2026 Revision of the ISO 9001 Quality Management System Standard Published

The 2026 revision of the ISO 9001 Quality Management System Standard was published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as of 14 September 2026 as the “ISO 9001:2026 Quality Management System Standard”.

So What Does ISO 9001:2026 Bring to Organisations and What Does It Change?

Looking at the 2026 revision of the standard in general, we can clearly state that no major changes have been made, such as “Actions to Address Risks and Opportunities”, “Planning of Changes” and the expansion of the standard to 10 clauses, which were introduced with the 2015 revision.

However, regarding the changes in the 2026 revision and the publication of the standard, 4 topics in particular need to be highlighted:

1. Inclusion of the Climate Action Changes in the Standard

The topics of “Amendment 1:2024 – Climate Action Changes”, which ISO added as an amendment to many management system standards on 23 February 2024, namely the statements

• Clause 4.1: The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.
• Clause 4.2: NOTE: Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.

have been added to clauses 4.1 and 4.2 and directly incorporated into the standard in the 2026 revision.

2. Addition of a New Sub-Clause on Opportunity Analysis to the Actions to Address Risks and Opportunities Clause

In the 2015 revision, clause “6.1 Actions to Address Risks and Opportunities” consisted of two sub-clauses, 6.1.1 and 6.1.2, and these sub-clauses had no titles. However, in the 2026 revision, clause 6.1 consists of 3 sub-clauses:

• 6.1.1 Determining Risks and Opportunities
• 6.1.2 Actions to Address Risks
• 6.1.3 Actions to Address Opportunities

Opportunity analysis, one of the most important changes of the 2015 revision, is now addressed under a separate heading, and the 2026 revision aims for organisations to place greater importance on opportunities.

3. The “Improvement” Clause Consisting of 3 Sub-Clauses in the 2015 Revision and 2 Sub-Clauses in the 2026 Revision

Clause “10. Improvement”, the last main clause of ISO 9001:2015 consisting of 3 sub-clauses, appears in the 2026 revision as:

• 10.1 Continual Improvement
• 10.2 Nonconformity and Corrective Action

We see this change as the merging of clauses 10.1 and 10.3 of ISO 9001:2015 into clause 10.1 in ISO 9001:2026.

4. Reference in the Standard to “Remote Working”, an Important Model in the Business Culture of Many Institutions/Organisations

We see that “Remote Working”, which became widespread especially during the pandemic and then became a different working model in many institutions, has been given a place, albeit a small one, in clause “7.1.3 Infrastructure”, and that it has been included in the standard so that remote workers also do not remain distant from the Quality Culture.

Furthermore, upon examining the standard, it becomes apparent that some topics that were expected to be added to the 2026 revision or addressed in terms of content, such as:

• Artificial Intelligence,
• Digital Transformation and Automation,
• Industry 4.0,
• Sustainability and/or Sustainability Reporting,
• Cyber Transformation,
• Supply Chain,
• Geopolitical Crisis Management,
• Specific and Separate Provisions for the Service Sector,

have not been addressed in any way in the 2026 revision of ISO 9001, the standard that forms the basis of management system standards.

So What Changes Have Been Made with ISO 9001:2026, and What Does the New Revision Bring Us?

Apart from the important topics mentioned above, another point that should be specifically noted is the changes in wording and explanation in the ISO 9001:2026 revision. Looking at these changes in general:

Since ISO 9001 was first published in 1987, the expressions “Standard”, “This Standard” and “This International Standard”, which appeared in all of the 1994, 2000, 2008 and 2015 revisions, are no longer used in the ISO 9001:2026 revision. Instead, the expression “This Document” is used throughout the standard.

We see that this change was made not merely as a conceptual change, but to ensure that organisations implementing the standard no longer view ISO 9001 merely as an externally sourced document, but internalise it and adopt it as a corporate culture document.

Another notable change in wording in the ISO 9001:2026 revision is the replacement of the term “retained”, used in all previous editions of ISO 9001, with “available”. This change appears to have been made to facilitate the use of digital data, which is an important source of data today.

Because, as is well known, records and documents are now mainly tracked through software rather than in printed form in today’s world, both for archiving purposes and to avoid waste. From this perspective, it is now natural for a document to be stored, provided and kept available in a digital environment.

Conclusion

In short, for organisations that have established and implemented the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System Standard, the ISO 9001:2026 revision does not bring a major change; they will be able to upgrade their systems to the new revision with only some document revisions.

However, we should not overlook the fact that, for the standard to be embraced within organisations and for a quality culture to be formed and spread, we need to look at both ISO 9001 and other management system standards from a different perspective.

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