and every summary, including ours, paraphrases it. ISO 9001:2026 is a 36-page document sold by ISO and its national member bodies; the member for the Philippines is the Bureau of Philippine Standards. One licensed copy under document control is step 1.

What happens if we do nothing until 2029? Your ISO 9001:2015 certificate stops being valid on 30 September 2029 whatever expiry date is printed on it, and certification bodies will be auditing their remaining clients in the same final months, so late starters compete for audit days and have no room to close nonconformities.

Does the migration create new documents? No. ISO 9001:2026 adds no mandatory documents or records; what changes is the verb, to “shall be available as documented information” (Annex A.2 e) explains the change). Step 10 corrects wording, renumbers Clause 10 and adds contingency communication under 8.2.1 e) inside existing documents. The transition plan under 6.3 is the one new document most companies choose to write.

Who should own the transition? A named manager with authority over the quality system and direct access to top management. ISO 9001:2026 does not require a management representative, but 5.3 a) to f) requires roles to be assigned, including e), reporting on opportunities for improvement. In a Philippine SME this is usually the quality head; in a group, one owner per certified site.

Read next

What changed in ISO 9001:2026 for a certified Philippine company explains, department by department, what steps 6 to 10 must produce; the transition audit covers step 12 from the certification body’s side; transition cost in the Philippines sets out what drives the budget line in step 2; planning of changes under 6.3 is step 5 as a completed worked example; and the ISO 9001:2026 transition checklist is the tick-list version of this page.

Sources

• ISO 9001:2026, Quality management systems — Requirements, sixth edition, published 16 September 2026 (36 pages; ISO/TC 176/SC 2 with CEN): clauses 4.1, 4.2, 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.3, 6.1.1 to 6.1.3, 6.3, 7.1.6, 7.3, 8.2.1, 9.1.3, 9.2, 9.3.2, 10.1, 10.2 and Annex A.2 e), with list letters and NOTEs as cited. https://www.iso.org/standard/9001
• 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 (global-aci.org).
• ISO/IEC 17021-1 (basis for the certification body’s audit-time calculation).
• ISO members directory: Bureau of Philippine Standards (BPS), ISO member body for the Philippines, https://www.iso.org/member/2041.html (verified 19 September 2026).
• No Philippine regulation is cited on this page.