ISO 22000 Revision 2026: What Has a Deadline and What Does Not

The ISO 22000 revision has drawn plenty of attention this year, and most of it is pointed at the wrong date. The draft is real, the committee is working, and edition 3 will replace ISO 22000:2018 in due course. What it will not do is land on an Australian food manufacturer’s desk in 2026.

The date that does matter belongs to a different document. FSSC 22000 version 7 was released on 1 May 2026, and from 1 May 2027 your next audit becomes a full upgrade audit. That is roughly eight and a half months away. Here is what the record actually shows on each, and where the work sits.

What has happened at ISO, and what has not

ISO’s own stage record for ISO/DIS 22000 is the source worth reading. It lists edition 3, 35 pages, intended to replace ISO 22000:2018. The project was approved on 9 January 2024. The committee draft went out for consultation from 15 May to 8 August 2025. On 5 March 2026 the committee draft was approved for registration as a draft international standard, and the DIS was registered the same day. The DIS ballot was initiated on 6 May 2026 with a twelve week window. Voting closed on 30 July 2026 and the committee now works through the comments.

That is the whole of it. The standard sits at stage 40.60. Stage 40.99, “DIS approved for registration as FDIS”, carries no date on the record. No FDIS exists.

One thing worth clearing up, because it gets repeated: climate change is not new in edition 3. ISO 22000:2018/Amd 1:2024 already added the climate wording to the 2018 edition, in line with the change made across the management system standards. If your system is current, you already have it.

Why publication is 2027 at the earliest

Argue this from the stage record rather than from speculation. A DIS at 40.60 with comments in hand has to be resolved, then registered as a final draft at stage 50, balloted again, then approved and published at stage 60. ISO’s record shows no date against 40.99, which is the gate immediately in front of the final draft. Each of those steps carries a ballot period measured in weeks, with editing and translation time between them.

Nothing on the record is consistent with publication during 2026, and a fair reading of the stages still to run puts publication in 2027 at the soonest. When it does publish, a transition period follows, and that clock starts at publication rather than at the draft. Put plainly: there is no ISO 22000 deadline in front of you right now.

The thing that does have a date: FSSC 22000 version 7

FSSC 22000 is where the calendar actually bites. The scheme owner’s own version 7 FAQ is unambiguous:

Version 7 of the FSSC 22000 Scheme was officially released on the 1st May 2026 and there is a 12 month implementation window… Audits against the FSSC 22000 Scheme V6 are only allowed to be delivered up to 30 April 2027. Upgrade audits against FSSC 22000 Scheme V7 shall be conducted from 1 May 2027 until 30 April 2028.

Three dates, each doing different work:

• 1 May 2026: version 7 released, and the twelve month implementation window opens.
• 30 April 2027: the last day an audit against version 6 can be delivered.
• 1 May 2027 to 30 April 2028: the window in which upgrade audits against version 7 are conducted.

The practical consequence is simple. If your certification audit falls after 30 April 2027, it is a version 7 upgrade audit. Your documented system, your prerequisite programs and your day-to-day records need to line up with version 7 requirements on the morning the auditor arrives, not shortly afterwards.

FSSC has also noted that version 7 is still being benchmarked with GFSI, so further Board of Stakeholders decisions are possible. Plan against the three dates above and keep an eye on scheme announcements rather than assuming every detail is frozen.

ISO 22000 vs FSSC 22000: why only one of them has a deadline

This distinction is doing most of the work in this article, so it is worth stating directly. ISO 22000 is a standard. It is published by ISO and revised on ISO’s timetable through a balloted consensus process, which is why no publication date is fixed until the later stages have run.

FSSC 22000 is a certification scheme that sits on top of that standard. It takes the management system requirements from ISO 22000, adds prerequisite program requirements from the relevant ISO 22002 part, and layers its own additional requirements over the top. GFSI recognition attaches to the scheme, not to the standard underneath it. Because the scheme owner controls its own version releases and audit windows, it can set hard dates, and it has.

So the document being revised right now is the one with no deadline attached, and the scheme built on top of it is the one carrying three. That is the opposite of how the past few months have generally been reported.

What changed underneath: the prerequisite programs

The quieter change is in the prerequisite program documents. The ISO 22002-X:2025 series has replaced the ISO/TS 22002-X technical specifications. Requirements common across sectors now sit in ISO 22002-100:2025, with sector specific content in the individual parts.

For a food manufacturer that means meeting both ISO 22002-100:2025 and ISO 22002-1:2025, rather than a single technical specification as before. Much of the subject matter is familiar, but it has been restructured: the common requirements in one document, the manufacturing specific requirements in another. If your prerequisite program documentation cites ISO/TS 22002-1 throughout, that is real housekeeping, and it is far more efficient to do it as part of your version 7 preparation than as a separate exercise later.

What a smaller operation should note: audit duration

One version 7 change is worth flagging for smaller sites. Organisations with fewer than 20 full time equivalent staff and a maximum of two HACCP studies can go to a minimum audit duration of 1.5 days, and that applies for all audit types and categories.

That is a wider gate than version 6, which required a “simple” process and allowed only one HACCP study. A small site running two product streams that previously sat above the minimum duration may now fall inside it. It is worth checking your full time equivalent count and how many HACCP studies your scope genuinely requires before your next audit is quoted.

What to do now

The honest answer splits two ways.

On the ISO 22000 revision: very little. Do not rewrite your system against a draft. Draft text changes between the DIS and the final draft, which is the entire point of a comment period. Record in your next management review that the revision is at draft stage and that a transition period will follow publication, then leave it alone until there is a published edition to read.

On FSSC 22000 version 7: there is work, and there is a date.

• Find out exactly when your next certification audit falls, and whether it lands before or after 30 April 2027.
• Confirm you are working to ISO 22002-100:2025 plus the sector part that applies to you, and update the references in your prerequisite program documents.
• Read the version 7 additional requirements against your current system and write the gaps down.
• Turn that gap list into a project plan with named dates and owners, and share the plan with your certification body so they can schedule the audit around your actual readiness.
• Check whether the 1.5 day minimum audit duration applies to your site.
• Run an internal audit against version 7 before your certification body does, and close out any nonconformity you find while there is still time.

Certification against a recognised food safety scheme keeps moving from a competitive advantage towards a condition of supply, particularly for suppliers to the major retailers and for anyone with export ambitions. That is the reason to be ready before the deadline rather than on it.

Speak with an experienced ISO auditor

Streamline designs, implements and audits HACCP and food safety management systems for food businesses across Australia, and can run the independent internal audit that tells you where you stand against FSSC 22000 version 7 while there is still time to act. If you are working out what HACCP certification or an FSSC upgrade means for your site, you will be dealing directly with an experienced auditor who knows what the certification body will look for.

Email hello@streamline.business or call us:

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