Calculating Audit Time for ISO 14001

How do you determine the number of audit days needed for an organization?

Are you on the path to becoming ISO 14001 certified?  Once you feel your organization has met the ISO 14001 Requirements, the final step is the external audit of your Environmental Management System, performed by a third party registrar, otherwise known as a Certification Body or CB.

What does ISO 14001 Registration audit cost?  ISO 14000 Registrars are usually $1500/day +/- $200 plus expenses depending on the registrar, their availability, . But how long is a certification audit?  

ISO 14001:2015 Audit time is based off of many factors including: size, complexity, risk, and nature of an organization. An ISO 17021 accredited registrar will use the guidelines set forth by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) to consider these factors and determine time required to audit clients. The table below represents one of those guidelines provided by IAF to be used for calculating audit time based on number of employees.

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Although this chart is only based off of the size of your organization, this is the largest factor, but the actual time will be adjusted by complexity, risk, and nature of the organization. Every certification body will have their own process for determining audit time, but are required to follow the IAF requirements in order to maintain accreditation.

Audit time may fluctuate between the initial, surveillance and re-certification audits. A certification body could determine after an initial audit that more or less time is required for the surveillance audit. Audit time may include remote auditing techniques such as web meetings, teleconferencing, and electronic verification of the client’s processes. This is not uncommon for certification bodies, especially for stage one audits. Learn more about audit types and how they are executed. 

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