ISO/IEC 17020, the international standard for bodies performing inspection, and ISO/IEC 17024, for bodies certifying the competence of individual people, were both published in third editions in March 2026. It is the first revision of either since 2012.

Both are standards a conformity assessment body is accredited against. They set out what the inspection body or the personnel certification body must itself demonstrate, in its competence, its impartiality and the way it reaches decisions. A revision therefore reaches every inspection report and every personnel certificate the body goes on to issue, which is why it matters to the people relying on those documents and not only to the bodies producing them.

In ISO/IEC 17020 the most visible change is to independence. The classification of inspection bodies as Type A, Type B or Type C is replaced by two categories, Type A and Type non-A, and the 2012 categories map into the revised classification.

ISO/IEC 17024 continues to require that the competence of everyone involved in certification is evidenced rather than assumed, that impartiality is identified and managed on an ongoing basis, and that the certification decision is never outsourced, even where assessment delivery is contracted to a third party.

ASCB accredits inspection bodies against ISO/IEC 17020 and personnel certification bodies against ISO/IEC 17024. For ASCB-accredited bodies the transition deadlines are March 27, 2029 for ISO/IEC 17020 and March 31, 2029 for ISO/IEC 17024. Until then a body that has not yet transitioned may continue to be assessed against the 2012 edition.

Full overviews of both standards are in the Resource Center Standards Library.