Free ISO 9001:2026 Transition Effort Estimator
By Ishan Maharaj, Founder and Principal Consultant. Last reviewed 26 October 2026.
Pick your company size, number of sites and the state of your current quality system, and the estimator returns a planning range in weeks, a list of documents you will probably need to update, and the kit that fits. It is a planning estimate based on the simple formula shown below, not a prediction of how long your own transition will take. It runs in your browser. Nothing you select is sent or stored.
How is the estimate calculated?
The formula is deliberately simple so you can check and adjust it. These are our own planning assumptions, not measured data or an industry benchmark.
Weeks = base weeks for your maturity x size factor x site factor, rounded up to a whole week. The result is shown as a range of plus or minus 20 per cent, because every organisation differs. Weeks are elapsed weeks of part-time work, not full-time effort.
| Current quality system | Base weeks |
|---|---|
| Certified and mature | 16 |
| Certified, documents out of date | 20 |
| Informal system, not certified | 26 |
| No system | 32 |
| Company size | Size factor |
|---|---|
| 1 to 10 employees | 0.8 |
| 11 to 50 employees | 1.0 |
| 51 to 250 employees | 1.3 |
| More than 250 employees | 1.6 |
Site factor = 1 + 0.15 for each site after the first, counting up to six sites (maximum 1.75).
Example (fictional data). A certified company with out-of-date documents, 60 employees and two sites: 20 x 1.3 x 1.15 = 29.9, rounded up to 30 weeks, shown as 24 to 36 weeks.
The base figure of 20 weeks for a certified small or mid-sized company matches the part-time plan in our transition guide. The estimate covers preparing your system. The audit date itself is set by your certification body. Under the Global ACI transition rules (TECH-3-TR), no new ISO 9001:2015 certifications can be issued after 31 March 2028, and every ISO 9001:2015 certificate stops being valid on 30 September 2029, so work backwards from your certification body's own dates.
Which kit does the estimator recommend?
| Situation | Recommended kit |
|---|---|
| Certified and mature, up to three sites, 250 employees or fewer | Transition Starter Bundle ($99) |
| Certified but documents out of date, or mature with four or more sites or more than 250 employees | Transition Toolkit ($199) |
| Informal system or none | Complete QMS Documentation Kit ($349) |
No template guarantees certification, which is decided by your certification body. If you would rather have the gap assessment done with you over a video call, see our remote transition consulting. Not sure which kit? Read which kit is right for me.
Sources
- Global ACI, ISO 9001:2026 transition requirements (TECH-3-TR): dates for new 2015 certifications and certificate validity.
- ISO, ISO launches update to world's most widely used quality management standard, 16 September 2026.
- Week counts, size factors and site factors: ISO Cloud Consulting planning assumptions, not published data.