Part 1: Accreditation requirements for organisations undertaking management system certification as of 17 November 2015. This Standard will supersede the previous version, SFS-EN ISO/IEC 17021:2011. The transitional period will terminate on15 June  2017.

FINAS has defined the following phases for the adoption of the new standard

• As of 15 December 2015, certification bodies may request assessment based on Standard SFS-EN ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015.
• As of 15 June 2016, new applications must conform to SFS-EN ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015, and evaluations will be carried out in compliance with the requirements laid down in the new standard.
• As of 15 June 2016, new applications must conform to SFS-EN ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015, and evaluations will be carried out in compliance with the requirements laid down in the new standard.
• After 15 June 2017, all accredited organisations undertaking certification of management systems must meet the requirements laid down in Standard SFS-EN ISO/IEC 17021- 1:2015.

All accredited organisations undertaking certification of management systems must fulfil the requirements of the new standard version in such a manner that accreditation decisions based on the new version can be taken within the transitional period. This requires that evaluations conforming to the new standard are carried out by the end of December 2016 at the latest.

Further information:

Varpu Rantanen, Lead Assessor, firstname.lastname@finas.fi, tel. +358 29 5052 224